`` Sex Without Love `` By Sharon Olds

Love through relationships can be represented in many ways, for example romantic love and platonic love. In “A Bolt of White Cloth” by Leon Rooke, the couple has many types of love relationships. The wife loves her husband in a passionate way, the wife also has a deep connection and love for their cat that passed away. A relationship with a child is also mention by the man, however we soon discover they are unable to conceive. The evil apparent in the relationship with the cat is death, death by the actions of mankind. When the man inquires about their love and what they have loved, the woman replies, “Last year this time I had me a fourth, but it got run over. Upon the road there, by the time tall trees, by a man who didn’t even stop” (Rooke 3). Even after the passing of the cat the women's love was unconditional, it states, “She’d dug a grave under the grapevine and said sweet words over it. She sorely missed the cats” (Rooke 3). Death is inevitable, someday the passing of our loved ones will come. Death of the cat symbolizes the evil present in their love relationships.

Sex has been reduced to a common action with no social bindings and it is not a gesture of showing love for someone else as people think of it today. When will today’s society be consumed with only the physical aspect of sex? With all of the premarital sex and the age of becoming sexually active decreasing every generation, it leaves a question to be answered; where did the value of love and responsibility of partnership go? Monogamy, in “Brave New World“, is unheard of and taboo to everyone except those who see how powerful love is. The connection that unites people is reduced to a competition to see how many times people have it rather than which the person is. In the book, John knows the importance of love and even resists the temptation to have sex with Lenina. John is among a few people who have not been reduced to mating animals but rather humans that still feel a need for love and companionship.

Charlotte Mew explores the theme of lack of intimacy during the course of her poem, The Farmers Bride. Various techniques are used to represent the stilted relationship the speaker and his ‘maid’ succumb to. Likewise, The Manhunt, written by Simon Armitage uses various metaphors and semantic fields of war and anguish to illustrate the speaker’s yearning to ‘feel the hurt’ her partner is experiencing and take the pain away. Although, the ambiguous ending doesn’t satisfy this.

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker, a twelve-year-old girl, is instantly gripped by a strong feeling of lust toward this mysterious seventeen-year-old boy: the paperboy. She even goes on to describe him as a “gift. A fluke from God” as if she believes that she and this boy are destined to be together (2). From her vantage point, the girl instantly notices the boy’s physical characteristics, traits which the young girl appears to admire when she describes the boy’s “bicep in the twilight” (3). This intense, love-at-first-sight reaction to the boy’s arm shows how irrational the girl’s feelings are. She seems to simply lust after the idea of him. The girl has “no memory of language” from their nightly encounters, further showing how this “relationship” was merely visual and very one-sided (6). The boy, potentially, never even notices the girl; and if he does, he does not acknowledge her presence, let alone her strong emotions. The only memories the girl has are from “loitering, lingering far past curfew,” times in which she merely stares at the boy while he completes his daily paper route (7). The girl's depictions of her mother "lost in steam, stirring" and her father "asleep beside his Manhattan, the half-read mail" almost puts the reader directly into the house. The girl, meanwhile, lost her in her emotions, wanders around her yard "without knowing what I longed for" (16). The parents, both focused on other activities, leave the twelve-year-old speaker to do as she pleases in the night.

One of the norms Kincaid questions is virginity, whether sex is actually meaningful, that it could be enjoyable without the feeling of love. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Lucy is new to what a sexual relationship could have

"Sex Without Love" by Sharon Olds describes how some can have sex without love. They feel that they do not need to have a connection with each other to have sex. I notice that she is viewing from the opposite side. The voice she uses in the poem is not against it, moreover, trying to make it clear. She questions and explains with illustrations for her and her readers to comprehend it.

What does love have to do with sex? Sex is always considered a taboo and controversial topic, whereas most think they know something about love, and they’re more than willing to give others “unwanted” free advice. However, very few people talk about both in depth together. “Last Night” by Sharon Olds and “Seniors” by Alberto Rios cover a variety of topics, but most importantly they both cover love and sex. More specifically, they cover both what the male and female thoughts are about sex, what their expectations are during the act, and where love comes into play. Both speakers are memorializing their past experiences, the experiences between the two are exceedingly different. Both poems have very similar intentions,

I think that during the end of the first stanza the poet starts to become quite theatrical. "Yet this enjoys it before it woo, And pamper'd swells in one blood made of two; And this, alas! Is more than we would do." This could be referring to sex.

How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, Gliding over each other like ice-skaters inside each other’s bodies, faces red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth, whose mothers are going to the give them away” (line 1-7). That’s the description that Sharon Olds gives of the two that are having intercourse, but without love. She gives many descriptions of a pair of people that are bonded together to show how close the two are and a great description of what it might look like in the bedroom. The speaker of this poem could be Olds, but it could also be someone who is watching someone creep on their spouse. The poem takes place in a hot steamy bedroom as two people are having intercourse, but they aren’t in love. While these two people are having sex someone is speaking their mind on the two who are having intercourse together because they are not married and nor are they in love. In “Sex without Love” Sharon Olds use of the situation and similes to build the theme of understanding why the two are in the wrong.

Sharon Olds’ poem “Sex Without Love” wonders at the ability for two people to have sex and not involve emotions or pretenses of love. The poem argues that it is better to have sex without love under the premise that love is a false savior for people, and everyone is all alone anyhow. In other words, the claim is that personal interactions do not serve a purpose other than being a distraction, and they will inevitably end. However, the notion that attachment and love are false hopes for people and each person is all alone does not account for the inevitability of human interactions and the underlying importance of relationships. While the poem does not give its definition of being alone, complete isolation is virtually impossible and leads

Andrew Marvell writes an elaborate poem that not only speaks to his coy mistress but also to the reader. He suggests to his coy mistress that time is inevitably ticking and that he (the speaker) wishes for her to act upon his wish and have a sexual relationship. Marvell simultaneously suggest to the reader that he/she must act upon their desires, to hesitate no longer and ³seize the moment?before time expires. Marvell uses a dramatic sense of imagery and exaggeration in order to relay his message to the reader and to his coy mistress. The very first two lines of the poem suggest that it would be fine for him and his mistress to have a slow and absorbing relationship but there simply isn¹t enough

'Sex Without Love,' by Sharon Olds passionately described the author's disgust for casual sex in which she vividly animates the immorality of lustful sex through the variety of her language. The sarcasm used in this selection can easily be misunderstood and quite confusing if the words and lines are not analyzed with specific construction. Olds' clever use of imagery and frequent uses of similes, to make the reader imagine actual events, makes this poem come to life. For example, Olds describes making love as 'Beautiful as dancers.' (Line #2) in this line, she questions how one can do such a beautiful act with a person whom one is not in love with. Olds also describes sex as 'gliding over each other

The poem “Sex Without Love” written by Sharon Olds is a poem about how people who do not love each other still manage to have sex. She begins with the question many people ask, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?”, which immediately gets readers intrigued and to contemplate the question at hand. The author’s use of imagery allows the reader to feel like he/she is actually experiencing the contemplation that Olds is experiencing. Many people argue that sex without love is not morally correct and that it can often give off a negative reputation for many people. However, some people believe the opposite and think that no prior connection is required to have sex. Sex is a very interesting topic because it stirs up many different conversations and opinions. According to Sharon Olds poem, people should have meaningful sex and connections with other humans rather than empty, careless relationships. Most people today prefer having the easy, casual relationship that does not require the extra work entailed in a loving relationship. Olds is able to use imagery, religion and metaphors to express her dislike towards loveless sex.

The third stanza goes on to define the pain, only now in more emotional terms, such as "It hurts to thwart the reflexes / of grab, of clutch" (14-15), as well as the pain of continuously having to say good bye, each perhaps as if for the last time: "to love and let / go again and again" (15-16). These lines reinforce the impression that the first stanza's definition of "to love differently" is in fact an anti-freedom or state of emotional anarchy, now using words like "pester" to describe any separation; the poet is compelled "to remember / the lover who is not in the bed" (16), hinting at obsessive tendencies as being possible components of the relationship. We also learn that she believes love requires work, which she cannot do without her partner's assistance, and that this lack of cooperation frustrates her. She believes this neglected effort is the other party's fault by his failure to do his fair share, thereby leaving her own efforts ineffective, the whole of it characterized as an effort "that gutters like a candle in a cave / without air" (19-20). Her demands of this work are quite broad, encompassing being "conscious, conscientious and concrete" in her efforts and optimistically calling this work "constructive" (20-21) before ending the stanza.

Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, written by Olivia Judson, mimics a Dear Abby column in a newspaper, in which her audience, ranges from a honeybee to spotted hyena, write-in and ask for help with their sex lives. She covers a slew of different sex topics, some more pleasant than others, such as incest, cannibalism, promiscuousness, and asexual reproduction. The book is truly a witty yet entertaining excursion of the natural history and the evolutionary biology of sex. Judson’s objective is to teach her audience about biology, specifically sexual biology.