RE: Brighter Than A Buoy - “A Couple Things I Forgot to Mention About Sex…”
Was just conversing with someone the other day about Carsie’s blog, which I had never read until this morning, when I decided I should go check out what all the hype was about. There are some fairly interesting (fairly fervent) posts on the topic of sex, one of which I just replied to, regarding the notion that sex is not a “big fucking deal”—and furthermore, that making it so, more often than not, causes some serious problems. That post can be found here.
I responded (which I never do anymore!), and thought you all might enjoy my musings, so here it is:
I love that you’ve acknowledged that there is no “normal”—and should everyone else follow suit in that empathy, I think we’d be much better off.
I disagree that sex is not a BFD *all the time*. Sometimes it’s not, often it can be. But making it a big deal doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be a real thing, or a thing that makes things seem real, or a glue that holds shabbily constructed relationships together. It’s powerful in that way. It’s not criminal; no. But it can have weight, if you let it. If you trust it to not go all cockamamy-bullshit-style panic attack.
I found it funny that you should remove both music and sex from the BFD category. I consider making music and making whoopie in the same category for the same reason: because I want the things I release from my body to mean something. I value strong relationships over strong faith or great knowledge or almost anything else, except perhaps expression. And you *do* acknowledge that sex is expression… but not that there is an end game to that expression, and that resultant product can mean something.
When songwriting, that product is a song. It stands for you; Backbone stands for you, as does any and all things you create. The process you took to get to the product isn’t always evident to the viewer (read: your audience/fans), so I’m guessing you don’t factor it into “what makes my music, my music.”
When fucking, that product could be a baby, a shared STD, an orgasm, or any host of other goodies. They stand for you, too. The little high you give someone, for example, can be your stamp. But the process (in this case, “the act”) stands for you too. The turn-ons and -offs, the pace of your breathing, the moans, groans, and fluid loans are all you, too. You are making an impression. You are still an artist, and you are branding yourself.
People like me want to know what people stand for. So for artists, I read their blogs, look at their promo photos, I listen to their lyrics, see the way they talk to their fans. For others, I watch the way they deal with waitstaff, or talk to telemarketers, or to their grandmother. Then I see them in mood-lit bedrooms or lamplit alleyways and I see how they deal with light and dark and skin and clothes and hair. I see if they give or take or both (or neither!), and when they pull away. Sometimes (often) people are too closed down to see any of that, and then it’s just the equivalent of a T-Pain song—an auto-tuned replica of what came before it. But imo, if you’re lucky, BFD or no BFD, something is being created, expressed, stamped, solidified, left. You’re leaving something behind.
