What if sex didn’t mean anything?

How could the subject that sets people a twittering and guffawing faster than any other not mean anything?

It all depends on what you mean by meaning, according to Gary Douglas, best selling author and founder of Access Consciousness.

“Whenever something means something to us,” he observes, “we give it significance. Whenever you give something significance, you will never be able to create clarity in that area.” Significance, as Douglas defines it, means making something greater and more important than the infiniteness and consciousness that we are. Lack of clarity on the subject of sex seems abundant, as does the significance, importance and meaning we place on the act of copulation and everything associated with it.

Far from making sex less fun, taking the significance out of sex would actually mean putting a lot more joy and playfulness in it, say Douglas and Dr. Dain Heer, his business partner and co-author of Sex Is Not A Four Letter Word But Relationships Often Times Is.

As sex is usually done here, Douglas and Heer say, it always means something. Douglas has distilled this meaning into something he calls the 1-2-3 rule. “The first time you have sex, it’s for fun; the second time, you’re in relationship; the third time, it’s for marriage.” Whether this rule surfaces into your consciousness for even a second, this rule governs your behavior and expectations. It’s a succinct illustration of how we attribute meaning to sex.

What would sex look like if it had no meaning? For one thing, there would be no relationship expectations attached to it. Having sex could be as casual and non-entangling as a casual game of Frisbee-and with no greater expectations of a phone call in the morning.

Sex without significance would be sex without trauma and drama. What if instead of being something meaningful, sex were like a game of Frisbee? How much anger from unmet expectations do you have in a game of Frisbee? Sex without significance would be sex without judgment. Do you care how well you perform in a game of Frisbee? If things go wildly differently than you expect, everyone laughs and it’s part of the game. What would it be like if sex were like that?

Sex without significance would be sex without caring if you played Frisbee with that particular person or group ever again. Don’t you have full confidence that you could always find somebody to play Frisbee with if that’s what you really most desired to do at any given time? And if the people you played Frisbee with yesterday play with someone else today, is that a problem for you?

We can play Frisbee for the fun of it and for no other reason. When we can have sex for the fun of it and for no other reason, we may be getting close to a place where we place no significance on sex.