"Fuck" and So What?

Robert Augustus Masters writes a fabulous, simple-yet-sophisticated essay titled “Eros Undressed: An Intimate Look at Sex,” in which he explores the multitudes of diverse roles that sex plays in people’s lives. In this essay, he teases out some assumptions and value systems that may underlie our unconscious relationships to sex.

Masters writes:
"...there is so much that we expect sex to do for us! More often than we might like to admit, we assign it to stress release, security enhancement, spousal pacification, egoic gratification, pleasure production, and other such tasks. We may use it as a super sleeping pill, a rapid-action pick-me-up, an agent of consolation, a haven or hideout, a control tactic, a proof that we’re not that old or cold. We may also employ it as a psychological garbage disposal, a handy somatic terminal for discharging the energies of various unwanted states, like loneliness or rage or desperation. Mostly, though, we just tend to want sex to make us feel better, and we use it accordingly, whether in mundane, dark, or spiritual contexts."

Interesting... but what of it? One segment of his essay struck me in particular, which was his analysis of the use of the word “fuck.”



“Fuck”

I am considering my use of this word.

Masters writes:
“Many of the words and phrases denoting human coitus bluntly illustrate our often confused, disrespectful, and exploitive attitude toward our sexuality, and sexuality in general. Consider, for example, the notorious and enormously popular multivalent “f” word, for which there are an incredible number of non-copulatory meanings, a fucking incredible number, all pointedly and colorfully describing what we may actually be up to when we’re busy being sexual or erotically engaged.

Here is a partial list, most of which overlap in meaning with each other: ignorance (“Fucked if I know”); indifference (“I don’t give a fuck”); degradation (“You stupid fuck”); disappointment (“This is really fucked”); rejection (“Get the fuck out of here!”); manipulation (“You’re fucking with my head”); disgust (“Go fuck yourself”); vexation (“What the fuck are you doing?”); exaggeration (“It was so fucking good!”); situational MSG’ing (“What a fucking great meal!”); rage (“Fuck you!” or “Don’t fuck with me!”); and, perhaps most pithily revealing of all, exploitation (“I got fucked”). It is also worth noting that the noun “fucker” is, though usually far from complimentary, sometimes used in an affectionate or playful manner. A fine fucking mess.”


I am interested in how the uses of the word “fuck,” in all of their myriad, overlapping and confused ways, may indicate how this word has, over time, and through many incarnations and acculturations, come to accommodate the many manifestations of "libidinal" motivations. We may, in the context of a conversation on sex/sexuality, call these manisfestations some translation of "libidinal energy," or in the context of considering the more amorphous, "pure potential" versions of this energy we may call it "life force," or “prana,” or “mana,” or “qi”, or “Lüng” or "Élan vital"

…

Now, I am certainly no expert on any of the aforementioned words and concepts, given their cultural contingencies, and often orthopraxic origins. I have simply cross-clicked on wikipedia to find (somewhat) analogous concepts that can illustrate or hint at some underlying stream of energy/consciousness that stirs our flippancy with (sexualised) terminology. While I have only had a rudimentary experience in considering even just a few of them, they all seem to point to some inherent energetic potential that infuses our selfhood with life, the animalis (having of breath) of our animality.

Different schools of esoteric knowledge have taught various ways of (re-)organising these subtle energies, which I loosely categorise as different therapies, such as acupuncture, reflexology, massage, etc., or as meditative methodologies: From physical yogic postures, to attentional/concentrative practices, to breathwork and breath control, etc.

So these energies, which may otherwise have been channeled into cultivation of qualities such as equanimity, compassion, humility, growth, creativity, and so on, are basically denied ANY existence by the normative epistemological system of Western civilisation, which is empirical science. The empirical sciences (or the ‘hard sciences’) have thus far failed to recognise the objective reality of any existent ‘force’ that we could call Qi, or Lüng, or Prana, etc., and has thus categorically denied its/their (potential) reality entirely.

All of these energies, to the extent that they can be experienced as subjectively "true," are likely to be at the very least systemic combinations of any number of objectifiable entities (e.g. mixes of neurotransmitters, the contact between external conditions with subjectively reported interior "effects," neuro-limbic processes, etc. etc.). This possibility could at least allow for advances in, for example, neuroscience and systems thinking, to make room for (more) scientific anaylses of otherwise amorphous sets of culturally diverse esotericisms.

What I am hypothesising is that, outside of a formal system of organising these energies in the “West,” we have come to inherit …: “Fuck.”

To reiterate from Masters' list, without systemisation, these energies come out in their various guises, articulated by “fuck,” as:
“ignorance (“Fucked if I know”);
indifference (“I don’t give a fuck”);
degradation (“You stupid fuck”);
disappointment (“This is really fucked”);
rejection (“Get the fuck out of here!”);
manipulation (“You’re fucking with my head”);
disgust (“Go fuck yourself”);
vexation (“What the fuck are you doing?”);
exaggeration (“It was so fucking good!”);
situational MSG’ing (“What a fucking great meal!”);
rage (“Fuck you!” or “Don’t fuck with me!”);
and, perhaps most pithily revealing of all, exploitation (“I got fucked”).
It is also worth noting that the noun “fucker” is, though usually far from complimentary, sometimes used in an affectionate or playful manner…”

I would like to add to this list:
intoxication (“we got TOTALLY fucked on booze”);
destruction (“fuck shit up”);
shock/surprise (“fuck! I totally didn’t see you standing there!”)
relief (“fuuuuuuuuuuck….”);

And, finally, and perhaps in a melancholy, poignant, ‘obvious’ sort of way, to refer to typically phallic-/penetrative sex. (“I love to fuck,” “please fuck me,” “do you prefer to fuck or get fucked?”).

As Masters concludes his list, this is “a fine fucking mess.”



So What To Do?

It may be helpful to notice the ways that we use the word “fuck” in everyday language (if we do). We could consider, expediently, fasting from using the word, while bringing mindful attention to the parts of our day when we otherwise typically mindlessly use the word “fuck,” to notice not only how we use this word (which is an interesting enough project on its own, of course), but also how it feels in our bodies when we speak it or resist speaking it, and how these embodied feelings may well overlap, in their confused forms, with our experience of our sexuality.

In the meantime, we may well better tease out new ways of engaging with our energy, so that our propensity to ignorance, indifference, degradation, disappointment, rejection, manipulation, disgust, vexation, exaggeration, situational MSG’ing, rage, exploitation, affection, complimenting, intoxication, destruction, shock, surprise, relief, and sex are properly differentiated from one another, and we may have a better chance at being more involved as agents of our own integration.

I was going to end with a “fuck” pun, but I think I’ll try and practice what I’m preaching, and see what comes of it.