This here is one of the least-utilized but most useful applications of classic philosophical texts. While Nietzsche would claim you shouldn’t enjoy S&M and that the man should always be on top, while Kant would claim you can’t find someone beautiful once you’re interested in them, and while Diogenes would claim that all sex should be had on crowded streets and preferably during rush hour, Søren Kierkegaard–the sultry bad boy of the Christian existentialist scene–actually gives us some great bedroom tips.
Try this list out on your beloved, and watch their flustered soul start søren’.
1. Don't be anxious about pregnancy.
Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the story of Abraham reminds us that God is a-OK with abortions– even after the third trimester,as long as you do it on a mountain with a knife, and a reliable voice in your head told you to.
You just gotta be open to calling it off if that voice comes back and tells you it was just joshing.
2. Longevity!
Bad Boy Søren makes a clear case that being a knight of faith will keep you, so to speak, righteously upright well into old age. If it worked for Abraham, who knocked up Ruth when they were both as old as the Bible, it’ll work for you!
3. Consolation...
Your lover just not getting you there? Still hooking up because you’re in love with their beautiful soul? Kierkegaard says in his journals that absurdity is faith explained to a non-believer. How’s that help you?
Well, if you just accept that you’re not gonna get your moment of sweaty rapture till the end times, the absurd distance between you and your unsatisfied dirty parts will let you laugh at the whole sticky situation in a way only an existentialist can.
4. Hope in the face of absurdity.
Of course, if you don’t want to simply accept that the Second Coming will happen before your first—and of course you don’t want to accept that—Spicy Søren’s still got you covered:
Just choose faith in the face of its utter absurdity, like he says, and the satisfaction of the Spirit will lift you up even when your lover’s outside weeping and gnashing their teeth because you didn’t fake it well enough.
5. Acceptance.
Thus spake Childish Gambino: “Every marriage is a same-sex marriage: Same sex every day—monotonous.” But Kinky Kierk tells us that’s exactly where a knight of faith is happiest: Living in the ecstasy of faith, the monotonous is backlit with a divine light and so transformed into eternal satisfaction.
There’s a reason they call it “missionary.”
6. S&M can be great.
If there’s anything we can learn from our boy Scøren Kierkehaard, it’s that fear and trembling ain’t always bad. Being freed from the bondage of a world of absurdity and sin doesn’t mean you can’t take up the renewing bondage of love. As the flagellants (or was it Rihanna?) said, “Chains and whips excite me.”
So next time you’re stricken with a lovesickness unto death, wasting away in fear and trembling at the thought of subpar works of love, think back on these six tips and watch your sex life go from mundane repetition, to spectacularly upbuilding intercourses. Holla.