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Danielle Kingstrom

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Outrage is the New Orgasm

Outrage is the New Orgasm

Last updated on: August 24, 2019 at 9:22 am by Danielle Kingstrom

Outrage is the New Orgasm 2019-08-24T09:22:45-06:00 Danielle Kingstrom

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If I go too long without sex, I get cranky. I act selfish, needy, and everything offends me. I then end up projecting my lack of sexual satisfaction onto my social media spheres. It’s something I have noticed about myself, that I couldn’t help but ask: What if this is how others act as well? What if a lack of good sex is the reason we are all so damn outraged about everything?

Outrage is the New Orgasm

What if outrage became our new orgasm? What if instead of reaching a climatic peak with our partner, we would rather reach a climax through the win of an argument on Facebook? What if our orgasmic experience was not from the way our partner did that thing with his or her tongue, but it was because some B-list celebrity retweeted our comment?

Through the narrow lens of my own perspective, I submit for your consideration this very possibility: Society has become so addicted to outrage that it is the new orgasm.

We have disconnected from the flesh. And when we disconnect from the flesh, we become distracted, agitated, and we end up lingering for something else to fill that emptiness and yearning.

Heat-Seeking

If my bed has been cooled for too long, I am easily distracted. I cannot focus on the most menial tasks. And then, I am always hungry. I snack more—I go reach for something salty then sweet, to decadent, then salty again.

I yearn for a fix of something, anything, to satiate my appetite. Or maybe I am searching for something to provide me with a heat? Typically, when I am cold, it’s usually because I am hungry.

The food does offer a temporary warmth, however. And when one is cold, or when one’s bed is cold, the temperature stabilization that carbs and fats can offer our bodies can provide that extra blanket of comfort that we may be searching for.

The heat I know I am really after comes from the friction of two bodies entangled—mounting and penetrating beyond space and limitation. My hunger is for that which I desire, that which arouses me. But when I notice my hunger for that kind of dessert creeps in on a Tuesday evening after a long day of work, errands, activities, and stress; I look for substitution. I mean, who wants to muster up that kind of energy for such a quick release?

So I do what millions of us do, I seek out a substitution of my desire elsewhere. I look to social media to provide another form of release. I climax by way of conflict and condemnation. Arguments arouse me, and in a twisted and diluted sense, argument hits that g-spot.

Don’t get me wrong, social media offers a rather provocative arousal that can provide a limited release from the animalistic desire that is guiding me, but it’s the wrong kind of arousal. It’s pleasing, yes. But it does not provide that particular je ne sais quoi that I am after.

Such is to say, I am not passing judgment on anyone for utilizing the social media spheres as a form of release. I have projected my lack—unfulfilled desires— all over the news feeds just as much as others have.

More so, what I am saying is that I am all too aware of how often I project my lack onto others, and I am attempting to correct that flaw. I don’t want to continue to endure outrage orgasms when I have the readily available option for my own apotheosis (Greek for climax or pre-God divinization) under the covers.

More Sex, Less Everything Else

Basically, we need to be making more time for sex and less time for social media outrage.

Sex is spiritual. It’s holy. It’s sacred. It’s what ancient traditions acknowledged as the first fruits of God; our divine gift is the ability to find the highest revelation of spirituality through sex. Some ancient writings imply a significant amount of worship and sacrifice was paid on behalf of sex.

In some traditions, women sacrificed their bodies to any and every man in the village as a way to ensure growth of the community and to show honor and worship to the goddess that gifted such an enthralling endowment as sex. And while I am not suggesting we abandon all responsibility and turn into sex addicts; I am saying that there is a time for everything, and perhaps to really spread love, we need to be making it ourselves, the naked way.

Sex is Church

Maybe it’s time that we treat sex like church? Maybe we can pay homage to our beloved as though we were inviting a very special guest into our being?

Sex is something that I look forward to. I think about it all the time. I plan and prepare for it. I treat it like a very special guest that regularly comes into my home. I dust the curtains, I wax the floors, light candles and burn sage for this guest. I want this guest to feel as welcomed and invited as possible.

There is no timeline for the guest. The guest is invited in and welcomed until the guest is ready to leave. There is no rush to dessert. There is no hurry. The evening unfolds and the guest remains entertained.

We do the same for church. We make sure we don’t smell, that our clothes are carefully picked out, and ensure our dress shoes are free from scratches and mud.

Yet, we already see a flaw in this comparison, don’t we? We’ve already done this routine. We were once excited about church. We were once excited about sex as well. The beginning of our relationships demonstrate that. Heck, it seemed like all we ever did was have sex. Slowly, but surely, we eventually lost our excitement.

So our special guest that we once prepared for and daydreamed about now has become an annoyance, and even an uninvited guest. Our guest—our partner and the erotic realm that our relationship encompasses—becomes second, third, tenth, fiftieth on our list of priorities, and we look for a substitute.

Have you ever noticed that which we consider spiritual, holy, and sacred, initially, is also that which we quickly disregard? We do that with church, with our partners, and with sex. We do that in so many areas of our lives. We find fillers for the desires and become comfortable with minimal connection.

Going Through the Motions

Consider how we approach any new routine that we implement into our life: monogamous relationships, marriage, attending church, religion, our prayers, hymns, worship. First it’s exciting. We look forward to it. We find joy in these practices. Every day we are inspired and in awe.

But then it dissipates. The high is gone. The idea that all of these activities in our lives could be viewed as holy and sacred acts becomes weighted down by the demands and stresses of living life and paying bills. Soon, it becomes a scheduled event that we attend whether we want to or not. Whether we feel impassioned by it or not.

Think about it, many of us at one time or another, did something simply because we knew we had to do it. We weren’t really guided by any desires or emotions. It’s Sunday, I go to church. The offering plate comes around and I place my $50 check in it for the week. I just do it. I deduct it on my tax return. I just do it, but I don’t give cheerily. I don’t have a fueling desire to ensure that some particular church sign is restored. I even roll my eyes at the idea that I am directly funding a church sign instead of actually changing someone’s life.

Just as in when we sing along with the hymns. Some are very passionate about it. You can feel their love for Jesus in the soprano of their voice. But others, we just quietly sing along, or at least move our lips so it looks like we are singing along. Others sing so boisterously that you can’t help wonder if they are just trying to hide their lack of excitement for today’s hymns. They are faking their love for Jesus in those high notes.

We all experience situations in which we are just going through the motions. We aren’t putting our backs into it. We just stay the course and do what we are supposed to do. We fake our excitement or we just move our lips. It becomes robotic. It becomes routine. Habitual. Unconscious repetition that we don’t even need to think about.

And that’s how we approach what we consider spiritual, holy, and sacred? It’s the way many couples approach their sex lives.

It was once how I approached my own sex life. I claimed it was important. I claimed it was holy, sacred. I claimed it was a spiritual experience. But I wasn’t really passionately pursuing my partner or sex. I was merely going through the motions and doing what I was supposed to do. That is no way to approach the symbolic image of two flesh becoming one. Not by a long shot.

When sex is no longer a spiritual experience that turns our Mondays into Fridays, it’s time to reevaluate our approach and methods.

So, what does all of this have to do with social media and why does it make me think that people aren’t having good sex? Allow me to submit for you my non-expert observations.

Sex with Tech

I think you’d rather have sex with your device than with your partner. Not literally, but I think people are more accepting of the minimal arousal and gratification that comes from habitual social media-scrolling than they are with the real, physical, and connected gratification that can come from an evening spent under the sheets, under the stars in the back of a truck, or on an office chair tucked away in the corner as to not wake the kids.

Sex with our device requires less energy, for one. Secondly, it requires less thought. If there is anything most of us want more at the end of the day, it’s more activities that require less actual engagement.

So, we take to our apps, our games, social media as a way to “connect” without commitment of energy or thought, unless there’s a big argument ensuing that we are sure to win with a few more responses. Four hours later, we are still battling for a win in our argument, while our partners are snoring away in the bedrooms that we ignore.

Is it really that we don’t want to extend energy into a physical act like sex, or is it more so the frightening idea that we might have to also unfold—and make vulnerable, more than just our bodies?

For me, when I am willing to be that literally naked with my husband, it means I am willing to be that mentally naked with him as well. It means that I don’t just strip down my Yandy lingerie while Beyoncé is playing on the speaker. It means that I am also willing to open up my mind and share with him things I have been thinking, or fearing, or contemplating.

That’s why sex is so holy and spiritual for me. It moves me in such a way that I can unbind all that I have bound up over the last week that also needs a climatic release. Sex, when practiced in the most sacred of ways, in the most revealing of ways, can undo more than just that knot in your back. It can undo that knot in your mind. Which requires some horizontal massaging.

That is to say that sex uncovers layers of creativity while also riding your fears and stresses off into the sunset.

Sex is liberating. It’s its own language that requires no translation if effectively carried out.

It’s therapy that we can engage in multiple times a day or any and every day of the week. It’s a rather effective way to unblock the writer’s block.

So why aren’t we using sex the way sex was meant to be used?

Instead, we are using social media as its cheap replacement because we have been convinced that sleep and to-do lists are more important that discovering the numerous erogenous zones of our partners. What a waste of flesh that turns out to be, if you ask me.

A bigger question to ask is this: what if we are faking and projecting what we lack onto others because we don’t know how to talk to our partners about what our wants truly are.

Don’t we want to bask in the early dawn hours with the one we said “I do” to all those years before? Don’t we want to liberate ourselves from our daily demands and our clothing, so that we can really manifest two flesh becoming one?

Why aren’t we willing to invest that kind of energy into our partners? The kind of energy that we voluntarily invest into stupid social media discussions in which we must prove that this person who supports this candidate is this way in which we want to label them as? Why don’t we dedicate that kind of intensity and passion into our beloved?

We don’t do this because first and foremost, we are lazy lovers. We overthink the process and that is what becomes exhausting, not the sex itself.

Secondly, we are scared lovers. We fear telling our partners what we really want. Which then angers us. So we turn to another outlet. Anger and sexual desire operate in the same erotic zone. When we substitute the method of release, it changes form. This changed form is the way we reach climax. We come to our screens charged by the erotic and we project over whomever is first willing to penetrate our space with a sweet caress of conflict.

Instead of dealing with the true feelings underneath; the fear of rejection, the fear that I am not good enough, the fear that my spouse will think I am perverted for wanting this; we project anger outward. It feels good. It’s an erotic release that we were after, sort of. And, so long as we get the same effect, we will return to the method that provides the quickest route to this release.

What if instead of turning to your devices for minimal gratification, you turned to your partner? What if you decided instead of scrolling down a timeline or twitter feed, you scrolled down and helped your partner undress before bed?

What if instead of posting about how much a person needs to spread love, you took that message to heart, literally, and spread your love all over your spouse?

About Danielle Kingstrom

Danielle Kingstrom is a writer, podcaster, and leg-warmer aficionado. She is the host of "Recorded Conversations", a podcast dedicated to compassionately considering all perspectives while engaging in connected dialogues about societal issues. Current work includes an upcoming book, "Enfleshed: Making Monogamous Relationships Real". You can read more about the author here.

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