Sex is Never About Sex



Sex sells, they say.
But what if sex doesn't say what we think it says?
What if it whispers something else — something deeper, murkier, sadder, and more desperate?

According to Jacques Lacan, one of the sharpest minds in the psychoanalytic tradition:
“Il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel”

— there is no such thing as a sexual relationship.

Not because people don’t fuck.
But because in the very act of fucking, they’re not meeting each other.
They’re missing each other.

Let’s be honest: sex is rarely just about bodies.
It’s about compensating a lack.
It’s about communicating something in code.
It’s about feeding a hunger that isn’t even physical.
Sometimes, it’s just about not being alone for a few minutes.

Sex as a Symptom

Think of a cat.
A cat purrs not only when it’s happy, but also when it's anxious, scared, in pain — it self-soothes through sound.
They don’t have enough words to express what they feel.
They come to us, and we like that, because it reminds us of ourselves.

Now think of humans.
We too purr.
But instead of sound, we use bodies.
We use sex like a symptom — a way to calm a storm we don’t fully understand.

That storm?
An anxiety tied to an emotional deficiency.
A hollow we met long ago, likely in childhood.
Maybe when a parent looked away one time too many.
Maybe when love was given with strings attached.
Maybe when “good girl” or “smart boy” became the only ticket to validation — to get the conditional love you learned to deal with.

And now?
Now we chase sex like a ghost, hoping the next orgasm will stitch that old wound.

Sex as a Message in Disguise

Lacan didn’t say “there is no sex.”
He said there’s no sexual relationship — no real, mutual, balanced meeting between two subjects through sex.

Because when we have sex, we’re not actually touching the other.
We’re touching our idea of the other.
Our fantasy.
Our projection.
Our hallucinated balm for that primal lack.

Sex is a message we send —
Not just to the person we’re with, but to our own unconscious.
We say something like:
• “I’m worth loving.”
• “I’m seen.”
• “I’m not broken.”
• “Someone wants me, so I exist.”

But that message is encrypted.
It’s a performance. A dance.
And most of the time, the receiver isn’t really listening.
They’re busy sending their own message, wrapped in fantasy and fear and ego.

What if the touch does feel right?
Not perfectly aligned, perhaps — just right enough to silence the clamor.
What if the laughter isn’t mere foreplay,
but a lullaby for ghosts too old to name,
soothing them into momentary stillness?
What if, in that brief, electric instant of release,
the ache doesn’t vanish,
but merely pauses —
not vanquished,
but beautifully, utterly forgotten?

Even then — especially then — Lacan might whisper:

“You’re still incomplete.”

Because even pleasure, raw and unfiltered,
isn’t an endpoint.
It’s an interlude.
A breath stolen from the endless murmur of lack.
A momentary suspension of absence that feels like fullness.

And Love ?—

Two people, more or less fitting the shape of each other’s dreams,
projecting, reflecting, agreeing —
tacitly —
to believe.

It is, still, an illusion.
But in that illusion,
we are almost happy.
Not complete,
but close enough to pretend.

And that pretending —
that mutual gaze,
that shared fiction —
isn’t failure.
It’s poetry.
It’s the courage to step into each other’s brokenness,
and say:
“I am seen — not as I am, but as I long to be.”

Love, in Lacan’s terms,
is not the promise of being completed.
It’s the audacity to offer 

"something what you don't have to someone who doesn't want it."

A gift from lack to lack —
a gesture that says:
“Here is my nothing. Let’s pretend it’s something.”

Perhaps the boldest message we ever send isn’t “I am whole,”
but “I’m willing to let you see my lack — and I’ll cradle yours too.”

No, we don’t truly meet.
We meet the outlines.
The dreams.
The sacred distortions that soothe the solitude for a while.

So when sex feels like love,
when it feels like connection,
when it feels almost like home —
remember:
you are living a beautiful lie.

And that is okay.
Because that’s not a weakness.
It’s the miracle of nature.
Two fictions choosing each other for the night,
hoping to hold back the Real,
to soften the void with breath and rhythm.
And in the pursuit of that illusion —
live, project, let time flow.

Lacan Was a Cynic, But…

Lacan didn’t kill romance.
He just told us the truth:
Sex doesn’t unite us.
But our desire to unite — that’s real.
And it’s somehow beautiful.

So next time you ask yourself why you want someone,
ask instead:
• What lack am I trying to fill?
• What story am I playing out in their arms?
• What message am I sending to the Real — that part of life no words can reach?

Because sex, dear reader,
was never about sex.
It was about the echo of a scream we gave up trying to say.
And the miracle that someone,
even for a moment,
whispers back.

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