!@#$

Tonight I watched a documentary on the word "fuck." I'm interested in the concept of linguistic deconstruction and I support the notion that words only carry what meaning you prescribe to them, so I don't believe there's anything inherently wrong about the word. I'm glad it exists, because in theory, it could be a beautiful presence in the linguistic spectrum.

But after an hour and a half of that - with more than 800 usages of the word - I was simply nauseated. As much as I believe there's something beautiful about swear words, I also believe that what's beautiful about them is their rarity, and potency, and shock value. (A few months ago, I published a blog on Apostrophe about the subject.) I've tried to make sure that the word keeps its original meaning to me, so that when I say or hear that something is "fucked up" or "fucking amazing" or whatever, it retains the original impact. So there's something about a culture that makes a point of using swear words as much as humanly possible that simply repulses me, and still would if it were only disgusting from a linguistic standpoint. But there's something about the act of "fucking" that carries huge worldview implications that I find interesting to dissect.

I'm not going to pretend to be particularly educated on this subject, and I would frankly rather not know much more about it for several years to come. I've never had sex and don't intend to until I'm married. I know myself well enough to realize that it would be incredibly unhealthy for me, personally, to try to do things untraditionally in this regard. But I know what it is to lust, and I know what it is to love. I understand the difference between physical attraction and carnality, and something about the way that documentary spun things fell very heavily - almost intentionally - towards the latter.

Once, when I was in middle school, I got into a debate with a couple that was engaged at 19 and 20 years old, respectively. They were trying to argue that it was impossible for a married couple to lust after one another, because the definition of "lust" was "sexual attraction to someone outside of marriage." I disagreed with them very adamantly, saying that there was no magical spell that turned lust into love upon the ringing of the wedding bells or exchanging of rings. They called me naïve. I let it end there, because they were youth leaders of a sort, and I was in no position to challenge them. Now that I am in a relationship myself and am 18 years old, I am willing to say openly that I believe they were the naïve ones. Sure, I totally get that they were at the beginning of their relationship, and they were very young. And I get that they hadn't been exposed to a lot of sexuality or conversation about sexuality or anything of the sort... They were the kind of conservatives that chastised me for innuendo upon my use of the word "perverse" in describing some massive (may I note, totally non-sexual) eisegetical misinterpretation we were discussing. But it's probably not particularly healthy to enter a married relationship under the illusion that you're incapable of developing a lustful attitude towards the sex you have. Sex is sex. It's powerful and addicting and beautiful.... I do believe that it has a greater capacity for destruction outside of marriage, but that doesn't mean it completely loses that potential within marriage.

There's more to it than just "sexual attraction." There's a difference between fucking for its own sake, fucking for a complicated communal sake, making love for its own sake, and making love for community. I can't say what's actually good and right and healthy and what's not, 'cause it ain't relevant to me quite yet, but I can say quite certainly that just fucking, for its own sake, whether in or out of marriage, is perverse and ugly and disgusting. Sure, it feels good. Physically. For a little while. But there is something about it that - to me, personally - seems more empty than anything. It's like a carcass: with all the potential for life, but with no hope of ever realizing that potential. Something about a carcass, or a dead human body, is so much sadder than a pile of dust. What is it, really, but a pile of dust, technically speaking? It's a bunch of carbon chains. Why should it mean anything to us after the life has left it? But something about that shell means something to us, and so we value it even after the life has gone. Sex seems to be the same way. Half the people in the interview are open about the fact that they're married. One interviewee even said that he likes the word "fuck" because it describes what he and his wife do better than the phrase "making love" does. That quite honestly disturbs me. Not because I necessarily condemn what they're doing - I don't know how things work out for them, so I won't say whether they should stop or start whatever they're doing. But I never want to be in a place where all sex is to me is fuck. That seems like stillbirth or necrophilia. It's dehumanizing and heartbreaking and empty. I imagine that the point of actually waiting until marriage to have a sex life would be to remove the inevitability of emptiness and brokenness and loneliness in that place. What's the point if all marriage is for is to continue that trajectory? That fucking sucks.