Chris Jepson: Tinder moments ain't necessarily tender moments

Is sex love? Of course not. Yet.

The history of our species suggests coupling (sex) is the driving force of our all-too-brief lives (relative to some 2,000-year-old trees or certain shrubs of Peru’s Atacama desert). The desire for sex animates our species. This is a somewhat unpopular perspective in “conservative” circles but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

As our species moved from being strictly hunter-gatherers to the agrarian stage of human development the institution of marriage became commonplace. The first recorded example of a marriage dates back to approximately 2,350 B.C. in Mesopotamia.

Love had little to do with early marriage. Marriage then was a formal practice of binding women to men. During a marriage ceremony of ancient Greece, for example, the father would hand over his daughter by proclaiming: “I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring.”

That was it in a nutshell. Marriage was about guaranteeing that a man’s children were biologically his. Things that make you go, “Hmmm?” I’ve laughingly said for years, “No man knows for sure.” It’s always good for a laugh or two. Few figures in our species are portrayed as more pathetic than the cuckold.

Religion helped the status of women a bit within marriage. But men remained the “head” of the family, with women deferring to male dominion. The idea of romantic love being a factor driving marriage didn’t really enter the picture until the Middle Ages (12th century or so). We’re all familiar with the romantic tale of Sir Lancelot falling in love with another man’s wife (Guinevere and King Arthur).

With the idea of romantic love gathering acceptance as a reason for marriage (as opposed to pragmatic considerations), women gradually gained more leverage in the relationship. Men still “owned” their wives, but now men were being encouraged to “serve” their wives.

It really wasn’t until the 20th century with women getting the right to vote, that equality of a sort started to become the norm within marriage. It wasn’t until the 1960s and ’70s that the idea of marital rape became established, refuting the idea that the husband didn’t “own” his wife’s body.

The male/female dynamic that has evolved over the past 4,500 years has us today at an interesting point. Historians will someday identify safe, reliable and effective birth control as one of the most significant developments of the 20th century (much more I would suggest than nuclear power). No longer is making babies necessarily the outcome of sex. Birth control leveled the playing field between men and women. As pleasurable as sex can be for either sex, imagine the burden lifted from a woman’s mind that one moment of ecstasy doesn’t imply, didn’t become a lifetime of obligation.

There was a lengthy article in September’s Vanity Fair on the sexual mores of modern young Americans. They are using phone-dating apps (see: Tinder, Hinge, Happn, etc.) to identify ready partners for sex. Both males and females are “hooking-up” for casual sex. The article details as well the downsides to this process.

Sex in and of itself is delightful. But one-offs as I would characterize these Tinder moments leave much to the imagination. Sex isn’t necessarily making love. Anatomically, males and females connect but it is what’s between one’s ears that makes sex more than the mere coupling of body parts.

Romance, anticipation, seduction—love —is preferable. Settling for sex is for Philistines. Really.