Thursday, July 16th, 2009...12:15 pm

The Philosophy Of Casual Sex

I have routinely wondered how famous philosophers would justify random sex.

Aristotle would have had a post-coital cigarette and a chat about how one must experience, not reason, the art of fucking everything that moves.

I imagine that Rene Descartes was thinking of ‘Blow’ ‘Come’ and ‘Doggy-Style’ until someone whispered in his ear about reaching a winder audience so he settled on “I Think Therefore I Am”.

And Freud just slept with a relative.

 

Every week I meet with my seventy-year-old philosophy professor to talk about some of the greatest thinkers who have graced this fair planet. I often arrive in pyjamas, with a hangover and sometimes sporting a post-coital smile, as I have my own routine to open up my mind. My Oxford educated professor has taught and inspired some of the greatest brains my country has to offer. But, meanwhile, I spend my days applying John Stuart Mill’s work On Liberty to One Night Stands and if wasn’t for his wise and wonderful words of Free Will, I would feel increasing pressure to justify my decisions when sitting across from a certified genius. 

 

I fell in love with philosophy because the world of psychology only offered medication to cure my anxiety and confusion about the life in which I live. Crippling thoughts about Who I am, What I Do and Why I Do It were never going to be solved in reality by way of Xanax. And as much as I would love to start stories with, “My therapist says…”, I decided that developing my own thoughts rather than regurgitation would be far more satisfying come moments when actually called on to regale why I believe something.

Someone once told me, “You think too much.”

“No, no,” I responded. “You think too little.”

Then I lit a post coital cigarette and reflected upon the experience I had just had, reasoning that now I could at least claim to have experienced some form of Middle American culture.

 

Everybody happily accepts an invitation to some casual television watching. Most people would go along to a casual drink. But the moment the term ‘casual’ (or ‘random’, ‘drunken’, ‘I can’t remember what the fuck happened’) prefaces the word ‘sex’, judgement immediately starts.

“Why don’t you have some self respect?” People enquire.

“Develop some pride,” others scoff.

“Get a boyfriend,” my mother offers.

I have worn all of these judgements (and many more) when faced with people who have not applied the right of liberty to all areas of their life. 

“You mean to tell me that you think freedom is only applied to politics?” I questioned Boy Who Knows Who He Is who adamantly believed girls do not have equal rights to boys in the bedroom. Or kitchen. Or hallway staircase.

 

Intellectual snobbery has allowed people to feel justified in passing misogynistic judgement, believing that their opinion qualifies them as more evolved than the person who has sex for fun. This backwards acceptance of virtues has often made me wonder if the endorphins released through orgasming actually make people less critical, which would in tern give credit to psychology and not philosophy. When I discovered that Who I Am is someone who enjoys sex and the freedom of single life, I knew that my subsequent choices would need explanations for people who had not bothered to think outside their own reality. Bothering to actually invest thought into something is a fascinating experiment. It somewhat bothers me to guesstimate that I have had more orgasms than independent ideas in my life.

 

Sex and thinking are two of the most natural things a person can do. However, lazy thinking appears to be forgiven on a much regular basis than any supposed crime to do with sex.

“I will always celebrate someone’s right to have nightly threesomes with midgets,” I told Boy Who Knows Who He Is. “But I can’t get very excited for the person who doesn’t acknowledge why they are making such decisions.”

 

Plato envisioned a world where great thinkers would be the voices listened to with authority. Unfortunately, the eminent idea has never been forced in reality and, subsequently, we get too caught up with what is popular, not what is right.

“What have you come up with this week?” my professor asked, bracing himself for what new argument I had developed in the six day’s worth of alcohol.

“I want the people who celebrate sex to be listened to and respected.”

He sat back in his chair and thought for a moment.

“Wouldn’t the world be a different place? Many of the philosophers were gay.”