THE WHITE NOISE OF MATRIMONIAL SEX
How was I to know anything different? My parents had chosen this path early on and it worked for them. Our schools and churches taught that we all were destined to marry and raise children. Stories and pictures presented us with a vision of our futures that focused on the nuclear family just as we entered the nuclear age that was about to turn our world upside down. I could not avoid that buzz or hum of the “low grade fever pulsing amongst us unmentioned”, the “white noise of matrimonial sex”. I was driven by a force I did not understand.
Where did it come from, that buzz that pervaded our young lives? From Mother Nature as we went about killing millions of our youngest and finest specimens? Supposedly we were being prepared for citizenship, for meaningful participation in the democratic determination of the course of our social interactions. Beyond that lay the obligation of making a living in this world; the world as described by our political philosophy. But in reality, what motivated us, what guided us, was the impulse to procreate. To adopt the cultural imperative of matrimonial sex.
Our “schooling” turned out to be a preparatory indoctrination for life in mid-twentieth century America. We were taught the rudimentary skills for communication and computation, a basic outline of the foundations of the physical sciences, and a primer on patriotism that briefly touched upon history and geography. But all that was just window-dressing to the real concern of our suburban culture: family solidity.
It was just at this time in our national history that the strength of the family as a social unit was being challenged by the struggle of capitalism for domination in the world. It is no surprise to me now that the primordial drive of matrimonial sex became the ultimate tool for preserving those “family values” which have become so loudly proclaimed recently, even as they succumbed to the economic reality of global capitalism in the 21st century. But I was certainly surprised to find out that I had completely misread the signs of the times. The revolutionary ‘60s had turned my world upside down. Family solidity had disappeared, for me, in practice as well as in theory. What was I to do?
There was an illusion to maintain.
My next child was on the way. My ex spouse wanted to remarry. I was divorced and remarried in the space of a few months. This way the child would be “legitimized” and a new family would commence a life of its own. But I was in turmoil; devastated by the upheaval of the failure of matrimonial sex to prevail in the face of adversity. And our culture was singing a new tune; that of freedom, of equality, of liberation from the past. In the face of adversity I followed the dance of that piper who led away from that portal whose inscription read “All hope abandon, ye who enter here”. There was light, not darkness, ahead on that path. I walked away from family solidity into the silence of the natural world in order to find out who I truly was, where I had come from, and where I was going.
Where did it come from, that buzz that pervaded our young lives? From Mother Nature as we went about killing millions of our youngest and finest specimens? Supposedly we were being prepared for citizenship, for meaningful participation in the democratic determination of the course of our social interactions. Beyond that lay the obligation of making a living in this world; the world as described by our political philosophy. But in reality, what motivated us, what guided us, was the impulse to procreate. To adopt the cultural imperative of matrimonial sex.
Our “schooling” turned out to be a preparatory indoctrination for life in mid-twentieth century America. We were taught the rudimentary skills for communication and computation, a basic outline of the foundations of the physical sciences, and a primer on patriotism that briefly touched upon history and geography. But all that was just window-dressing to the real concern of our suburban culture: family solidity.
It was just at this time in our national history that the strength of the family as a social unit was being challenged by the struggle of capitalism for domination in the world. It is no surprise to me now that the primordial drive of matrimonial sex became the ultimate tool for preserving those “family values” which have become so loudly proclaimed recently, even as they succumbed to the economic reality of global capitalism in the 21st century. But I was certainly surprised to find out that I had completely misread the signs of the times. The revolutionary ‘60s had turned my world upside down. Family solidity had disappeared, for me, in practice as well as in theory. What was I to do?
There was an illusion to maintain.
My next child was on the way. My ex spouse wanted to remarry. I was divorced and remarried in the space of a few months. This way the child would be “legitimized” and a new family would commence a life of its own. But I was in turmoil; devastated by the upheaval of the failure of matrimonial sex to prevail in the face of adversity. And our culture was singing a new tune; that of freedom, of equality, of liberation from the past. In the face of adversity I followed the dance of that piper who led away from that portal whose inscription read “All hope abandon, ye who enter here”. There was light, not darkness, ahead on that path. I walked away from family solidity into the silence of the natural world in order to find out who I truly was, where I had come from, and where I was going.
posted by David at 6:01 AM
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