Hello readers and welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful, sexy Spring Break, and that the suggestions from last week’s blog helped you to make it one to remember!
I spent my Spring Break visiting a friend in Scotland! While there, one thing I noticed in talking to her friends about the differences between living in Europe versus the U.S. is the perception of sex. In Scotland, Britain, and all over Europe from what I gather, sex is viewed much more casually, and they also have a contrasting view of the relationship between sex and love.
One guy I talked to said that, in Scotland, you have sex with somebody and then decide whether you want to date or not. (Although that sounds quite shallow, I guarantee you it was not meant that way and did not sound so when he said it.)
Dating without sex does not happen as often there like it does here; I have several friends here at St. Olaf that are waiting for marriage or at least for a very serious, committed relationship before they have sex. It seems like in Europe there isn’t such a close relationship between sex and love- you can love someone you are having sex with, but it is also completely normal to sleep with someone with whom you are uninterested in having a relationship.
This seems so different from how sex and relationships are viewed here. In the USA there is such a heavy focus on sex being with someone you love, someone who is very special, someone who you are married to or will marry. I think this is completely valid; when I lost my virginity it was to someone who I loved very much and had been with for a long time. But I also wonder if perhaps we put sex on too high of a pedestal and focus on it too much as something special and extraordinary, not as necessary to a healthy relationship, but as a bonus. We tend to build relationships then add in sex, rather than build a relationship that includes a healthy sex life from the start.
If you cannot tell based on my wishy-washiness thus far in this post, I am on the fence about what I think about how casual or serious sex should be. A part of me is stuck in the “American” school of thought that sex is special and should mean something special with each person you share it with, but another part of me really thinks that sex is a fun, healthy pastime (so long as you are being safe), and that it should not matter in the slightest how many people you have been with or if you care about or love them.
I am curious to know what you, my readers, think about this conundrum. Leave me some feedback in the “Add a New Comment” section below, and let me know if you are more ‘American’ or ‘European,’ and why you think the way you do about sex.
Stay sexy St. Olaf,
H.