Sharon Olds Sex Without Love

The poem “Sex without Love,” by Sharon Olds is intriguing such that it gives the reader the chance interpret it at many levels. It harbors a range of possible experiences, depending on the depth and perception of the reading. At face value, this poem seems to be one that talks about sex and the narrator’s disapproval of casual sex. Yet, if the reader further analyzes it, they find waiting for them an actual experience through the words, a feeling of awe, and a message of body and soul. One of the numerous levels of this poem is of the narrator’s initial response to sex without love. She does not seem to be scolding or preaching to those who have it. In fact, the narrator uses words that interpret the act of sex alone as being beautiful even if there is no love involved in the equation. The
She is instead saying that in the end, no one has any more than they are themselves. The lines “just factors, like the partner/in the bed, and not the truth, which is the/single body alone in the universe/against its own best time,” portray just how alone people are in the world. When it comes right down to it, there is nothing but one body and the best it has experienced. Everything else, the mind and soul, are meaningless lies, so if the best has to come from sex without love, then that’s where it has to come from, even if the participants “they know they are alone.” The poem also seems like Olds’ search for the answer to how to do it without love. She writes “How do they come . . . and not love/the one who came there with them,” which shows she has no idea how to do what the loveless lovers can do. She is amazed at the way they are able to set aside everything that is traditionally linked to lovemaking so as to be able to enjoy the simplicity of the pleasure. She wants to experience the pleasure, even if it is comprised of selfish lies. She knows she will still be alone, but wants it