Compare and Contrast
“Sex without Love” & “Last Night”
“Sex without Love” and “Last Night”, both by Sharon Olds, they each have sex in common and while one describes her emotions and feeling when having sex, the other questions how do people have sexual relations without love being present. While both use vivid images to show the disconnections between love and sex, each has a different tone and outcome for the participant having intimate relations. Now a days, the idea of having sex without love is becoming more recognized and people are having sex without love without thinking about it twice. Not everybody is up to it but most people of our generation look at sex like a game and not as something intimate.
“Sex without Love” begins asking the reader a question, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?/” (Love 1-2). She there sets out her main point in writing this poem; how can the make something as beautiful as love without loving each other. She compares making love to that of “beautiful dancers/” (Love2) who are “gliding over each other like ice skaters over the ice/”(Love 2-3). When we then talk about her other poem, “Last Night”, it also provides us with vivid images that show the disconnection between the participants. “Love? It was more like dragonflies/ in the sun, 100 degrees at noon…/” (Night 1-2). She here describes how she felt when she was having sex with that other person, she then goes on to describe how she was having sex. “No kiss,/ no tenderness-more like killing, death grip/ holding to life, genitals/ like violent hands clasped tight/ barely moving, more like being closed/ in a great jaw and eaten/” (Night 12-17). “Sex without Love” provides us with vivid images that show us how she feels when she is having sex with someone she loves while in “Last Night” she describes how she felt while having sex with someone she didn’t love; it was a more rough and emotionless sex.
Then comes the disconnection between love and sex in between the
“Sex without Love” and “Last Night”, both by Sharon Olds, they each have sex in common and while one describes her emotions and feeling when having sex, the other questions how do people have sexual relations without love being present. While both use vivid images to show the disconnections between love and sex, each has a different tone and outcome for the participant having intimate relations. Now a days, the idea of having sex without love is becoming more recognized and people are having sex without love without thinking about it twice. Not everybody is up to it but most people of our generation look at sex like a game and not as something intimate.
“Sex without Love” begins asking the reader a question, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?/” (Love 1-2). She there sets out her main point in writing this poem; how can the make something as beautiful as love without loving each other. She compares making love to that of “beautiful dancers/” (Love2) who are “gliding over each other like ice skaters over the ice/”(Love 2-3). When we then talk about her other poem, “Last Night”, it also provides us with vivid images that show the disconnection between the participants. “Love? It was more like dragonflies/ in the sun, 100 degrees at noon…/” (Night 1-2). She here describes how she felt when she was having sex with that other person, she then goes on to describe how she was having sex. “No kiss,/ no tenderness-more like killing, death grip/ holding to life, genitals/ like violent hands clasped tight/ barely moving, more like being closed/ in a great jaw and eaten/” (Night 12-17). “Sex without Love” provides us with vivid images that show us how she feels when she is having sex with someone she loves while in “Last Night” she describes how she felt while having sex with someone she didn’t love; it was a more rough and emotionless sex.
Then comes the disconnection between love and sex in between the