Analysis Of Sex Without Love By Sharon Olds

Unconscious sexual drives are the most powerful behaviours of mankind. Libido, colloquially known as sex drive, drastically affects one’s thoughts and actions and leads to abnormal behavioural consequences. Guy de Maupassant’s “Was It a Dream?” is about a man who spends all his spare time mourning over his lover’s grave. The story reveals the adverse psychological relationship to sexuality, as the man’s actions are molded by his affection towards his lover. Hence, sexual drives lead to an unconscious mind and results in displacement of love as it is a powerful and pleasurable tool that all human beings desire.

Consciously, the woman communicates that she yearns for her lover, yearns to engage in sexual intercourse with him. Subconsciously, however, the need to “bear” her partner’s “weight” indicates that there is a burden attached to her expectations surrounding this engagement. This specific word choice takes the passion out of the erotic, so much so that the psychoanalytic interpreter is left to wonder why this woman is actively pursuing something that she clearly does not enjoy. To draw upon the developing thesis, the answer is that she does so in order to avoid acknowledging her repressed sexuality. In this way, the lover is not a ‘lover’ in the romantic sense of the word, but rather a sexual object. He is an objectified prop manipulated in order to fulfill

I have found the perfect definition of sex from Greta Christina’s paper “Are We Having Sex Now or What?” and that is, “Maybe if both of you (or all of you) think of it as sex, then it’s sex whether you’re having fun or not.” I find this definition as sex because it clearly tells the audience that sex is sex if you thought of it as sex. For example, when opposite or same sex have a sexual activity or intercourse with each other whether you like it or not, it is sex. However, this definition can be unsatisfactory to others because there can be cases when people may not want to count it as sex, such as getting sexually assaulted by someone. In this case, the person who got sexually assaulted would not want to count it as sex and avoid the truth, but for the person who made a sexual assault to someone, that person would count it as sex. It may be hard for those people who gets sexually assaulted, but that is the reality and the truth that he/she had sex with someone. Therefore, even though this definition may be broad and unsatisfactory to some people, it will narrow down and clearly prove that you had sex if you think you had sex.

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

Sex has been reduced to a common action with no social bindings and it is not a gesture of showing love for someone else as people think of it today. When will today’s society be consumed with only the physical aspect of sex? With all of the premarital sex and the age of becoming sexually active decreasing every generation, it leaves a question to be answered; where did the value of love and responsibility of partnership go? Monogamy, in “Brave New World“, is unheard of and taboo to everyone except those who see how powerful love is. The connection that unites people is reduced to a competition to see how many times people have it rather than which the person is. In the book, John knows the importance of love and even resists the temptation to have sex with Lenina. John is among a few people who have not been reduced to mating animals but rather humans that still feel a need for love and companionship.

One of the norms Kincaid questions is virginity, whether sex is actually meaningful, that it could be enjoyable without the feeling of love. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Lucy is new to what a sexual relationship could have

'Sex Without Love,' by Sharon Olds passionately described the author's disgust for casual sex in which she vividly animates the immorality of lustful sex through the variety of her language. The sarcasm used in this selection can easily be misunderstood and quite confusing if the words and lines are not analyzed with specific construction. Olds' clever use of imagery and frequent uses of similes, to make the reader imagine actual events, makes this poem come to life. For example, Olds describes making love as 'Beautiful as dancers.' (Line #2) in this line, she questions how one can do such a beautiful act with a person whom one is not in love with. Olds also describes sex as 'gliding over each other

"They turn casually to look at you, distracted, and get a mild distracted surprise, you're gone. Their blank look tells you that the girl they were fucking is not there anymore. You seem to have disappeared.(pg.263)" In Minot's story Lust you are play by play given the sequential events of a fifteen year old girls sex life. As portrayed by her thoughts after sex in this passage the girl is overly casual about the act of sex and years ahead of her time in her awareness of her actions. Minot's unique way of revealing to the reader the wild excursions done by this young promiscuous adolescent proves that she devalues the sacred act of sex. Furthermore, the manner in which the author illustrates to the reader these acts symbolizes the

Poetry is the creative means in which emotion is expressed through the literary art of rhythm, rhyme and repetition. Over time, the distinctive style of poetry has been altered to create great diversity branching from the traditional poetic style of writing. Missouri born author, Naomi Shihab Nye, provides a great example of a unique style of writing. Nye is a poet, songwriter and novelist whose style incorporates everyday objects in her writing to create a spontaneous, yet thoughtful connection between these everyday items and the reader. In the most basic form, Nyes’ poem is about fame. She implies that it is essentially “these little things that we overlook – all these everyday, seemingly unimportant things – are really what deserve

In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by

The poem, “sex without love” by Sharon Olds portrays the issues in the society today. Casual sex is on the rise and Olds is puzzled how one can have sex without loving the other partner. She states, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without sex?” (Line 1). She, however, describes sex with beautiful imagery of dancers, making it appealing but the eventual feeling of loneliness is inevitable. Olds choice of words, imagery, and symbolism throughout her texts is contrasting; sex without love is possible but is exemplified as a selfish empty act if love is absent.

Sex Without Love has a theme of how a person can not understand how someone can have sexual relationships without being in love. In this poem Olds is puzzled to how and why a person can share such passion and intimacy with another when there is no love or special bond that holds the two together. Although there is no kind of emotional connection she is not empathetic of the loveless physical connection that is shared between the two beings as they engage in sexual contact. Olds is appalled with casual sex and believes that people misinterpret "I love you" to simply just "loving sex". She feels if there is no love shared that the sex is only a selfish act between two.

Love is the greatest human emotion one can experience. In the poem "Leaving the Motel" by W. D. Snodgrass and "Sex Without Love" by Sharon Olds each poet shares different views on the theme of love. Snodgrass' poem focuses on a couple having an affair in a motel. As they are leaving they go through a checklist to make sure they keep their secrecy. While, Olds' poem focuses more about how people have sex without being in love. Both of these poems illustrate a strong sense of love in different ways with the help of point of view, mood, and symbolism.

Poetry is much different than any other style of writing. Poets have a way of communicating their message in a much more indirect way than regular writers. One reader may interpret a poem in a way that is drastically different than another. To truly understand a poem, one must understand the author as well. Sharon Olds, an American poet, who is known for her morbid and unhappy poems, writes about various themes including political violence, family relationships, and sexuality (Gale). In Olds’ poem, “The Death of Marilyn Monroe” we see her examining sexuality not only in 20th century, but in today’s age as well. Olds uses the death of a famous sex icon to really show how women were, and are still being sexualized in society.

Sharon Olds’ poem “Sex Without Love” wonders at the ability for two people to have sex and not involve emotions or pretenses of love. The poem argues that it is better to have sex without love under the premise that love is a false savior for people, and everyone is all alone anyhow. In other words, the claim is that personal interactions do not serve a purpose other than being a distraction, and they will inevitably end. However, the notion that attachment and love are false hopes for people and each person is all alone does not account for the inevitability of human interactions and the underlying importance of relationships. While the poem does not give its definition of being alone, complete isolation is virtually impossible and leads