Jenny Block makes getting your freak on a political statement
The time to have more sex is now. The time to relish, to pleasure seek, to kiss and hug and hold hands and dance slow and fuck hard is now. Right now. Things are scary out there. They’re precarious and dangerous and hateful and unpredictable and we have to balance the scales with some serious good and not add to the incredibly bad.
At first — right after the election, I mean — the state of the world left me not only not wanting to indulge in pleasure, but also feeling as if it wasn’t OK, that maybe it was even downright wrong, to enjoy anything … as if relishing anything implied somehow that everything was normal, or that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Feeling good was somehow bad karma. If I was happy, then the world would lash out and remind me to be sad.
But that crazy and fatalistic view is exactly what the bad guys want: to get us to stop living our lives and start living by their lies. That’s the definition of terrorism — using intimidation and violence against the public to forward political aims. They want us still and afraid and suffering so that we see no choice but to follow their nefarious lead. The hate. The violence. The lies. Every inch of what the current administration is up to is about making us afraid to live our lives.
Well, fuck that.
One of the most powerful ways to protest the hate and the lies is to live the love and the truth.
So I’ve gotten over my initial reaction to the election of Forty-Five and have decided instead to do exactly what the powers that be don’t want me to do. I’m seeking pleasure. Sexual and otherwise. I’m considering hedonism my spirit guide. I’m eating chocolate. I’m laughing at bad jokes. I’m sitting in the sun. I’m masturbating. I’m sinking my toes in the sand. I’m letting the sun sink into my skin. But most importantly, I’m loving my fiancé Robin. I’m kissing her every chance I get. I’m holding her hand in public. I’m having sex with her and enjoying it more than ever, because I know it’s exactly what Forty-Five and his minions don’t want me to do. I’m reminding myself every moment I get that pleasure and my pursuit of it is my right and my responsibility.
It’s my right to live my life and it’s my responsibility to put on my oxygen mask first before helping others. Pleasure is self-care. The world needs saving right now. But the only way we’re going to be able to do it is if we save ourselves first. They want to break us down, make us feel guilty for being for we are and for loving who and what we love. They want us desperate. But pleasure feeds us. And now is the time to be well-fed.
Orgasm is particularly important now. It helps us sleep. It aids in the fight against depression and anxiety. It combats headaches. You’re brushing your teeth, right? You’re washing your face, aren’t you? You’re taking your vitamins or meds I bet. Well, orgasm needs to be part of your regime. Pleasure needs to be on your list of keeping yourself ready, willing and able to fight the good fight.
It’s far more difficult to overcome a nation of people who are holding fast to their commitment to self-care then those who aren’t. We cannot allow ourselves to become fatigued by the fight.
They don’t want me to exercise my rights. They don’t want me to live in my body. They don’t want me to experience the world. They don’t want me to make my own decisions or listen to my own mind or know and live and abide by the truth no matter how many times or in how many different ways they tell me it isn’t the truth. But I am going to do all of those things. I’m not going to get dumber. I’m going to get smarter.
This is an insanely difficult time. The world is in intense unrest. We are left with only one question: Will we continue to live or will we let them kill us, if not literally then figuratively?
I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to live. I’m going to live really hard. I’m going to sing off-key at the top of my lungs to my favorite songs. I’m going to go to the theater with my love. I’m going to go to the art museum with my dad. I’m going to eat sushi with my mom. I’m going to cry at sappy movies with my daughter. And I’m going to orgasm myself into fighting shape. I’m going to live.
What I am not going to do is let it rip apart my relationship or erode the love I live for. I’m not going to stop having sex and making out and goofing off and being Robin’s girl. Divide and conquer is all played out and I’m not playing.
So sign the petitions and make the calls and run for office and vote and march every chance you get. We have to keep doing all the things and we have to do them more than ever.
We also have to love. We have to love and love and love and love. We have to love and kiss and hug and play and fuck. And, you know, truth be told, at least a little part of me truly believes that Forty-Five is destroyed just a little every time any one of us enjoys stellar gay sex. Fucking just might be the best way of all to tell Forty-Five to fuck off.
Have a question about sex you want Jenny to address? Email it to GirlOnGirlsJenny@gmail.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition February 24, 2017.
