I am aware that I have only recently discussed my writing amid my writing,so it may well be too soon to talk about it more. But I have been having trouble doing writing, so it has been much on my mind as the COVID-19 panic persists. And as I have been trying to get myself back to doing the kind of writing I need to be doing–daily, really, and not only in the pages of my journal–I have been falling back on something of a standby, not only for me, but for a great many writers.

Sex.

Yes, I know it’s an abrupt shift, and probably not one that speaks well of my writerly skill. But that does not mean that there is not a lot of writing about sex; even a casual glance about affirms it. And some of my own writing treats the subject; indeed, it was to that topic I turned to get myself writing again. Doing so, of course, induced me to wonder why.

There are easy reasons, of course. I am libidinous, probably far more than is good for me, certainly far more than I am comfortable detailing here. It’s an easy topic for me to turn to, and it’s often with easy things that work starts. I imagine it’s much the same for others, though I would not presume to speak for them, but I cannot think that the perceived association between creative endeavor and (sometimes illicit) sexuality has no basis in fact.

Too, I have the thought that sex is an accessible topic for many people. I am well aware that not all readers are motivated by sexual desire, and that even those who may be are not as apt to indulge that motivation as I am (yes, I do tend to look for sex in works, and I have suggested that the students I have had do so, as well, when they asked me where to start delving into texts in those receding days when I was trusted to guide learning), but it remains an open avenue of inquiry for them, even so. Sex sells, after all, and the mercantile nature of contemporary popular culture tends towards making everything transactional; if getting people to buy pervades such zeitgeist as is, and sex pervades getting people to buy things, then it follows sex will pervade the zeitgeist–insofar as that goes.

What all this means is, of course, open to more interpretation than I am equipped to provide. And I acknowledge that an awful lot of what I write and what others write is more onanistic than elsewise, though I hold it no sin to be so, in keyboard work or in the lives that surround it.

Nothing special today, just a hope you can help out.