For the fifth consecutive year, I’m posting my top posts of the period from January to December. For the third time, I’m putting up ten of ‘em (it started with a more modest five); numbers 10 through 6 today, and numbers 5 down to 1 next week. I doubt in the next twenty days I’ll have a post worthy enough to make me want to change this list. I wrote several hundred posts this year, and these are five of the ones of which I am proudest.
10. The enemy of desire is duty: against the 30-Day sex challenge and “Relevant Church†(March 20) Excerpt:
I’ll be candid: I’d rather have great sex with my wife twice a month than average sex every night. And yes, if we push ourselves (out of guilt or duty) to be sexual every bloody night regardless of our physical or emotional state, one or both of us is going to end up sad or resentful or frustrated. Sex, at its best — and in my experience that “best†comes in an atmosphere of deep trust, love, commitment and desire — is soul-affirming as well as spine-tingling. No couple in a long-term relationship has exquisite sex every time. Sometimes it’s ecstatic, and other times, it’s just, well, a nice diversion. But while there’s room in any marriage for great sex and good sex and even “just okay†sex, there is never room for obligatory sex.
9. The longing to “jump the life to comeâ€: some thoughts on Shakespeare, pregnancy scares, contraception, and romantic myths (October 29):
I remember that afterwards, as we lay together, my girlfriend said to me “We shouldn’t have done that, but I’m glad we did.†I nodded solemnly, feeling the anxiety in me grow by the second. “I feel so close to you, nothing between usâ€, she said, and held me tighter. I held her back, noting that though my panic was rising, so too was an enormous sense of calm — as long as she and I were together like this, we could take on the whole world. We could stand on that bank and shoal of time and jump — over everything. We were a team, indivisible and fused for ever. It was a happy feeling. Less than two months later, she had the abortion while I sat grimly in the waiting room of a doctor’s office.
8. Men, Mortality, Stewardship, Love (January 2) Excerpt:
But not only is it important to me that my lifestyle choices be as “cruelty-free†as possible — hence my veganism — it is also my moral obligation to do everything I can to make decisions that will maximize my longevity. I have people in my life who love me and depend upon me. And while I do not expect to live forever, when I do things that might shorten my life I treat my loved ones with callous disregard. This will become doubly true when I become a father. I won’t be a young Dad by any means. Those of us over forty who contemplate parenthood for the first time surely have a special responsibility to do as much as we reasonably can to ensure that we will be around for as long as possible.
7. Hair length, skirt length, body odor and a bulge in the jeans: what we should and shouldn’t say to loved ones (June 10) Excerpt:
If I came from a conservative family in which short skirts were frowned upon, I would share that information with a girlfriend before bringing her home to meet the clan. I wouldn’t make modesty a pre-condition, however. I would also distinguish — and this is crucial — between a temporary change in style out of deference to folks from another culture and a permanent change in style to accomodate a jealous or anxious romantic partner. There is a whopping difference between saying “Honey, I’d rather you not wear a vinyl mini-skirt to Thanksgiving dinner as it just ‘isn’t done’ in my family†and saying “I want you to stop wearing short skirts in public because I don’t want strange men looking at your legs when you go to work or school.†The former is about cultural propriety, the latter is about personal insecurity and sexual control. Sometimes, the line can be a bit fuzzier than this, but if the person making the request is rigorously honest about his or her own motives, we’re getting somewhere.
6. Hating to win more than fearing to lose: on competition, Hell’s Kitchen, and surviving in a broken world of finite rewards (July 9) Excerpt:
There are only so many prizes, so many championships, so many awards available. Some things in this broken world are finite. One of the many reasons why I was such a devout socialist in high school and college was out of a moral objection to brutal competition. Better that all have a little than some have much and others none — that was my reasoning then, and it is often still my emotional reasoning now. My left-wing politics were connected not only to a strong sense of justice but to a horror at the idea of living in a world where one person’s victory must mean another’s defeat. Little wonder that the only sport I’ve ever enjoyed competing in, distance running, is the sport of the single athlete competing against the clock rather than against another human being. And when I play ping-pong now, even in my forties, I still have to fight the tendency to “throw†a game when I am matched against a weaker opponent…