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By Leon Stevens

The sexual attention span of one individual for another is finite. This may be an impossible realization for most "marrieds" to accept. Regardless of what the Fords reported to the national press, they are NOT sexually attracted to each other, even if they do, in fact, sleep in the same bed. "Til death do us part" does not insure: "do each other till death."

Any two lovers must eventually lose their lust for each other. Paired couples who stay together do so in spite of mutual sexual saturation. Certainly most and probably all long-time bed-partners find themselves using each other as purely masturbatory instruments. Using their spouses as recepticles for their "loads," lovers ultimately incorporate other people for sexual imagery. That

Jimmy Carter has committed adultery in his heart is clearly an understatement. No doubt, he commits "adultery in his heart" regularly.

The straight divorce rate which is rapidly approaching 50% indicates, to be sure, that divorce is now legally easy to obtain and socially scandal-free, but more importantly, it shows that sexual infatuation (sexual attraction is ALWAYS infatuation) is mortal. Contrary to myth, sex does not help cement a relationship. It is irrelevant to a relationship and only sustains an affair. Affairs and relationships exist separately or side-byside but they are never the same thing!

Every divorce-court judge is familiar with the metaphors which abound for sexual bankruptcy. The revival of Sonny and Cher as an entertainment team indicates that they

are

still intellectually compatible, but Cher's confession that her prime interest in her rather shallow new husband is that he is "all man," implies that Sonny is less than "all man," or simply no longer sexually satisfying.

Sexual exhaustion IS explosive and devastating in a relationship, first because it is presumed not to exist and second, because both lovers seldom arrive at it at the same time leaving one to feel abandoned or betrayed.

Cultural indoctrination has never been powerful enough to convince at least the subconscious mind that specific desires of the flesh are permanent. Consequently, a contest frequently ensues between two mates to reach the point of saturation first and in so doing save face when the well evaporates.

Society consistently assigns responsibility for bed-chamber refrigeration not to nature to whom it belongs, but to the "loser" who has supposedly "failed." No one wants to concede "inadequacy." When I was younger, my cousin and I occasionally telephoned each other on family buiness. We rivaled each other on being the first to hang up and at the same time make our sign-outs sound unaffected. We vied to make the other's call appear to be an

inconvenience. Such competition is conspicuous in numerous sexual affairs and liasons.

If we make the mistake of yoking sex with our relationships, and expect eternal or long-lived sexual bliss, we condemn our lives to a false, frantic, Mary Hartmanesque multiplicity. No individual should feel obliged by guilt to run his/her genitalia through a wringer to extract one final ounce of orgasm. As homosexuals we are homoemotional and homo-immediate!

A still-enraptured lover may deeply resent his exhausted partner's complacency. This phenomenon is reflected in the antipathy we feel toward a trick who has not returned his address or phone number or who after initiating one or more encounters, does not respond to our initiatives.

Many of us would sooner not approach a former trick than risk a rejection which would mean, not that we are unattractive but that we are sexually inadequate. Better to appear to be phasing someone else out than to be phased out.

are

is "crowded" or "over-crowded" is absurd when cast in an historical perspective. Urbanites their more isolated in masonry-walled environments than their ancestors ever were. In our relatively recent tribal past, our fore-mothers and fathers lived in dwellings with enormous extended families in mutually-protective almost partitionless communities. Privacy was virtually nonexistent, condition which extended deep into our homonid pre-history. Limited traffic jams or busy medium-sized offices hardly compare to the day-andnight clamor of ancient living.

Contemporary living is more private than we realize and it presents somewhat of a psychological shock of which we are generally unaware. Few of us are willing to admit that sleeping with someone may be more important than "getting our rocks off," and that sex may be an obstacle to obtaining the immediate companionship we desperately require.

Unless, like madame Bovary, we are ready to plunge ourselves into a bitter odyssey of ridiculous hopes, treachery If our carnal appetite for a and ultimately emotional given person is so terminal, is collapse, we had better dance to there any value to having a the tune of the times and our "lover" or "lovers?" You'd inner rhythms. Sex is cheap, but better believe there is! "People special friends are irreplacable. who need people are the ALL SEX IS HAND-ME-DOWN luckiest people" only when but a companion is people are available to fill that psychological investment never need. Obviously, as social to be found on a Salvation Army animals we instinctively require clothes rack! someone else's frequent physical presence.

The notion that urban society