Sex Without Love

Sex. The word can arouse excitement, shame, lust or embarrassment

in people, depending on their outlook on the subject matter. To some people, sex is just a natural way to pleasure yourself and another. These people tend to be very open about sex and do not pass judgment on another's sexual affairs. Majority of the world however, bend towards the religious belief that sex is sacred; a gift from our creator to allow us to create life through ourselves. They regard sex as personal, private and destined to be shared but with one other person. History remembers for us, the consequences of premarital sex, adultery and prostitution. All of which were announced illegal, and women who engaged in such activities were destined to a death sentence. Such same judgment is still dominant in modern society, where prosititution is illegal, adultery in marriage

rewards the wronged party with damages and premarital sex that only constitutes to young, single mothers most surely fated to live on welfare for most of their lives.

For better or for worse, for carefree pleasure or intense love, these poets express their personal takes on casual sex. We first look at Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", where he engages in coaxing a young girl into premarital sex. We then listen to Millay's ironic reminiscent longing for a love she never had, and yet had so many lovers, in "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed". And lastly, Olds' "Sex without love" where the passionate describes the selfish, methodical works of the ones who make love without love.

Marvell comes off as sweet and amiable at first with phrases such as, "...Love ten years before the flood, and you should, if you please, refuse till the conversion of the Jews..." in his poem, "To His Coy Mistress". Promising the young girl that he would love her a very long time before they ever engaged in intercourse. He continues on explaining to her that he would love her with or without sex, that he loves her so dearly he would be willing to take things slowly, to wait for her if she wished. The author is sweet and melodious in his wordings. But after this promise of his love and respecting her wishes to wait, he dramatically turns the tempo of this poem with anxiousness to his true endeavor: premarital sex. It becomes clear that Marvell wants to wait for no other moment than NOW. He continues on, not of sweet promises of love but with frightening pictures of the fate that is destined to them both if she continues to have him wait. The horror of their rotting bodies is such a contrast to his sweet promises of eternal love and praise. After this morbid and grotesque picture, Marvell eloquently transitions back into his original sweet voice with the beautiful images of their "youthful hue that sits on their skin like morning due..." Very slyly, it seems that Marvell has discovered a method at convincing young girls to forfeit their virginity. Marvell makes sweet promises and uses charm to win her over, then scares her with the idea of growing old from waiting too long. In the last and final verses, he is virtuous in his and her victory of their decision, that they had won over the deadly fate of time. Marvell would rather enjoy the lovely fruits available to him while he is still young and beautiful, than wait for the day that it would be not be regarded as sinful.

Millay's poem, "What lips my lips have kissed" has a soft, almost ghostly feel to it. Her voice is sad and sweet, regretful almost and lonely. Like Marvell, it seems that in her youth, she too regarded sex casually and experienced it to her every whim and liking. But it seems that all was in vain, for now she asks herself, "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why..." It's almost as if she regrets doing the things she had done, she doesn't

seem to understand why she would have been so foolish as to have done them. It is evident that by the end of the poem, Millay has recognized her sexual ventures as temporary moments of bliss. She asks herself, "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why". She states that she had forgotten the men she had slept with but it seems as if they haunt her and leave her lonely. She wants that feeling of companionship. She uses the metaphor of the birds visiting a tree but didn't

even notice that one by one they seemed to have vanished, leaving it standing lonely in the cold; like herself. And she tortures herself for not remembering those lads, that they were that unimportant to her. She does not know what had happened to them or why she did it, all she knows is that she was once happy, an artificial