Learning to Fly & Fuck

In my day job, I am a flight instructor in the military. I teach individuals how to fly and I often ask them, "what is natural about people flying?" As my students search their mind for a possible way that it is, they often reply somewhat quizzically with, "it's not natural". To which I reply, "Exactly. Humans have zero instinct that is useful in flying - we are wholeheartedly land-based creatures. So we have to make up for lack of instinct by building habit patterns." This includes personal study, memorization of limitations and procedures, practicing radio calls with others, using simulators and discussing what will happen during flying for as much time as we actually go flying, going flying with an instructor watching and guiding your every move, and then talking again about what happened during the flight and how to improve the next time. And this focuses not on only how to fly one plane, but on how to communicate and coordinate your movements with other aircraft. All of this is not to learn to prevent failure, as learning an unnatural task is fraught with failure, but this is an exercise in learning from failure.

While copulating and pro-creating are decidedly natural and instinctively aided actions, building a healthy and enduring relationship with another individual is decidedly not. We must make up for lack of instinct by building habit patterns. I wish there was a school for relationships that helped individuals and couples alike build healthy relationship habits - that provide reading material, lectures, practice exercises, simulators, individual sexual events with an instructor, guiding and coaching your movements and debriefing what happened. Eventually moving to couples and group sexual events with instructors to help individuals learn from their relational and sexual missteps.

While this sounds intimidating, awkward and mechanical, the reality is that any pilot will tell you that learning to fly is just that - and I have a hunch that sex is no different and would benefit from concerted development.