I was reading a novel the other day and, for the most part, it was a very good novel (as modern fiction goes) except for two scenes of gratuitous sex. By gratuitous I mean that both incidents occured in the narrative rather like a traffic accident. They appeared out of nowhere and left you rather stunned and surprised to continue on with the narrative. There was no plot thread leading you to believe these incidents were going to happen…they just appeared, and then disappeared.

 

It occured to me that perhaps this is the nature of sex in many people’s lives. Perhaps this is it’s nature in the author’s life…maybe it appears in his life like a traffic accident with no marital plotline to carry it along. There is no foreshadowing of it’s occurance. It is opportunistic and invades the story of a person’s life like a cold virus…suddenly and without warning leaving when least expected. After some time to gain one’s bearings the person’s story continues until the next surprise visit.

 

If marriage is the plot within which sexual intimacy is woven then when sex is encountered it makes sense. It doesn’t come as a surprise or a shock and it doesn’t leave one disheveled and disoriented in need of recuperation and with a sense of having lost what one never had. As annoying as the incidents were in the novel maybe they are realistic portrayals of sex in the world today…a world which seems to have little time for the epic narrative of marriage prefering the short, free verse poems of hit-and-run romances that are never long enough to offer significant value.

 

I have to think about this more.