Can sex give relief from existential angst? Sartre thinks so, albeit only briefly:
“After all, you have to kill time. They are young and well built, they have another thirty years in front of them. So they don’t hurry, they take their time, and they are quite right. Once they’ve been to bed together, they will have to find something else to conceal the enormous absurdity of their existence.”
Porn can also be distracting:
“I started looking through the books on display in the second-hand boxes, and especially the obscene ones, because, in spite of everything, that occupies your mind.”
Is this why sex (including masturbation) lends itself to habitual, or “addictive”, practices; Like a drug, offering escape from thought, consciousness, anxiety?
Is this why sex jargon refers to a man having sex as being like an “animal”, or a “machine”? As if functioning without conscious thought?
What is a lifetime spent sucking cock at gloryholes, cruising, jerking-off over porn, hooking up, giving and taking loads at sex clubs and parties? Is it an attempt to live without thinking? And is there anything wrong with that?
Heavy! And on the subject, here’s an old drawing I did when I was an angsty 19 year old – before reading Sartre. I rediscovered it just now, and it fits perfectly with this theme.
