My mind often wanders during sex, especially sex with someone I don’t know well and am not all that emotionally intimate with. Usually it wanders to predictable places – do I look okay? am I making the right amount of sounds? are they having fun? – but sometimes it wanders to art instead.
I’m using the word “art” in the broadest sense here, one that includes writing and music alongside visual art. It’s a big, big part of my life, and consumes a lot of my waking hours – either actually making the art or just thinking about making it, which is part of the creation process too. Especially when I’m knee-deep in a particular project, I often walk around in a sort of haze, taking in what’s happening around me but secretly stewing on whatever artistic problem has been needling me. What’s the right line for the end of the second verse of that one song I’m writing? What’s the right angle (so to speak) for the dildo review on my docket? What strange thoughts of mine can spiral into a newsletter? (Hello, I love you, thank you for reading.)
Making art is arguably one of the most erotic things I ever do, depending on how you define “erotic.” Some people say that eroticism is about pleasures of the body, whether those pleasures be having great sex, eating a big slice of cake or wading into the ocean. (Or perhaps all three at once, if you’re lucky.) But I also think there can be something genuinely erotic about the spark of joy and recognition I feel when a piece clicks into place within something I’m working on: the perfect metaphor, the perfect rhyme. It’s a visceral “aha!” moment that feels as intense, as rapturous and exciting, as when a partner stumbles across exactly the right spot on my body and touches me there in exactly the way I need.
I think one of the reasons these moments feel so powerful for me is that they give me a sudden, intense boost of self-esteem. I mean that in the literal sense: esteem for myself, respect for myself. An entire day of moping around, staring at a blank screen and feeling like a washed-up hack can be counteracted in one singular moment, when I have a sudden idea that even I have to admit is brilliant. It helps me remember why I make art in the first place (aside from the obvious: money, survival), and that I am indeed talented enough to “deserve” the money and survival that art-making affords me. (I’ve put “deserve” in quotes because capitalism is fake and everyone deserves to survive, regardless of the work they do or don’t do. Deservingness is a feeling, not a fact.)
So when someone is spanking me, or going down on me, or fucking me, sometimes I get these random ideas for articles or essays or songs – and while they certainly distract me at times, there are other times when they just add to my pleasure, because they make me feel so suddenly excited about life and good about myself. Being viscerally desired by a sexual partner is a mood-booster and so is re-realizing how smart and inventive I can be. It’s all pleasure, baby.
Many writers, musicians and other artists have described the phenomenon of inspiration striking while they were doing something completely mundane: showering, taking a walk, washing the dishes. Some science has indicated that this happens because these activities relax the mind and put it into a more receptive and creative state. I don’t know enough about the neuroscience to confirm or deny that, but I know that many of my best creative ideas come to me while I’m walking, taking public transit, or cleaning my room. What these activities have in common is that they involve some degree of movement or bodily engagement but aren’t mentally taxing at all, so my mind sort of does its own thing, wandering here and there, because it can. And sometimes a “eureka!” moment arises from those mental explorations. Either my brain will chip away at a creative problem I’ve been pondering, or it’ll invent something totally new, and I’ll have to whip out my phone and make a quick note or recording before I forget it.
So it makes sense to me that I often notice this happening during sex, too. During sex I’m usually focused on my body – or, in some of the best sex, I’m not really focused on anything at all and am just feeling. Sometimes that makes my mind go totally blank, but more often, it makes my mind feel fuzzy and there may be artistic ideas simmering on the backburner somewhere in there. In fact, I’ve often had great ideas for this very newsletter bubble up while I’m having sex – which is apt, given that it’s a newsletter focused on sex.
I almost never pause the action to make a note of these ideas during sex, because I worry that it would seem insulting – like I was so bored by the sex that I had to think about other stuff. And sure, sometimes that’s why it happens, especially with casual partners with whom I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable saying, "Hey, this isn't doing much for me; can we try something else?"
But more often, I think it’s actually a compliment to whoever I’m having sex with – because this phenomenon happens most readily when the sex is so good that it simultaneously pulls me into my body and relaxes my mind. Good sex sort of sharpens my brain into a radio antenna that’s mostly just tuned to pleasure, but that occasionally picks up an errant signal of something else.
Some people take LSD to tune into the “creative superconscious,” some push their bodies to athletic extremes, some meditate, some pray, some play scales on the piano until their brain turns to receptive mush. Me? I like to have sex.