Hedonism has been more or less accepted in terms of food and alcohol, even certain activities. However, the kink and sexuality part of it has barely been touched by social acceptance. How do you feel about being able to speak freely and honestly about yourself, but having to wear the mask of anonymity while doing so because what you say may not be socially acceptable?
— Q
I’m ambivalent about the mask. On the one hand, I would love to share all of myself with the world. Tell everyone who I am in every sense of the phrase. This is, in part, because this mask is more me than the me most people know. As the Dane said, the play’s the thing. The characters we choose to perform reveal the world most of all. It is a mask I would, if I could, wear always. This mask is me.
There is also the fact that my reticence exists within a context of prudish shame. I wouldn’t want many of my family members or even some friends to know I fancy all genders, let alone that I fantasise about seas of teeming bodies. That I would share a dozen sweating forms with you, Q, my love. I know that, were I up front with my identity, this blog would damage my employment prospects and social life significantly.
However, it would be deceit on my part to say I hate the secrecy. The great paradox of kinks and, to a lesser extent, open sexuality, is that they enthrall because of their social prohibition. At least for me anyway. The naughtiness comes from “we really shouldn’t, but let’s”. The same is true of this blog. I can’t help but be a little excited when I write these posts.
Now, many might say sex is more dangerous than food and drink or whatever else is your jam. This, they claim, is why there are more taboos in the bedroom than in the kitchen. I suspect such souls have never watched a love one eat or drink themselves to death. It’s a sexual conservatism that doesn’t stand up to much probing.
Before I conclude this answer, I ought throw in my thoughts on “hedonism” as a term. While I am certainly inclined to try every all-consenting pleasure, pleasure itself is not my end goal. I want to feel everything. When a loved one passes, I want to feel every tincture of grief. When a politician steals, I want to feel the rage that justice demands. When it is my time to die, I would like to be cognizant. To, as Hitch once said, “do death in the active”.
I am a hedonist, yes, but this is as a subset of my true aim: epicureanism. I want to integrate too the stoic and the reflective in my approach to existing so as to live in the best faith possible.
— The Epicurean Slut
