https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/opinion/sex-relationships-covid.html The Joys of Frivolous Sex The pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism. By Megan Nolan Ms. Nolan is a writer and critic. She is a columnist for New Statesman, where she writes about culture and politics, and the author of the forthcoming novel “Acts of Desperation.” LONDON — In early lockdown, I spent most evenings in the front room of my mother’s house, drunk, staring at a computer, reeling at the prospect of my body being deprived indefinitely of touch. In those days, there was a sense that all the things that make up life really might be permanently destroyed. My father, who is a playwright, speculated with sanguine acceptance that he might never see or work on another theater production. Leaving Ireland, where I grew up and where my parents live, seemed like a remote possibility, even just to return to Britain, where I am a resident. Only weeks earlier,I was in New York for an extended visit, recently single and pleasantly crazy with the desire to date far and wide. My romantic and sexual value seemed higher then and there than it had ever been anywhere else. I thought it would suffer by comparison to all the extra special and extra beautiful people, but it turned out that mildly manic exuberance and a complete lack of interest in anything resembling commitment made up for my physical shortcomings, and I imagine my Irish accent didn’t hurt either. I felt almost nauseated by the overwhelming knowledge of how many attractive people were out there. Even when my dates were with guys I would never see again, I usually found something in them or the evening that I would remember happily, like the one who looked fondly down at me in a hotel room and inexplicably exclaimed, “I love New York!” at the sight of my body. And then in March came the shutdown. Because there was no way to tell if my newfound isolation was going to last five weeks or five years, I was urgently trying to recast the concept of pleasure as something that could occur without other people. I failed completely, and was even somewhat glad of this failure, the better to confirm my long-held conviction that the point of life is simply to be with other people as abundantly as possible. I made the mistake in this period of suggesting in a Facebook post that single people, especially those living alone, could not be expected to go an unlimited amount of time without socializing or close contact. Some people reacted to this as though I had proposed an orgy on every street corner, pandemic be damned, but that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was that human beings can’t be expected to endure the sudden and total loss of social comfort. For some people, that social comfort comes from dating or from having sex with strangers. In Holland, officials advised coming to an arrangement with a sex buddy.Denmark’s health chief said: “Sex is good, sex is healthy. As with any other human contact, there is a risk of infection. But of course one must be able to have sex.” Whether you agree or disagree, at least these countries were capable of addressing what was a serious concern for many of their citizens. But these countries seem to be exceptional. Mostly, the government here in Britain — as in many other places — pretended that sex doesn’t take place except between cohabiting couples. When public health advocates have brought themselves to allude to the existence of sex, the advice is usually unrealistic and inadequate, instructing couples who don’t live together to meet up outside and not touch. News releases from sex toy companies began filling my email inbox, advertising remote-controlled vibrators, as though the loss of physical connection was purely about missing an orgasm. There has been no serious effort to confront the particular challenges of what it is to be single — to be alone — in 2020. There have been no major harm-reduction initiatives, just the deluded implication that all of us who failed to partner up by March 2020 should live without meaningful connection until there is a vaccine. The coronavirus pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism in some people, who luxuriate in the ability to police the way others live. One doesn’t even need to actually break a rule to earn their disgust, only to express dismay over things they consider unimportant or, worse, hedonistic. To even complain about what it feels like to live alone and not be able to date right now is regarded as unseemly, dismissed as trivial. After all, some haven’t been able to visit vulnerable elderly relatives all year. Couples have it hard too, with many working from home in cramped quarters — not to mention those living with small children. The complaints of a single person don’t begrudge or contradict the pain of the harangued parent or the anguished daughter missing her sick father. Our struggles are not undermined if society also concedes that there are people who once got substantial meaning from interacting in ways that are now impossible — through dating or casual sex. We are also going through something painful, without even the socially approved validity of the nuclear unit to back us up. Most of society does not really believe that casual, nonmonogamous encounters can actually hold meaning, rather than simply serve as crude ways to blow off steam. I know that they can. Living as a purposefully single and promiscuous person was one way to know others, one way to find joy in the world, and it’s gone for now. Single people have lost something important, and should be allowed to bemoan it. I don’t have to want children to sympathize with families; you don’t have to share my priority to accept its validity in my life. There are not a finite number of ways to have felt pain this year. A friend asked me a few months ago whether I didn’t perhaps regret having ended a long-term relationship in early 2020, at such a particularly bad time in history to choose to be alone. I won’t pretend it didn’t cross my mind that life would have most likely been far more pleasant if I had been with my ex during the worst of lockdown. Not only would it have been good to have company in general, but I also missed him, specifically. I loved him; I still love him, which does not mean that it made me happy to be in our relationship. I left because I identified that my desires and needs were not being best served by monogamy. This would have been impossible in my earlier life, when I was crippled by need, leaking out of me onto every passing man who looked like he could fill a boyfriend-shaped gap in my life. Back then, I could no more have turned down the offer of companionship and love than I could water and air. Now, I need differently. I need very little from individuals, but I am greedy for the world. And why not? Why shouldn’t I be? It’s a reasonable and good-natured greed, one fueled not by desperation but by a tremendous love of the world and the people in it. How could I be ashamed of that? That this impulse was thwarted in 2020 does not make it a malign one. Some single people are not living in constant wait for the relief of a marriage to put them out of their misery. The restrictions of this year happened to suit couples and families best, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us were getting life wrong. As we move into 2021, I know now more than ever that I was right to do what was best for me. I won’t be pretending that I want things that I don’t for the sake of temporary comfort. I’ll be waiting until the life I do want — trashy, frivolous and shallow as it might seem to some — is possible again.
谢谢分享。当作者提到她的ex: " I loved him; I still love him, which does not mean that it made me happy to be in our relationship." 我能理解。我对我的前夫也是处于这种状态。这爱并不阻碍或影响我爱现任的先生。这就是我指我对人的爱有始无终的其中一个层面。
我想我能理解 @ChristianW 這句話：「突然觉得。。。果然自己的幸福都是建立在别人的痛苦上的」 我是這樣「对号入座」來理解：我前夫的幸福是建立在我的痛苦上。 可能换我前夫的观点看，他也会同等认为：我的幸福是建立在他的痛苦上。 错配的情况就是这样，各自的软弱打中了对方的要害。 我和我先生的搭配就相反的一对 「臭味相投」，他说得比较正面：“We are good for each other. We are compatible (我们互相兼容)” 在过去一年的疫情隔离生活中，我先生体验出，在他所有认识的人当中，我是最容易同居相处的人。 我想到常听上一辈的人说：「相处好，同住难。」實在，容易同住和相处的人，难得。
The Joys of Frivolous Sex The pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism.
By Megan Nolan Ms. Nolan is a writer and critic. She is a columnist for New Statesman, where she writes about culture and politics, and the author of the forthcoming novel “Acts of Desperation.”
LONDON — In early lockdown, I spent most evenings in the front room of my mother’s house, drunk, staring at a computer, reeling at the prospect of my body being deprived indefinitely of touch. In those days, there was a sense that all the things that make up life really might be permanently destroyed. My father, who is a playwright, speculated with sanguine acceptance that he might never see or work on another theater production. Leaving Ireland, where I grew up and where my parents live, seemed like a remote possibility, even just to return to Britain, where I am a resident.
Only weeks earlier, I was in New York for an extended visit, recently single and pleasantly crazy with the desire to date far and wide. My romantic and sexual value seemed higher then and there than it had ever been anywhere else. I thought it would suffer by comparison to all the extra special and extra beautiful people, but it turned out that mildly manic exuberance and a complete lack of interest in anything resembling commitment made up for my physical shortcomings, and I imagine my Irish accent didn’t hurt either.
I felt almost nauseated by the overwhelming knowledge of how many attractive people were out there. Even when my dates were with guys I would never see again, I usually found something in them or the evening that I would remember happily, like the one who looked fondly down at me in a hotel room and inexplicably exclaimed, “I love New York!” at the sight of my body.
And then in March came the shutdown. Because there was no way to tell if my newfound isolation was going to last five weeks or five years, I was urgently trying to recast the concept of pleasure as something that could occur without other people. I failed completely, and was even somewhat glad of this failure, the better to confirm my long-held conviction that the point of life is simply to be with other people as abundantly as possible.
I made the mistake in this period of suggesting in a Facebook post that single people, especially those living alone, could not be expected to go an unlimited amount of time without socializing or close contact. Some people reacted to this as though I had proposed an orgy on every street corner, pandemic be damned, but that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was that human beings can’t be expected to endure the sudden and total loss of social comfort. For some people, that social comfort comes from dating or from having sex with strangers.
In Holland, officials advised coming to an arrangement with a sex buddy. Denmark’s health chief said: “Sex is good, sex is healthy. As with any other human contact, there is a risk of infection. But of course one must be able to have sex.” Whether you agree or disagree, at least these countries were capable of addressing what was a serious concern for many of their citizens.
But these countries seem to be exceptional. Mostly, the government here in Britain — as in many other places — pretended that sex doesn’t take place except between cohabiting couples. When public health advocates have brought themselves to allude to the existence of sex, the advice is usually unrealistic and inadequate, instructing couples who don’t live together to meet up outside and not touch. News releases from sex toy companies began filling my email inbox, advertising remote-controlled vibrators, as though the loss of physical connection was purely about missing an orgasm.
There has been no serious effort to confront the particular challenges of what it is to be single — to be alone — in 2020. There have been no major harm-reduction initiatives, just the deluded implication that all of us who failed to partner up by March 2020 should live without meaningful connection until there is a vaccine.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism in some people, who luxuriate in the ability to police the way others live. One doesn’t even need to actually break a rule to earn their disgust, only to express dismay over things they consider unimportant or, worse, hedonistic. To even complain about what it feels like to live alone and not be able to date right now is regarded as unseemly, dismissed as trivial. After all, some haven’t been able to visit vulnerable elderly relatives all year. Couples have it hard too, with many working from home in cramped quarters — not to mention those living with small children.
The complaints of a single person don’t begrudge or contradict the pain of the harangued parent or the anguished daughter missing her sick father. Our struggles are not undermined if society also concedes that there are people who once got substantial meaning from interacting in ways that are now impossible — through dating or casual sex. We are also going through something painful, without even the socially approved validity of the nuclear unit to back us up.
Most of society does not really believe that casual, nonmonogamous encounters can actually hold meaning, rather than simply serve as crude ways to blow off steam. I know that they can. Living as a purposefully single and promiscuous person was one way to know others, one way to find joy in the world, and it’s gone for now. Single people have lost something important, and should be allowed to bemoan it. I don’t have to want children to sympathize with families; you don’t have to share my priority to accept its validity in my life. There are not a finite number of ways to have felt pain this year.
A friend asked me a few months ago whether I didn’t perhaps regret having ended a long-term relationship in early 2020, at such a particularly bad time in history to choose to be alone. I won’t pretend it didn’t cross my mind that life would have most likely been far more pleasant if I had been with my ex during the worst of lockdown. Not only would it have been good to have company in general, but I also missed him, specifically. I loved him; I still love him, which does not mean that it made me happy to be in our relationship.
I left because I identified that my desires and needs were not being best served by monogamy. This would have been impossible in my earlier life, when I was crippled by need, leaking out of me onto every passing man who looked like he could fill a boyfriend-shaped gap in my life. Back then, I could no more have turned down the offer of companionship and love than I could water and air.
Now, I need differently. I need very little from individuals, but I am greedy for the world. And why not? Why shouldn’t I be? It’s a reasonable and good-natured greed, one fueled not by desperation but by a tremendous love of the world and the people in it. How could I be ashamed of that? That this impulse was thwarted in 2020 does not make it a malign one.
Some single people are not living in constant wait for the relief of a marriage to put them out of their misery. The restrictions of this year happened to suit couples and families best, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us were getting life wrong.
As we move into 2021, I know now more than ever that I was right to do what was best for me. I won’t be pretending that I want things that I don’t for the sake of temporary comfort. I’ll be waiting until the life I do want — trashy, frivolous and shallow as it might seem to some — is possible again.
我能理解。我对我的前夫也是处于这种状态。这爱并不阻碍或影响我爱现任的先生。这就是我指我对人的爱有始无终的其中一个层面。
大多数社会并不真正相信，随意的、非一种偶然的性实际上可以抱有意义，而不只是作为发泄的粗野方式。我知道他们可以作为一个有目的的单身和乱交的人生活是了解他人的一种方式，是在世界上寻找快乐的一种方式，而现在因疫情已经消失。单身的人失去了一些重要的东西，应该允许哀叹。我不想要孩子和家庭;不想这些来分享我的优先事项， 接受它在我的生活中的有效性。今年可以感到疼痛的方式无法算计。
几个月前，一位朋友问我，在2020年初结束一段长期关系时，我是否后悔。我不会假装没有越过我的脑海， 如果我在最糟糕的封锁期间和我的前任在一起， 生活很可能更愉快。不仅有伴儿是好事，而且我特别想念他。我爱他;我仍然爱他，这并不意味着在我们的关系中我高兴。
我离开是因为我确定我的愿望和需求不是一夫一妻制所带来的满足。这在我早期的生活是不可能的，当我自己是破碎的时候，会留住每一个路过的，这些看起来可以填补我生活中一个男朋友形的空缺的男人。当时，我无法拒绝陪伴和爱，就像无法拒绝水和空气。
现在，我需要不同的。我需要很少的个体所带来的的东西，我贪婪的是整个世界。为什么不呢？为什么我不能呢？这是一种合理和善良的贪婪，一种不是由绝望，而是由对这个世界和其中人民的巨大热爱所助长的。我怎么会为此感到羞愧呢？这种冲动在2020年被挫败，这并不能使它成为恶意之行为。
一些单身的人不是生活在不断等待婚姻的救济，使他们摆脱痛苦。今年的限制虽然最适合夫妻和家庭，但这并不意味着我们其他人的生活错了。
当我们进入2021年，我会比以往更了解，我做的选择是正确的。我不会假装我想要的东西， 我不要暂时的安慰。我会等到我想要的生活 — — 看似垃圾、轻浮和肤浅， 就像有些人看起来一样 — — 最后又有可能了。
怎么说？
我想我能理解 @ChristianW 這句話：「突然觉得。。。果然自己的幸福都是建立在别人的痛苦上的」 我是這樣「对号入座」來理解：我前夫的幸福是建立在我的痛苦上。 可能换我前夫的观点看，他也会同等认为：我的幸福是建立在他的痛苦上。 错配的情况就是这样，各自的软弱打中了对方的要害。
我和我先生的搭配就相反的一对 「臭味相投」，他说得比较正面：“We are good for each other. We are compatible (我们互相兼容)” 在过去一年的疫情隔离生活中，我先生体验出，在他所有认识的人当中，我是最容易同居相处的人。 我想到常听上一辈的人说：「相处好，同住难。」實在，容易同住和相处的人，难得。