Why sex is not a thirty Minute Workout

Let me begin with a story, a short anecdote, if you will. The setting is a loud and noisy restaurant, in which three young people are dining. Having a nice lunch before they each go their separate ways. The first, a young man, only seventeen years of age, with very long hair, wearing his trademark green sweatshirt, sits with a sandwich and salad in front of him, eating slowly as they have their conversation.
The second patron, a young girl, only a few months older, with her long brown hair and red highlights sits, idle poking her pasta with a fork. She wears a somewhat revealing shirt, and is attracting stares from someone she has dubbed as “cute in his own way” over at another table. Of course, he is dining with a young woman, presumably his girlfriend, at this nice establishment.
The third party member, another young woman sits quietly listening to the conversation that has begun to turn into a friendly banter of insults. She is generally quiet, so she doesn’t join in on the friendly teasing. Now for the good part.
The young girl, let us call her Maria (I feel that to protect Identities we will change my friends names, with the exception of my own), begins in her chide remark of how the young man (yours truly) is only acting that way because he is bitter and lonely.
“Only because I don’t go after girls like you who refuse to keep their legs closed for more than one day.”
“So you are calling me a slut? That’s quite a laugh coming from you, with all the people you’ve known in your life time.”
“Having had numerous girlfriends does not mean that I have bedded many of them, in fact quite the opposite. There is no excuse for the things you do, Maria.”
“Yes there is, I have a very good excuse, It is part of my exercise regiment.”
Somewhat startled, our third girl, we can call her April, looks up, “Your what?”
“My exercise regiment. I have to work out to keep this shapely figure, and that helps me do it.”
A brief interjection, my good friend does have a very attractive figure, and is not telling an untruth in that regard. She is very attractive, and if it weren’t for certain aspects of her personality, which I am sure we have already discovered, I would chase after her. Likely in vain, but I would attempt.
Time of course, for my cynical personality to ask about this one, “Okay, you might want to explain that one to me. I’m afraid that I don’t see how you can call that a workout.”
Maria, always in good mental form, responds rather quickly, “Look, it makes a lot of sense when you sit down and think about it. All that heaving, sweating, panting, and movement makes you work out calories and fat. Its also a good way to have fun while doing it. Especially if you are on top, because then you have to do even more work.”
Rather than question the potential weight loss factors of certain bending positions, I went with the question that was both more polite for the meal table, and frankly, would produce less mental images. “How have you figured out that taking thirty minutes to heave over someone, fun as it may be, constitutes the equivalent of being at Bally’s for a half hour?”
She let out a short laugh, “Well, after both I’m tired, want to lay down and get a massage,”
I had to interrupt, “But I thought your back just got rubbed. Vigorously I might add.”
She was classy enough to over look my joke, though I thought it was funny. And the snort that April let out seemed to concur my personal opinion.
“And I want nothing more than to get in my bathroom and take a nice warm shower, to get cleaned up.”
“Alone or with someone else?’
“Well there wouldn’t be much point in trying to get clean with someone else in there, now would there?”
I never did ask her to explain if that meant she wanted it alone or not. I know my own personal feelings however, and the lyrics “One is the loneliest number” should explain rather well.
The rest of the conversation stayed on the topic of sex, though nothing as interesting. Various tidbits of gossip about our friends, and their promiscuity, both with significant others, and some people who weren’t. I don’t know if its just me, but I love gossip with a passion, it gives me so much to write about. For another time however.
However, that excuse made me begin to think as I came home from lunch that day. I had intended to continue what I had been doing that morning and look for a second job, but I was tired, and sated from my meal. So I drove back to my humble abode, and sat on my bed thinking about the conversation.
The parts that were temporarily at the forefront were the bits of gossip about who’s screwing who in our circle of acquaintances, and how the hell would they get away with it, and how drunk did they have to be to go to bed with so and so. But then I began to wonder why? Why were they doing these things, so blatantly, without the discression that people had long ago.
The answer came to me in one thought, and the more I think about it, the more right I seem. People these days lack any sense of shame about sex. It is amazing to me that in such a short time span things can change so drastically.
Fifty years ago, things like men cheating on wives and lovers with the girl down the street who could be affectionately called a carousel (going round and round and round) were thought of as taboo, and wrong, and should therefore be kept quiet. You didn’t brag about cheating on your spouse, it wasn’t right.
So what happened in that fifty years that suddenly made it not only acceptable, but cool to go out and be sexual overactive? Peoples lack of shame, and that was lost when we had the hippies.
Now don’t get me wrong, hippies were an important thing in American society. They were a way for many to reach out and finally learn to voice their opinions at a young age, to learn about harmony and kinship in ways many Americans hadn’t before. But they should have only influenced life, not have survived it. Their self-destructive worlds of harmony, but not working should have had them die out. But they lived on long enough to take away the sense of shame that we have as a people.
Its often times now that things like video games, or television, or eve music is blamed for stripping us of our morals, and virtues. I for one believe this to be untrue. I find it rare that these things ever delve into things that we as a people don’t already discuss often in our own circles or groups, i.e. a bunch of people sitting at a lunch table discussing sex is now common place on TV, because of people like myself and my friends who made it so.
And we must not limit this to sex, though that is the taboo gone mainstream as of late. It has become an activity to discuss all things once socially inappropriate. From such horrendous topics as body odor, to the little old lady gasps that would arise from a discussion about flatulence, to the ever persistent conversations about the topic of fecal matter. To call someone a “shit head” or a “cheap whore” is now no more than friendly banter.
There was once a time in our history when we used our wit to find ways of calling someone a prostitute through our grace and charm, not simply outright insults. Mr. Grant used to excel at his comedic timing by making such comments. Using the wit of the writer and his own personal suave charm to make such insults humorous and subtle. Now we simply throw away our pride and shame, so that we can outright say “you cheap whore.”
There is of course, a repetition in our history, the time when such language and conversations were reserved for the drunken sailors on shore leave. And all people felt a good amount of personal shame about their elicit actions, at least enough to keep them from becoming dinnertime, or lunch hour as case may be, conversation. This day will return, if history continues its pattern of shame and lack thereof.
For example, the Old Norse sailors of the era of Beowulf were notorious for their public sexual acts as they gathered around mead halls. The kings and warriors were thrown naked women, who would gladly be with these men that were respected by others. This period was dominated by sex, dirty stories and jokes, and outright barbarism.
Yet that era was dominated by a feudal system that descended from Romans and incorporated the conservative styles of the Christian church that told of sex as taboo. It became only common amongst the peasants. And the idea of a noble running around and having sex was something that most in the court didn’t outright discuss.
Then we became the gluttonous hedonists of the bohemian styles where getting someone to have sex with was all anyone seemed to care about. It was no longer a thing of the peasants, but now it was everyone’s cup of tea.
History continues this loop on through the ages. And while sex and promiscuity have never gone out of style, (for what is the world’s oldest profession) it has been often considered a taboo topic. Now however we are reaching yet another era where we will be shameless and debouch all the conservatives we can. We will forge a world of hedonism for all.
And in time, that will become a thing of the past, and the world will become highly conservative again. And we will frown on outright sexual discussions and publicized promiscuity. And telling dirty jokes will go underground again, as it has in the past. We will regain our sense of shame, and not talk about sex openly anymore. And in such actions, all the fun will be taken out of lunch time discussions.

Oh and an interesting postscript to this essay: scientists have determined that sex, on average, barring any sort of unusual activity or strain, only burns enough calories to go up two flights of stairs. You don’t even go back down them again. So go to the gym to work out. Not the bedroom.