Isn’t it strange how you sometimes set out to write about one thing and then suddenly find yourself veering off into directions that you had not even considered?
This week has been an interesting one, to say the least. I have been confronted, and confronted in my own mind, with a myriad of thoughts, beliefs, understandings, desires, challenges, arousals, anthropologies around sex and relationships on a deeply personal level as well as a more objective stance.
Two people very close to me, who have no idea about my journey to sexual enlightenment, have asked me my views about the Sexualisation Report that I wrote about in my last blog. I reiterated my concerns about the report and the fact that it was not dealing with the core issue of our total disregard for the need to look at and discuss sex logically, impartially and rationally in this country.
In addition to this, I have been through every sort of thought about my own sexuality, my sexual relationships and how I can change from the theoretical to the practical as far as living with the reality of what my own sexual journey is all about.
In some ways it is hard. In others, it has been relatively easy, and much easier than I had foreseen. But there is always something that challenges. How we use that challenge, how we grow with it is a vital part of our journey, and although it may be difficult at times, I don’t want to come to a “stop” sign or a “divert back to where you started” half way through my journey.
I’ve come too far along this road. I’ve got a hell of a lot of travelling still to do but I know that ultimately the answer to mine and many others frustrations with sex and relationships is to move far, far away from what we accept as the norm in society today.
And we need to do this collectively if we are going to make a lasting difference to society and indeed to our own personal wellbeing.
Exclusivity, monogamy, eternal and everlasting love are just pipedreams and imaginations from someone somewhere back in history who have, in their insistence in this false mode of living, created a mammoth amount of unnecessary suffering to the indoctrinated masses throughout time.
Having one partner, who above all other partners, provides one with a seemingly ceaseless amount of love, understanding, affection is not unachievable. There is no reason in the world why we cannot have a single person in our lives who fulfils most of our desires, but, and this is such an ignored “but” – but it doesn’t mean that the partners, either one of them, stops being sexual beings, stops being who they are, and in the case of alpha males and alpha females, there has to be an appreciation even in the closest of relationships that we need to look, touch, imagine, feel, be sexually explicit with and sexually aware of other people.
There is no detraction if only people, including myself, would understand that.
I’m getting there!
Having said that, non-exclusivity does not preclude longevity. I am now beginning to think that one could have a long-term partner, even a life partner in a non-exclusive relationship as long as there was honesty, openness and understanding between all involved. It is possible and I am actually rather excited about the prospect, not just for me but for everyone.
This is NOT a pipedream. It could happen.
No way! I can hear half the married folk around the country and indeed the world screaming. Marriage and monogamy is the way. Polygamy, polyamory creates mistrust, deceit, disaffection.
If you look at it narrowly, then yes, it will create all of these negative situations and feelings. If you allow a little more openness about yourself and your partner, then it will be fine.
Even the closest of marriages that I have known in my life, and some of them have been incredibly close to me, there has always, without fail, been a time within the marriage when one person or another has had the audacity to look and even touch. It has created such a problem whereas if we were all a little bit honest about the hopelessness of trying to be something as a species that we are not, then I seriously think the world would be a happier place.
Can you imagine living in a world where there was no envy at all, about anything? Would it dissolve into anarchy? I hope so!
Marina does it again! Well nearly, because she falls slightly short of suggesting out and out polyamorous or polyandrous existences but she says that all the indiscretions of a sexually nature that confront our world and the people are in it largely stem from the fact that we ignore the instinctive nature of sexuality. Well she doesn’t quite say that either but I think that is what she means.
How long could Ryan Giggs, for instance, ignore the screaming adorations of pussies full of desire that threw themselves at his aroused body parts? The man is............ a man! End of! He is a human being with human instincts and human desires, just as Tiger Woods was before him, just as so many people have been in the past, in the present and will sadly (due to the lack of forethought within our society) in the future too.
I want to just look at a few snippets from her writing and elaborate some of her points.
Could it be that Weiner et al really didn't give it much thought, and just succumbed to the temptation of a quick shag – virtual or otherwise?
Yes! That is precisely what happened! The aforementioned US Congressman posted a “lewd” photo of himself, I assume, on Twitter. He was aroused, he was excited, he may have been cajoled by the lust or desire for a hot woman. He acted instinctively. He acted sexually and yet, with the passing of time, he felt a need to be appalled at himself.
When are we going to stop being appalled by our own natural sexuality?
When are we going to stop being threatened by the natural sexuality of our partners?
Whether the tendency towards time-worn pratfalls is one of those notional qualities that separates us from the animals, I don't know. Perhaps an ethologist would get in touch and enlighten us as to whether an alpha male lion might "risk it all" by flirting with an outsider, or sparing a gazelle, or whatever would make him feel obliged to deliver a shamefaced press conference to the rest of the pride?
And automatically, there is an assumption from the author that any sexual misdemeanour is a “prat fall”.
Is it? Or is it our insistence that we do not act or allow others to act instinctively that is the real prat-fall?
I’ve been there in my mind, this week. How could the alpha-male “risk it all”? Whereas what I should probably have been asking is something more akin to “how can the alpha female see it as risking all”? All he is doing is being honest about his own sexuality? Or even more to the point, why does it have to be seen as “risking it all”? If the honesty and openness is maintained............. and there lies another story.
I’ve been there in my mind, this week. How could the alpha-male “risk it all”? Whereas what I should probably have been asking is something more akin to “how can the alpha female see it as risking all”? All he is doing is being honest about his own sexuality? Or even more to the point, why does it have to be seen as “risking it all”? If the honesty and openness is maintained............. and there lies another story.
Is arrogance really the right term?(in thinking that someone could get away with sexual ‘indiscretion’ which might not be an indiscretion at all – ZP) Surely "temporary suspension of disbelief in the possession of an erection" is fairer?
This language is already divisive. It implies it may be wrong to be ruled by the erect cock; “temporary suspension of disbelief”. Some might scream “arrogance” at the likes of Bill Clinton. Others more kindly state that they just lost sight and were ruled temporarily by their dicks. Whereas wouldn’t a more honest approach be - they were ruled by their dicks and there was nothing temporary about it whatsoever.
And then Ms Hyde shows some enlightenment.
To overthink Mr Weiner's failure to give his actions sufficient thought is to miss the point entirely.
Mr. Weiner et al didn’t think because that was not the part of their intelligence or the part of their body that was taking precedence at the time. It is exactly the same with power. It is not arrogance that makes our politicians feel invincible. It is not that they are ruled temporarily by a force beyond them. They just act. They just do. And a lack of other intelligent responses is just that. One more significant instinctual response overrides all – logical and illogical, thoughtful and thoughtless.
The very best responses, of course, are mindful of our whole intelligent beings and learn instinctively to consider all of them in their response to everything in their lives.
Bizarrely, though, love-rattery is increasingly viewed as some kind of psychiatric affliction, as opposed to a straight-up moral failure.
And this is a huge issue. Let’s get them all down to the sex clinic because this overt sexuality can’t be normal? Can it? The whole idea of sexual dalliances being a moral failure has, apart from the churchies amoungst us, limped away. Cecil Parkinson may actually have retained his job but then again, he was allegedly taking a moral high ground, and if you are going to be honest about your sexuality you cannot pretend to be something that you aren’t (!).
So okay, if we are looking at this half full – one could argue that we have moved away from out and out condemnation of those who have strayed to a stance of feeling a little sorry for them for their ‘problem’. So may be in our evolving world the next step might be to acknowledge that they are merely acting on their sexual instinct and we should embrace this without fear or insecurity in our lives?
I am, of course, hypothesising. And the reality for all of us is far different, such is the mixed emotions, indoctrination and lack of – well maybe self-belief!
But this is important. Neither some horrendous affliction or a moral failure is the real answer to someone dipping or wanting to dip their wick elsewhere. There is an obvious next step, and that is to simply accept that it happens, that it is not temporary, that nobody is trying to hurt anyone in being instinctive etc etc etc.
Adultery is becoming viewed as a crime against the rest of us, as opposed to a betrayal of the spouse.
Pathetic isn’t it? I really couldn’t give a toss who is fucking who as long as there is a level of human respect maintained. As long as nobody is lost in the proceedings. But Marina accidentally hits on another issue. Even if adultery is now seen as everyone’s business, at the core of it, there is still this issue of betrayal. Previously in the article, she insinuated that such actions are without thought, malicious or otherwise, so how can that be a true betrayal if it wasn’t planned, thought out etcetera?
And in some cases, like my own this week, there cannot be a betrayal by nature of the relationship but there is also the possibility that any sort of “betrayal” as others might see it is planned, is considered, is thought out, together with the impact that it may have on others. The act of fucking another person other than the main partner in your life could be considered. It may not be an instinctive action. Does this make it worse? Or does it make it better that the person who is fucking others has made a considered decision, weighing up their needs with (not instead of) the needs of others? Is that wrong? Is it really a betrayal? Or is it actually quite thoughtful?
Complicated eh, Marina? And indeed others.
The good news for those who like a bit of scandal is that human beings – and even that fairly closely related species, politicians – are mostly incapable of learning from others' mistakes.
The real news is that we need to learn from others’ mistakes. We need to learn from our own. We need to be considerate. We need to learn from the huge mistakes our ancestors made in looking at sex and marriage without considering the instinctual intelligence of sex.
I wish to goodness somebody had told me about all of this years ago.
There are some great comments in response to this piece on the Guardian website.
But there is one, right at the beginning that caught my eye, and somehow makes a point in its naivity.
It says that Robin Williams had a comment on all of this sexual indiscretion.
“God gave men both a penis and a brain, but unfortunately not enough blood supply to run them both at the same time”.
Let’s take God aside. The commentator says that this statement is absolutely true.
I disagree. I am fortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of cock and brain working simultaneously thank you very much, and I feel it is a real indictment on men to suggest to the contrary. However, this statement shows just how far we are away from seeing sexuality as an all-encompassing thing that embraces all manner of intelligences.
I disagree. I am fortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of cock and brain working simultaneously thank you very much, and I feel it is a real indictment on men to suggest to the contrary. However, this statement shows just how far we are away from seeing sexuality as an all-encompassing thing that embraces all manner of intelligences.
The penis and the brain can work simultaneously. The penis can’t really work without the brain at all, even if it is acting instinctively, there is an element of brain power there somewhere just to get the damn thing moving!
It’s time we explored this properly.
Another commentator said something that might hit more of a reality point.
“The stiffie can cloud the mind for a few minutes, but it takes love to really screw up your perception of reality”.
Oh dear, how bloody true!
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