More Sex Less Violence?

Ok, maybe that title got your attention? Do people think about sex a lot? I am not sure if I do or don't.

I think the idea of thinking about it has been scared out of me.

And sometimes I question my own mind. When I see a couple of guys taking out guns and firing away on a TV show, I seldom look away. In fact, I am pulled in. It doesn't alarm me that someone is going to die, lose breath, never live again. Have I become numb? Am I getting off on the violence?

Last night, I watched an episode of Black Bird. There was a prison riot. Men were literally bashing each other's heads in. There was blood on the floor. I watched and never looked away.

When the sex scene came on, though, earlier, I have to admit, I was embarrassed and I couldn't watch the guy performing anal sex on the girl. Somehow it was not sexy. It felt violent.

And so I am thinking about sex I have seen on TV and feeling like a lot of it was not tender or expressive or slow. Or Intimate. No, it felt more animalistic and like relieving an urge.

Is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so.

Still, the portrayal doesn't feel deep (excuse the pun) or very real.

I think I see, read, hear about, view more violence than ... let's say... love-making.

I hear threats. Of war. Of extinction. Of devastation. Of horror.

I hear pleas for help. I see degradation.

Where do I look if I want to see and feel love?

Dog and cat videos, maybe.

But not DC or Marvel Comic movies. Not murder docs or detective stories.

God. Everything feels amped up to me sometimes.

And that takes me to what I do. Making music.

I don't want to be violent. And I have no idea how I would be sexy. I don't think you can BE sexy. I think maybe you just are that.

Where do I end? Well, I have this desire to find something sincere. And I don't know what that is. I can't put it into words well. It happens in a moment. It is a response to something. But it is not angry, mean, violent, sarcastic.

It is just gentle in some way, and maybe subtle.

I think that the moment comes upon you, and there you are. Responding inside of it. Not planned. Just happens. The realest things just happen that way. The trust in that is the intimacy.

I dream of making intimate recordings and performing in shows that just unfold and happen, engaging the performers and the audience in some trance-like moment that feels like love.

Just a respite from the agony of the almost always available violence.

If music could be, as Bob Dylan says, "shelter from the storm."

That kind of group hug feels good.

Real, and what the world needs now?