Matt Joseph Diaz

Happy Monday, Ravishers!

Being a "nice guy" has become an excuse for unacceptable behavior in romantic relationships. Matt says enough is enough. It's time for honesty to take the place of kindness with ulterior motives.

When you go through a difficult, traumatic, or transformative experience, there’s a part of you that wants to hold onto the person you were before it happened. You try so hard to hold onto a simpler time–a time when things weren’t so scary. But you can’t.

I’m not writing this in order to get defensive about my number of partners, by the way. I’ve had sex with around 25 people since the end of 2012 and I’m perfectly proud of and comfortable with that number. However, asking someone you’re dating about how many people they’ve slept with is a question meant to make them feel ashamed.

Dear 16-Year-Old, 500 Pound Matt,

From a young age, people (especially women) are constantly taught that we’re in competition with one another. Whether it’s our grades, our social status, our economic status, or those creepy beauty pageants for 6 year olds, we’re immediately thrust into a world where we’re taught to view everyone as adversarial to a certain degree.

You are not where you're from, and you are not your environment.

I've long considered myself a collector of failed relationships. From the girlfriend I asked out during a bar crawl and dated for eight days to the conservative Christian who thought her love was “saving me from a life of debauchery,” I actually gained a little pride from my list of failed love affairs. However, while these relationships were problematic, what made them “failures?”

Sex is an activity. It’s something we can choose to do or not do — and the passion, the love, the intimacy, those are all different qualities we can ascribe to it based on how it happens and who it’s with. Sex doesn’t have any inherent morality or intimacy, it’s solely about those involved.

The “you” who opens their eyes in the morning isn’t the same “you” lays down their head in that bed that night. In those few hours of consciousness you have more exposure to life, you experience a world of compassion and cruelty that has the potential to change the trajectory of your entire life.