Oo-oo I Feel Like Making Love, Too Yooou

About fifteen years ago I was having a conversation with my doctor about my weekly bladder infection, and the conversation turned into this:

"And when was the last time you made love to your husband?" he asked.

"Um ... we had sex two nights ago."

"And did you drink water before and after you made love?"

"I had some water before we had sex, I believe."

"Made love."

"I'm sorry?"

"Made love."

And because I was young and modest, I said "OH! Yes, we made love," instead of "No, I fucked him till his eyes rolled back in his head" which is what I would have said today because, Doctor, maybe you believe two rutting rhinoceroses can make gentle tender love but I disagree.

So it's time for a poll, and again your anonymity is assured. I'm trying to see if "make love" is an appropriate synonym for "have sex."

I'm not counting foreplay. That can be gentle and tender and loving. But to get the job done, you need to get passionate in ways that aren't what I would call tender, unless perhaps there is a weekly bladder infection involved. I'm not saying violent, I'm not saying painful, I'm just saying the required enthusiasm precludes what I picture "making love" to be.

Then I started thinking, what would that even look like? A "loving" reproductive act would be quiet.  And slow. And lots of eye contact. And possibly a nap during, because I'm sorry, that just doesn't work. I think humans have some boom-chika-wow-wow innate tempo.

What about movies? You'd think I'd have seen an R rated movie with some love-making. The best I could think of was "Out of Africa" with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep - and yes, he tells her not to move. "Don't move." "But I want to move." "Don't move." Robert would have me looking deep into his eyes with a questioning "what type of freak are you?" gaze.

Okay, so do you call what you do making love? And is it?

Comments

[ScottieDawg]

No. that phrase just sounds weird. Sex isn't love, though the two can go together. Plus, it does sound kinda slow and boring. Nothing would really ever get done. By the way, you should watch Fuck- A Documentary. It is, as the title states, a documentary about the word fuck. It is VERY VERY funny. And discusses this issue. Still sad about Steven Page, but coping. Ach.

[Big Dot]

Nookie. Which sounds, and undoubtedly is, a lot less exciting than what you appear to get up to. Sigh.

[Sarah]

I like for my healthcare professionals to refer to everything in the most politically charged, least medical terminology at their disposal. It is the sign of a qualified practitioner.

If my doc doesn't write out "abortion tic tacs" instead of Orthotricyclene on my birth control script, then I'm afraid he's just lost my biz.

[#0.75]

Making love and having sex are two completely different things, although they can happen at the same time.

I need a Venn diagram...

[judibleu]

A euphemism. That's all. No need for alarm.

[stephanie]

We call it many things but never "making love." We always use a verb, but not always the same one (jump, bang, fuck being the top three). I suppose it goes without saying that we aren't exactly romantics over here.

[Kara]

I call it sex. "Make love" sounds so...stupid to me. I do not like those two words together. At all. Ever. BLEH.

So yeah, it's just sex.

[Crystal (Bratcw)]

The only place anyone "makes love" is on soap operas. That's because they can only show the "lovey" portions and not the "down and dirty" ones.

[ajooja]

I don't think the two terms are interchangable. I think "have sex" is the generic term. "Make love" happens is when it's more lovey dovey.

[Sherri]

I'm thinking more that "making love" need not have anything at all to do with penetrative sex. It has other connotations to me, more poetic and not necessarily including an exchange of bodily fluids. In fact, at one time to make love meant to court, to woo, and not to do the horizontal mambo. In fact, you didn't even get naked.

For delicate medical types, I'd suggest dazzling them with Latinate terms. Coitus, I believe, would be the more appropriate. Extra points if they ask you what that means. If you answer with "fucking" and they faint, you get to do a full out victory dance.

[Angie]

"Making love" is such cheesy, harlequin-ny crap. My guy and I usually say we're going to have sex and by the time we get through foreplay, we're going to fuck.

[Faythe]

Inevitably, whatever Ryan and I start out calling it (and neither of us have ever said making love), we wind up fucking.

[Tray Table Stowed]

I...? Um, actually? I have a photo of two rutting rhinocerouses (rhinocerii??) -- we saw a couple going at it at the Berlin Zoo last summer for, like, an HOUR. We went away and came back and they were STILL doing it...and there was nuthin' smooth, tender and luvin' about it!!

"Make love" is a schmoopy thing to say.

P.S. I am very tempted to send you the rutting rhinocerous picture to add to your entry.

[3]

I prefer "Fuck until my socks roll up and down".

[Overflowing Brain]

Not for a doctor. Sexual relations? Yes. Making love? No.

In our house we call it waking up the goose (a joke that only makes sense now that I wrote a blog post about our sex goose).

But seriously, I've never called it making love ever. The whole fun of it is not the 'tender" love stuff.

[styro]

I believe only the elderly "make love." The rest of us go at it like the barely-tame apes that we are.

[gaoo]

"Made love to your husband" seems an awfully personal question for a doctor to ask, especially when what he wants to know is if you Had Sex. Hey, maybe it wasn't even WITH your husband for all the dr. knows. (No offense.)
I recently had to fill out a medical form with the question "Sexually active?" and I just put all these question marks all over the page. He'll have to be a little more specific.

[Gorilla Bananas]

"The rest of us go at it like the barely-tame apes that we are."

You'd enjoy it more if you were wild apes.

[#0.75]

3-Wouldn't it be "down then up"?

[floating princess]

I've always hated the phrase "making love." It sounds like something your mother tells you when she's trying to get you to keep it in your pants and wait for "The One."

I would prefer that my doctor refer to it as sex or intercourse because what business is it of his/hers if it's love or not?

[Hot Mom]

Remember the reference to being "in love in the movies" in Sleepless in Seattle. Movie sex used to be making love. It's what we all expected sex to be like. Passionate, soul-touching, everything-beautiful-and-rainbows, trains-rushing-through-tunnels love.

Then we found out that we rut like monkeys. It can take people years to recover from that.

Now, making love is a nice euphemism we will use with our daughters when they've out grown "private time".

[TheQueen]

ScottieDawg - . Okay, ONE time I got to call the shots in bed instead of Bob Fosse/Gary and we slowed the tempo way down. Gary's comment at the end was "That was great, but we're never doing that again." And, I'm done coping. Things change. Fuck.
Big Dot - Nookie is what Gary says other people have.
Sarah - Snort!
.75 - Or, are you saying making love is sex with someone you love? I imagine women can make love all the way up until climax, but when a man is involved there's a divide between foreplay and sex, even with someone you love.
judibleu - I really am relieved no one is saying "I sob with love every time." Of course, now someone will say it.
Stephanie - Well, that's my point, while it's wild fun, it isn;t romantic. Except for that one time we had sex after six months of separation and it really did make me feel closer to him. Like, screaming "I love you" like a rhinoserous instead of just bellowing. But still, that's one time out of 20 years.
Kara - Maybe in reality it's songwriters and soap opera writers who use that term, just because it fits well with the meter. "Fuck" "Screw" and "bone" are too shor, you get three beats out of making love. And soap opera writers want to fill up time, so they use the longer term.
Crystal - Good point.
ajooja - Ironic that the only people who don't feel that Making Love stops when you start Having Sex are the lesbian and the guy.
Sherri - This is a good point. I've read Jane Austen.
Angie - Perfect. I generally am threatened with fucking in places we've never fucked, just because it sounds less lovey-dovey.
Faythe - Yep, that's my experience too.
Luckybwaygirl - I have often said that I bellow like a rhinoserous. Did the rhinos bellow at the end? It's so unattractive.
3 - Nothing will surpass Liz Phair and "I'll fuck you till your dick is blue."
Overflowing Brain - Love your goose post. Honk!
styro - Hm, so "making love" is reserved for the elderly, lesbians, and people on soap operas.
gaoo - I know. Then again, perhaps in his mind the enthusiastic Having of the Sex approach is what causes the bladder infections, not the slow Making of the Love. Gary and I always feel if I don;t get a bladder infection, then we didn't do it right.
Gorilla Bananas - And you would know! An ape's blog would only stand second to Jesus Christs blog.
.75 - I can check 3's socks next time I see her.
Floating princess - Damn straight. Once I had a doctor refer to my "tummy" too. Perhaps this asshole was in hius own life compartmentalizing - "I make love with my wife, I bang all those other women, it doen't mean anything."
Hot Mom - Ah. So I'll never have to say it.

Summary - While a few lesbians and guys may disagree, thrusting is antithetical to making love.

Oral sex - is that perhaps making love? Maybe that's the answer?

[Caroline]

There's no way oral sex is making love. It's making your partner feel great while trying not to activate your own sensitive gag reflex.

[Elsa]

As a fellow chronic UTI sufferer, I would no sooner use of the phrase "made love" to my doctor (even if so prompted) than I would "made hot monkey funky in the bunky."

There's a wide and wonderful range of Ways For Making The Sex, but my doctor doesn't need to know the emotional content of the activity.

(I popped in here all indignant not only that your doc would steer you away from the clinical precision and toward vague sentiment, but also that s/he assumed your husband was involved... and I see that someone else has already remarked upon it. Who? Oh, MY SISTER. Of course!)

[From the dark side....]

Around here, the man refers to it as 'quality time'. As though the rest of the time he spends w/ me isn't 'quality'? (or because there's more quality than quantity of time, perhaps?) I can't say I'd go to a Dr who insisted on "making love". "Having relationn", ok. "Intercourse", yes. "Making love"? No. (But I'd have been tempted to respond "No, we don't make love because we already have it."