The Jam Session Model of Sex only works for a minority
The Jam Session Model of Sex, brilliantly described by Karen B. K. Chan, tries to model a sexual encounter between two (or more) people as a musical jam session. In a musical jam session, people of differing musical abilities, talents, and skills get together and play together. Jazz is the pre-eminent genre of the jam session, in which experience, knowledge, talent and practice are all merged into an exchange between players in which each tries to both collaborate on making interesting and entertaining music, and show off their own skill when the jam comes around to them. Jam sessions are both collaborative and competitive, and in the very best sessions the senior partners show off partly to encourage the less experienced musicians to learn something new and try harder.
The biggest problem with trying to apply the Jam Session Model to sex is right in front of us: jam sessions only happen among musicians. Chan says you have bring your instruments and your talent. But you also have to bring something else: your willingness to participate, and participate fairly.
Do you remember Home Economics class? I do. You don't learn about personal finance1. You learn mostly about food preparation. You learn how to cook. You learn baking, and sautee'ing, and knife skills. Two-thirds of the people who take that class never learn to cook for themselves. They go through their entire lives unfamiliar with a mandoline, a Kitchen-Aid, or a wafflemaker.
Cooking only happens among cooks. Omaha and I both cook. When we collaborate on a big dinner project, which isn't as often as I'd like in our busy lives: "Can you take over? I have to..." "What spices could I add...?" "What's the ratio between...?" Knowledge, experience, talent, and a willingness to work together to acheive the pleasure of a great meal all go into making food.
You can already see where I'm going with this. Try to imagine teaching a collaborative, playful, honorably competitive and openly communicative human sexuality to a bunch of sixteen year olds. Go ahead, try. Not only would their parents' heads explode, but even if you suceeded, you'd end up with a success rate about the same as Home Ec: Maybe a third would take anything away with them.
You have to like sex, and have a desire to deliberately practice it, in order for the Jam Session Model to work for you, and you have to have other people to play along with who also like sex and have a desire to practice with you. (The nice thing about sex and cooking is that deliberate practice in those pursuits isn't nearly as onerous as it is with say music or drawing.)
For millenia, human societies have been structured around power-law systems in which the vast majority of our ancestors found themselves constrained by law and custom. They had no choice about whether or not to have children, especially the women. Law and custom forced them into relationships, and forced them into arrangments that did not actually make many people happy. Our ancestors rarely had a wide variety of foods, and often didn't have enough.
Today, we have cooks and musicians. We have epicures and record collectors. We have folks who eat fast food and listen to whatever's on the radio. And there are even people who find giving a damn about food or music a chore and a bother.
We're going to need resources for all of these categories sexually. I, and I suspect Chan, and a lot of people who follow me, are in the first category. We like to create great sexual events. But we need a category for those people who just want to have sex without all the fuss and bother. And another for those who just want to get off.
Like I said, the Jam Session Model works for me... but I'm at one end of a spectrum of human sexuality. And not one anywhere near mainstream, sadly.
1 This is mostly due to Eleanor Roosevelt. America was just beginning to modernize: refrigerators and electric ovens were just beginning to infiltrate mid-size cities. America needed a program to teach women how to use these things. "Home Economics" was the art and discipline of using the home efficiently.
The biggest problem with trying to apply the Jam Session Model to sex is right in front of us: jam sessions only happen among musicians. Chan says you have bring your instruments and your talent. But you also have to bring something else: your willingness to participate, and participate fairly.
Do you remember Home Economics class? I do. You don't learn about personal finance1. You learn mostly about food preparation. You learn how to cook. You learn baking, and sautee'ing, and knife skills. Two-thirds of the people who take that class never learn to cook for themselves. They go through their entire lives unfamiliar with a mandoline, a Kitchen-Aid, or a wafflemaker.
Cooking only happens among cooks. Omaha and I both cook. When we collaborate on a big dinner project, which isn't as often as I'd like in our busy lives: "Can you take over? I have to..." "What spices could I add...?" "What's the ratio between...?" Knowledge, experience, talent, and a willingness to work together to acheive the pleasure of a great meal all go into making food.
You can already see where I'm going with this. Try to imagine teaching a collaborative, playful, honorably competitive and openly communicative human sexuality to a bunch of sixteen year olds. Go ahead, try. Not only would their parents' heads explode, but even if you suceeded, you'd end up with a success rate about the same as Home Ec: Maybe a third would take anything away with them.
You have to like sex, and have a desire to deliberately practice it, in order for the Jam Session Model to work for you, and you have to have other people to play along with who also like sex and have a desire to practice with you. (The nice thing about sex and cooking is that deliberate practice in those pursuits isn't nearly as onerous as it is with say music or drawing.)
For millenia, human societies have been structured around power-law systems in which the vast majority of our ancestors found themselves constrained by law and custom. They had no choice about whether or not to have children, especially the women. Law and custom forced them into relationships, and forced them into arrangments that did not actually make many people happy. Our ancestors rarely had a wide variety of foods, and often didn't have enough.
Today, we have cooks and musicians. We have epicures and record collectors. We have folks who eat fast food and listen to whatever's on the radio. And there are even people who find giving a damn about food or music a chore and a bother.
We're going to need resources for all of these categories sexually. I, and I suspect Chan, and a lot of people who follow me, are in the first category. We like to create great sexual events. But we need a category for those people who just want to have sex without all the fuss and bother. And another for those who just want to get off.
Like I said, the Jam Session Model works for me... but I'm at one end of a spectrum of human sexuality. And not one anywhere near mainstream, sadly.
1 This is mostly due to Eleanor Roosevelt. America was just beginning to modernize: refrigerators and electric ovens were just beginning to infiltrate mid-size cities. America needed a program to teach women how to use these things. "Home Economics" was the art and discipline of using the home efficiently.