Societies Struggling with Sex

Yesterday, I listened to Nawal El Saadawi  on “Woman’s Hour” and felt a great sense of warmth and appreciation for the woman and the fact that there are still some people out there in the big, bad world who have a true understanding of the need to sort this societal sex block out once and for all.

Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian writer who has dedicated her life, through her writing, to fight against the suppression of women and their sexuality, particularly with regard to the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM).

What a woman!

“If you are creative, you must be dissident” she says (I like to think that this is precisely what Zenpuss is doing through her writing too) and how true this has been for el Saadawi throughout her years of campaigning and becoming herself through her writing. She has spent time in prison for her views and her actions, has resolutely adhered to her principles and done the most immense favours for woman around the world as well as in Egypt, where the practice of FGM was finally made illegal in 2008.

Not, unfortunately, that the illegality of the practice has outlawed it completely. Nowadays, according to el Saadawi, young women throughout the country are still being circumcised in what she describes as a “deep seated habit”.
But she continues to fight and continues to protest against the patriarchal society that she was born within.

During the interview, she talked about the inequity of a system which enables and allows and legitimises polygamy. According to her, in Egypt, it is perfectly acceptable for a man to have multiple partners but if a woman is found to be polyamorous, within or out of a marriage, then she is in serious danger; outcast by society and even imprisoned for her lewdness. The only way to ensure that women stay monogamous is to circumcise them so that they do not get the sort of sexual pleasure that might make them stray from the man that they have agreed to honour monogamously for the rest of their lives.

(Just a small aside, and I clearly do not know enough about FGM but does the cutting of the clitoris prevent vaginal orgasms too? Or are the Egyptians and other practitioners of FGM unaware of the possibility that woman have two sources of orgasm, and that is before you get onto the brain!)

So, Egypt – what abhorrence! A man can fuck his way through a range of women but if a woman is found to have had either extra or pre-marital sex, she is well and truly scuppered.

It all sounds fairly familiar to me. Surely this is precisely the sort of thing that happened in Victorian times. Admittedly, they didn’t go as far as cutting off the clit but that was only because they hadn’t discovered how to! Female sexuality was suppressed in whatever way it could be, right up to the point when the sexuality of women was found to be a positive thing for men,  and even that sort of understanding was and is still only the domain of the truly sexually enlightened.

“They can take our lives but they can never take our freedom!” shouted the blue-faced Mel Gibson in the film “Braveheart!”

“They can take our clits but they can never take our sexuality!” I would like to shout only it might not be that simple.

For sex is not just about this wonderful piece of bodily equipment that us women carry about ourselves, but the loss of the clitoris is pretty damn big and it is not only the physical loss of course. The thing about FGM which is particularly distasteful is this whole notion of a man being responsible for a woman’s ability to be in control of her sexuality and her enjoyment of one of the fundamentals of life. It is the suppression of the sexual mind through the physical act of severance that is too unbearable to think about. It is the notion that in cutting the clitoris, there is a sign to all woman that they have no right to their sexuality and no right to enjoy sex and no right to choose whether they spend their time with more than one sexual partner in their lives, not that the mere circumcision should prevent a woman from having multiple partners, but if the physical pleasures of sex have been either eliminated or suppressed, then it takes the urgency of multiple sexual partners out of the equation somewhat.

Nawal El Saadawi continues with the most brilliant of statements. She says that it is not just about the physical act of cutting the clitoris that bothers her. What is more horrendous is the “circumcision of the brain” to comply with monogamy.

Circumcision of the mind? What a phrase! For in that country as well as others, it is absolutely the circumcision of the mind which is so appalling. By practicing FGM, essentially those who perform such defiling acts are saying that sexuality is not part of the woman’s psyche let alone their body.

And according to Nawal El Saadawi, this is all done in the name of monogamy.

Monogamy, monogamy, monogamy. I’m beginning to tire of the word beyond belief. Monogamy, coupledom, partnership, fidelity. I am so tired of all of these words. I am so tired of the bastardisation of such vocabulary. I am so fed up of the misinterpretation and the values that are placed on such words without any feasible variance from the constraints of these misused words!

But what does the practice of FGM have to do with monogamy and what does it have to do with us generally, with me, with you?

Subliminally, is there a possibility that those that carry out FGM are actually aware of the potential of the female mind? After all, this is the land of Cleopatra.
Are those that practice FGM actually way ahead of some in Western society by realising that women do have a strong sense of sexuality and strong, capable bodily parts to accompany it that mean that as long as that clitoris is in place, then there is always the likelihood of woman wanting to explore the outer extent of their sexuality?

And guess what that means? It means that if they are prepared to explore their sexuality they might have to do it with more than one person. Heaven forbid, they might even want to explore it with other women, working together on mutual stimulation of their sexuality; tit and clit rubbing sessions of bewildering delight.

But the sort of monogamy that is being insisted on through the practice of FGM is even worse than the monogamy that we find somewhat difficult in this country. This monogamy is about having ONE sexuality partner within a lifetime. Yes, ONE!

Personally when I think back to the person that I lost my virginity to and the prospect of fucking that and that alone for the rest of my life, then I think I would be more insane than I clearly am. The thought of years and years and years with crap sex from a crap man would send me to the pill box fairly rapidly.
Fortunately, other people will have happier memories of their virginity loss. One of my closest friends still says she would return tomorrow to the first cock that entered her cunt, even though she admits that it wasn’t necessarily the best sex that she has ever had.

(And at this point, it might be worth mentioning something about my own insecurities.  When you have had crap sex for the majority of your life, then yes, you do want to hang on to the sexuality that you currently enjoy, not necessarily monogamously but certainly for a prolonged period of time; not that it is just about the physical act, you understand.)

One is not enough for one lifetime.
One kiss with one man in one life? NO I couldn’t do that and neither should any sane woman wherever they live in the world, with or without their clitoris intact.

There is a huge difference between monogamy and that awful phrase “serial monogamy”. In reality, there are many people who actually rather like monogamy. It suits them. It’s not necessarily for me, as I have discovered through looking back at my own sexual story but it does suit some people. It is a matter of choice. There are others that are suited to a series of monogamous relationships, only our society as well as the Egyptians frown upon this is as unnatural state, in spite of the fact that there is an admittance and appreciation of the fact that we are all sexual beings and like the sexuality of others even when we are in a committed relationship. And guess what, sometimes people just get bored with what they have, and sometimes people just grow apart. Fact.

There are others who know that essentially they are polyamorous people; that they have fully embraced the importance of sexuality within their lives and know that they are unable to commit their entire sexual being to one person for life. There are others who are polyamorous and yet can happily have periods of their life in monogamousesque relationships, whilst still maintaining the essential philosophy of polyamory. There are others who also believe in polyamory but rather like the warmth and closeness and intimacy of having a significant other in their lives that is free to be as sexual as they like with other people.  There are others who embrace polyamory whereby partners actually live together. There are indeed many different types of ways to conduct relationships.

What the practice of FGM does, or what it possibly intends to do is restrict the above choices to just one, which is madness, pure madness because we are all different and no one way of conducting a relationship is right for all people. It is oppressive, restrictive, intimidating and for the dissidents amongst us, a little tiresome.

Returning to Nawal El Saadawi, she comes up with another glorious phrase “Monogamy diminishes creativity and intelligence” and she is not talking about just intellect. Monogamy, i.e. the sort of monogamy that is aspirational through FGM – one person for life, is oppressive and can stall all sorts of creativity and not simply sexual creativity. It can stymie the mind, it can stifle the development of all manner of intelligences from the social to the personal to the metaphysical. And it is this that she objects to most vociferously.

So thank goodness we do not live in a society that practices this abhorrent act. I’ve grown quite close to my clitoris in recent years. It is now my bedtime companion and I am not sure I could fall into slumber at all these days without healthy dose of clitoral stimulation.

But consider this, another quote from this great woman.

"Here the oppression of women is very subtle. If we take female circumcision, the excision of the clitoris, it is done physically in Egypt. But here it is done psychologically and by education. So even if women have the clitoris, the clitoris was banned; it was removed by Freudian theory and by the mainstream culture. "

I don’t know what country she was talking about within this quote but I would hazard a guess that it is either the USA or our very own glorious Britain. It is certainly something that could be said about many countries steeped in one form of relationship as the be all and end all of existence.

Mainstream culture has circumcised the mind. We may have our clitoris (what is the plural for clitoris – clitori?) in clear, working order but the lack of education about female sexuality is as damaging as the physical ‘excision of the clitoris’. Not appreciating the wonders of the clitoris, not valuing other parts of the female anatomy, not understanding once and for all about female orgasms and ejaculations all suppress the mind, circumcising the sexuality within.

Mainstream culture has circumcised the mind regarding the different forms of relationships that us humans are capable of having. There is no one way. Even within monogamy and polyamory, there is no one way. I know sometimes it looks as though monogamy is a clear and defined word, but the addition of the ‘serial’ shows that there are additional interpretations of this word. And that is before you go into the difference between physical and thought monogamy, and all the debates about whether looking at a hot babe on youporn is tantamount to infidelity.

Whatever the situation, there is no getting away from the fact that our minds, both men and women have been circumcised by the inability to come to terms with sex and relationships, which carefully brings me to a final point.

Isn’t this ‘circumcision of the mind’ exactly what the likes of Rupert Murdoch has latched onto?

We are so incapable of coming to terms with sex as a society that we hide away from it to the point of suppression of ourselves. And yet, there is the prurient desire because that is indeed our instinct. If we cannot successfully fulfil our sexual interest through the monogamous relationships then we might need to find it elsewhere to decontaminate our circumcised minds.
That is what Murdoch latched onto. He knew that there was a fascination in sex, and he knew that there was a fascination in the lives of celebrities, especially if they managed to combine the two. That is why his organisation (I’m being careful here!) started phone tapping; to find out about the sex lives of the rich and famous, and once he, I mean his organisation had worked out just how much information that they could get from this practice, they turned to others and tapped into their lives on different issues, crawling uninvited into other peoples’ grief for the rest of the world to see.

I’m not letting Murdoch off the hook but it is, as Geoffrey Robertson stated yesterday, our fault. We have allowed our minds to be circumcised to the point that we are prepared to allegedly adhere to the indoctrinations of sexual suppression and then dash out on a Sunday to get the News of the Screws to give us a cheap thrill; no longer thankfully. But where there was the News of the World, something will come along instead and it will happen much sooner than our final ability to stand up and say that we no longer wish for our minds to be circumcised.

Before we raise our eyes and start banging our fists on the table about the abhorrent practices of the Egyptians with their disgusting FGM, perhaps we ought to look at our own views on sexuality, relationships, monogamy, suppression of female sexuality and everything else in between and stop behaving like the ostriches that we have become to finally realise how much of our society is shaped by the reluctance to accept ourselves as the instinctual sexual human beings that we are.

Huggles

In card shops these days, there are plenty of others things to buy than a mere card. Actually the cards themselves seem to cover all eventualities these days. The other day, I saw a card in a shop that said “Thank you to my Classroom Assistant”. I wonder what will happen to that stock when the government cuts mean that there are no longer any of these vital workers left in our schools.

Anyhow, what else do they stock in these card shops? Well, any little non-essential you can think of. Yes, there is wrapping paper and sellotape but there are also trinket-like presents that on the surface seem to be little extras of presents right up until you go to check the price and realise that they cost more than or the same as a newly released CD. Most of them are really tacky. There’s the fridge magnets and the coffee cups or the useless book of quotes or a glass vase with some factory processed message surrounding it.

And there are the teddies. Teddy bears seem to have made a come-back, not that they were ever lost but there does seem an abundance of them, and one of the ones that I see most frequently in shops is a little good-looking bear wearing a red t-shirt with the following words emblazoned across its chest – “Need a hug?”

Need a hug? Who doesn’t?

But what does a hug actually entail? Are all hugs the same?

Now I admit that I am an extremely needy human being. Bodily contact of any sort is wonderful for me. I like to reach out and hug people that I care about, including friends and family but the hugs that I give them are different to the hugs that I give and receive from the special people in my life, and particularly from the lover in my life.

The hug and embrace from a lover fills the soul and rejuvenates in a way that no other hug can. Standing or sitting or lying within a hug just hits a button in me, not necessarily a sexual one though that also happens. It is more about an unspoken connection, a quiet moment of solitude and togetherness that just feels right. In that moment, there is no other world. It is all there in the human touch, the human warmth and the shared desire to be held and cared for.

But there are different hugs. There’s a greeting hug, which is always lovely but I sometimes prefer the second hug of the day more. The first one is like an acknowledgement of a relationship, a friendship but the second hug is more of a “You’re here, I’m here, we are together in our separate and conjoined worlds”.
There’s the goodbye hug too; sometimes clingy, sometimes needy because however small the time gap, you know that you are not going to get that hug, that human beings contact in the immediate future. There is no opportunity for hugs once that goodbye hug has been given; not until the next time. The goodbye hug is as important as the greeting hug in the manner in which it is given and received. I wouldn’t necessarily say I like the goodbye hug because I don’t like saying goodbye but it is an essential part of the separation and fills me with enough warmth to keep me going as I slip back into another world where hugs have never been part of the equation.

But the most special hugs are the spontaneous ones; the ones where you are occupied in doing other things and a passing hug is instantly given without behest, without demand, merely with thoughtfulness. They are simply given because in that single moment, it is the instinctive thing to do. I adore these hugs.

Sometimes these hugs are less than instinctive. Sometimes they are thought-out and a decision is made to hug – to reiterate an attitude or thought or positive emotion or feeling. Sometimes hugs are given and received because it just seems the right thing to do.

And there are the hugs in bed, lying together, moulding bodies together before and after making love. These hugs are in a league of their own. They require no words and are difficult to describe. These hugs are heartfelt and passionate, with or without the accompanying fingering or breast-clutching. They are the essence of oneness, and create an atmosphere of lovingness that even glorious fucking cannot do. I love those hugs.

Recently, my lover sent me a note explaining the importance for him about friendship, and how he needs friends, and how he needs friends to hug when I am not there, and even if I was there all or most of the time, he would still need these friends to hug and kiss and have sex with.

“Several of my friends seem to be in need of a male body to sleep with from time to time – who need hugs and kisses and the occasional fuck”.

And my lover is the man to give, and receive because the one thing about hugs is that if they are done properly, there is a seamless connection between the giving and the receiving.

I empathise. I understand completely their need and their desire to receive and give these hugs. They are important. Hugs are vital. In some ways, they are more vital than the act of penetrative sex, and perhaps that is why I have taken so long to come to terms with them. Sex is sex. It is an animalistic act in its rawest sense, and far too often we are hung up on what penetration actually means. Of course it is a bonding of bodily parts and of course it is a type of giving oneself to another but even when it is done with added feelings of attraction and affection, it does not necessarily give another person rights and it should not enable people to make assumptions about the nature of a relationship. Hugs shouldn’t either but in some ways there is something more intimate about a spontaneous hug, especially when it is given in the warmth and comfort of a bed at the end and the beginning of the day.

As I said, I empathise because I don’t actually get enough hugs, and I bloody well need them, now more than ever.

I would love to say that I miss that; the goodnight and the good morning hug but you cannot really miss something that you have never really had. And I have never really had that at all, apart from the utterly sporadic times I have managed to spend the night with my lover (without calling him a fucking bastard!).

Of course I am slightly envious of these hugs because they are the type of hugs that I have always wanted with a partner; to feel loved and to love as a lovely day draws to a close and the new one is released with the hopefulness of a hug. And that is before you even get onto the instinctual hugs that happen through the night, when bodily contact is almost desperately desired.

Sometimes, my lover cannot understand my hang-up about the sharing of night-time sleep. He says it is just sleeping, often without sexual intercourse, and often I have asked myself why I am so bothered by it. Not that I am quite so bothered these days. As it is – that is my new mantra. And despite outward appearance, I do want him to have the sort of warmth that I cannot get as I sleep night after night after night without that bodily contact.
No wonder I am a little insane.

But I think, in one of my moments of clarity, that perhaps it is this. Perhaps it is about the hugs or the potential for hugs much more than cock and cunt combination. And perhaps it is because I have never been held throughout the night, nobody has ever reached out to touch me or to hold me during the night, and I have never woken to the total embrace of the person that I am sleeping with – obviously apart from the times when I have slept with my lover.

Of course it is not only hugs. Recently I have had a period of not having penetrative sex. Over the next couple of weeks I am not going to have penetrative sex either, and I am not very good at not having sex now that I have discovered the need and desire that lay so horribly dormant for so many years.

My poor play toy is going through batteries at a rate of knots at the moment. Instead of a hug, the last thing I do at night is wank myself off with my dildo. The first thing I do in the morning is give myself another orgasm and sometimes, if I am awoken full of solitude in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep, I have another go with my pal to relax me into a state of oblivion.

But Satori it is not. Even yesterday, as I plunged my Roger Rabbit into the depths of my pussy, I realised that it was all very exciting, and yes, I really want to see some photos of me doing that to myself, and yes, my cunt reacted to this hard piece of equipment wriggling around inside me, but it is plastic! It is not human, and even the most expensive vibrator in the world cannot compensate for either its human equivalent or more importantly the feelings and connection that come with it.......... and the hugs. No dildo is going to give me a hug after I have had an orgasm. No amount of wanking is going to give a wanker a needed embrace to perpetuate and continue the pleasantries of climax into something more life-giving, and I am talking generally here, not just about me.

As readers will know, I am a strong advocate of masturbation both on your own and with other people. The other day, for instance, I thoroughly enjoyed the double wank that I gave myself and my lover. And I like nothing more than watching him jerking himself off as he gives my fanny a fisting.
I adore to look at porn, alone or with another – neither of which I/we have done enough of recently, and manipulate the already aroused parts of the body with a gentle or indeed vigorous plunge and tug. And there is a time and a place for erotic activity but nothing is the same as a hug, and nothing on earth can replace the essence and the essentiality of human contact.

So yes, I miss what I have never or too sparingly have had and to some extent, however “as-it-is” it is, I am a little envious of other peoples’ ability to hug my lover in the middle or the beginning of the night. However, the difference between now and a few weeks ago is that I am not riddled with envy. I am not perplexed or overwhelmed by it. I just acknowledge and appreciate its presence.

But just returning to hugs for a while. I have recently been reading a book called “Sex, Sin and Zen” by a Zen Master from the United States called Brad Warner. Over the coming weeks, I shall return to this book, quoting generously and suggesting to all that they should get a copy and have a good read through. It says an awful lot about sex but it says a whole lot more about Zen and how we should be living our lives, collectively and individually. I cannot begin to say how important this book has been to reiterate my views on life and to assist me to come to terms with some dark and destructive emotions.

In one of the chapters, called “Hug is the Drug”, he explains how he went along to see some Indian Saint who was supposedly the master or mistress of hugging. This woman, Amma, now tours the world giving the powerful healing natural high of hugging. Warner describes this weird gathering and how people with pink tickets are allowed to line up and receive a hug from this saintly woman as though her embrace will fix every misdemeanour in their lives. Warner argues, quite rightly that this may not be the case and in actual fact, real compassion, spontaneous action is far more important than any amount of hugs (more on compassion in later blogs).

“Warm smiles and hugs don’t fix everything and they never will”, he clearly states.

And he is right. As much as I yearn for spontaneous hugs, as much as I adore giving and receiving the very best of embraces, they are never going to take away all my darkness, and neither should they. There is more to life than hugs, and like any other wonderful thing, if they become too frequent and too contrived, then they lose all sense of worth and value. Spontaneity is vital too!

But one should also be extremely mindful of the need and the desire for hugs, what they give, how they are received and just how important human touch is, how very, very important.

Need a hug? Yes, I do, and I am fortunate enough to receive plenty of hugs, even if they are not in the middle of the night. But beggars etcetera, and I will happily settle for all the impromptu hugs that I both give and receive and be eternally grateful that I can get them as and when, as it is.

Unconditional Love Part One

A friend of mine and I were going to go on a road trip this week. Due to various circumstances, we were not able to do so but one of the reasons was that her partner of twelve years has just decided to leave her and she has little spare money at the moment to ‘squander’ on enjoying herself. Besides, she is pretty devastated. She said to me, “he just told me that he had fallen out of love with me. I knew things were a little shaky but I didn’t expect this”.

Another friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that she was now single. She had an engagement party about a year ago, and I decided that I could not go as I had another event to attend. I would have gone but if I am honest, I didn’t think that this friend would make it down the aisle. She has had no luck whatsoever with the men she has chosen to “fall in love” with. Her desperation for the Cinderella story is incredibly pathetic, if I am honest. This week she has split up with yet another potential mate; her third one in the year since her fiancé broke off their engagement. Here is a young woman who wants nothing more than coupledom and babies – and financial security so that she is not reliant on the pittance of pay that she gets in order to create a home of her own.

Another person that I know also changed her relationship status on Facebook. Earlier in the week, she happened to mention that she was single; another woman who probably had a fairy tale idea of what love and living with someone was all about. Naivety personified.

My lover then sent me a message to inform me that his son appears to have got himself into coupledom having had the same woman visiting with him on consecutive days. He assumed that a significant relationship might be developing and was worried that his son would “fall in love” and want to have babies with this woman, despite the fact that he hasn’t known her that long and there is no evidence of this happening.
He suggested to me that perhaps I ought to mentor him in some way to avoid the pitfalls of monogamy and embrace polyamory, as he was probably more likely to listen to this old girl rather than his old man.

Fucking labels: girlfriend, chick, partner, lover, mainstay, wife, fiancé, bit on the side, the other woman, the other man, couples. I’ve had it. I really have. And why do social engineering sites, whoops I mean social networking sites have such limited suggestions for your relationship status; married, single, in a relationship. They could have so many more; divorced, living with a partner, living apart from a partner but closer to my partner because of it, polygamist, polyamorist, bigamist, anti-coupledom despite being closer to a certain person than ever before in my life.......... and so it goes on. Is there any end to what we can call ourselves and our relationship?

Anyway, all of these relationship status changes made me wonder precisely the sort of advice that I could give to each of these people, should they request it. And this led me to wonder about what the hell were their expectations and how much we do expect from our relationships in spite of all the evidence around us that suggests we should never, ever expect this thing called “unconditional love”.

Before I continue, I am going to use the ‘L’ word in this writing in its crudest and most pathetic form, i.e. that one might say two people love one another when they have acknowledged to one another that they have a significant relationship. Let us just leave it at that.

So my friend who has just split up with the father of her eleven year old child? What would I say to her? Well to be honest, the first thing I wanted to say was “Congratulations”. The second thing was “you lucky bastard” and the third thing was “Welcome and embrace liberty”. In time, I will say all of the above to her but for now, she just needed my sympathy. I asked her if it really was finished and told her not to rush into any decisions about what she wanted to do, where she wanted to live etcetera until she was more stable and less likely to be emotionally irresponsible.

As for the friend who keeps losing men out of desperation, I just want to say to her, “Stop bloody looking for something that is never going to make you as contented as you think. You are your own person. You are a good looking woman with a healthy libido. Just bloody well enjoy yourself and stop aspiring to this fucking bollocks of lurve”.

Not feeling too empathetic at the moment, clearly.

To be fair to the third person mentioned, she hasn’t made a great deal out of being single, well not to me anyway. I will ask her former partner soon as to whether it was a mutual decision or not. We shall see.

And now for the advice that I have to offer my lover’s son. What can I say? At this point I don’t know whether this woman in his life is just a friend that he fucks or a girlfriend that he enjoys shared interests with or something that is more serious than that. I am slightly amused by his father’s automatic insistence that this is a new girlfriend. Perhaps his son might think the same when he turns up home with one of his women! Ho ho ho! (That really was meant to be funny, honestly).

The point is nobody should make assumptions about other peoples’ relationships, whoever they are and however they might be related to one of the people involved. Unless information is forthcoming from either one of these people, i.e. the son or the woman he is fucking, assumptions should not be made.

But what would I say to him if he asked me? I would just look at him and say “Enjoy yourself”. Simple as that. I would hope that he wouldn’t repeat some of the mistakes from his past. I would hope that he could actually look to his parents and see that both of them have contentedly lived the last couple of decades without a significant partner being a constant in their lives. I would hope that having experienced coupledom, he wouldn’t be too swift in embracing it once more. However, if that is what he wants, who am I to tell him how absurd it all is?

What else would I say to him? I would say to him that if he was as fortunate as myself in having the sort of intense intimacy with this woman as I do with his father, if he felt such a connection and such warmth of companionship then I would be abundantly happy for him. We are not a couple. I like to think that we transcend coupledom. I would like to think that we are closer and more honest with one another than the majority of couples. Yes, we have our particular issues at present but in the long term, there will be constancy. If his son could emulate that in a relationship with a woman, I would be delighted.

It made me think, really, that perhaps there would be one condition in which I would remarry. I would marry my lover if we could show that the institution of marriage and of coupledom could indeed be a celebration of commitment but that commitment allowed us to see other people, to live separately, to live independently in mind as well as physical environment, to embrace freedom whilst simultaneously showing the people that we care about most understand the completeness of our companionship. Maybe more people ought to get married to show how a different form of “coupledom” or “love” could exist.

But what of this unconditional love? Can you honestly and truthfully really have such a thing in a sexual relationship? Shouldn’t unconditional love be the reserve of the parent/child relationship and have nothing to do with ‘partnership’ or anything else that you wish to call the union of two people, formally or liberally.

Here is a website where someone who seems pretty fucked up has asked a question about whether you can have unconditional love in a sexual relationship.

http://www.zen-moments.com/unconditional-love-versus-sexual-desire.html

My response to that would be that you are barking up the wrong tree mate. However, it did make me think, especially in response to the thoughts of what advice I would give to these people mentioned. Is there really a situation of either unconditional love OR sexual desire? Can you have unconditional love with sex or does the very issue of sex get in the way? Whilst most of the discussion on this link was pretty shallow, there were a couple of gems that I would like my friends to consider. However, before I go on, I am not sure that this notion of unconditional love in this context is correct. Perhaps they are actually talking about an intense love rather than unconditional. There is a huge difference.

So try these for size.

As a man though, your primal sexual nature just wants total immersion with the body and spirit of a woman; the merging of flesh on flesh, the indescribable fullness, and the climax–that infinite moment of white light and absolute dissolve.

Yes, that is what I want too. That is what I get, and yes, I am probably a little alarmed that anyone else could have this completeness with my lover, because rightly or wrongly I feel such a connection would actually take something away from ‘us’. But would I want that for others who I care about, then yes, of course, who wouldn’t? But having all of this does not require a ring around a finger or a mortgage or flat rental to share or boring coupledom. But it does require a closeness beyond the norm.

On the surface, your sexuality doesn’t care about your desire to be spiritual or unconditional. it craves only simple satisfaction, and it naturally wants to possess it.

In its rawest form, sex is sex. At its most instinctual it does not require the spiritual but when it is present it blows your mind. Do I want this for people that I care about? Too damned right I do. But if they just want a fuck, then fine.

Sex is a powerful and blinding drive, but it is not just a primitive drive to selfish and possessive satisfaction. Your sexual impulse can grow with you into a beautiful–and unconditional–physical, emotional, energetic, and spiritual union. All of the differences, the power struggles, and the guilt, are dissolved.
True love? (remembering the coarseness of the use of such a word). Mmmm – unconditional? Actually I am somewhat scared by the word. But sexual desire can move from that selfish need to something far greater, and nowhere here is there any mention of being a couple. Perhaps I ought to point this out to my lover’s son.

Our sexual nature mirrors the union that is expressed in the higher spiritual aspects of life. It is our base experience of nirvana; the complete meltdown of boundaries and separations. And we can transform our sexual nature’s irresistible power into that higher expression, but we must begin by joyously accepting our basic drives.................................. On one end of the scale, sex is a physical and emotional union with your partner, and at the higher end it is creative union with your inner and outer universe.

Aspiration? Yes, but I don’t feel as though I need to aspire to this. I feel as though I have this, and I wish to goodness I could tell other people that I do. Yes there are obstacles to overcome but everybody should have a person at some point in their lives who ensures that one another feel this complete. My friend whose partner has just left her may not want to hear this right now but if she cannot recognise this description of a higher form of connection then I would reiterate to her that she must move on, must not go in search but realise that there is potential for all forms of love, including this brilliant form of connection.

Unconditional love is all about erasing the lines in the sand.

Which is probably why unconditional love should be left as a domain between parents and children. Can you really erase all the lines in the sand in a sexual and intimate relationship without feeling as though one or other of the people fell they are being buried by the moving sand?

And yet, sometimes, for me, I feel as though I almost am in an unconditional love. I have erased a hell of a lot of lines recently and more disappear on a daily basis.

Perhaps that is what I should tell my friends; that erasing lines is one thing but to embrace their departure is another. If this bizarre unconditional love really does exist then there has to be a total giving and receiving of one another without losing oneself in the process. How many people are capable of doing such a thing, and yet in some ways, isn’t this one of the messages of Zen; to simply be – alone or indeed in collaboration with others; neither reliant nor dependent but calmly embracing the joy of togetherness without any issues whatsoever?

Yes, I want this for my collection of friends and I do not think they are necessarily going to find it in a conventional mode of relationship. This is a much higher order that we are talking about and I am not convinced that there are masses of people who are capable of doing such a thing.

So what advice could I possibly give? To be honest there have been too many moments recently when I have fucked up to the extent that I am terrified this sort of togetherness (that is wrongly, in my opinion, called unconditional love in this piece,) is something that could have drifted away from me.

Am I going to feel that creative union with the inner and outer universe? Is Satori going to overwhelm my everything and his everything once more? It will. I know. But how can I advise others when I am fucking up the best relationship that I have ever had?

I’m not sure that I am in a position to advise anyone at present, other than the fact that I could advise them to have a read of the Zenpuss blog because this is something that I genuinely wish all people could embrace, including myself.

The Rebellious Imperatives of the Self

It’s incredible. You wake up in the morning determined to go and write a blog about a specific and important issue and suddenly you find yourself opening the newspaper and discovering an article that directs you in a completely different direction.

Such was the case today. There was me ready to blog about some really important things happening in our world, and I came across this piece, written by Christopher Turner on the life and works of one Willhelm Reich.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/08/wilhelm-reich-free-love-orgasmatron

It’s not a short article either, and once more, may we thank the Guardian newspaper for bothering to produce such a thing. As one comment states, this article raises more questions than answers. But isn’t that precisely what journalism these days should be doing? It is not just about presenting facts. It is about stretching one’s mind, considering philosophies of past, present and future and, in the case as well as others, about how we can- as individuals and as a collective, look at the core values and purposes of society.

And where better to start on such a task as to look at sex.

Sex is so important that we have almost made it into something destructive due to our inability to actually come to terms with its real significance in life. Because essentially, we know it is significant and we know it is good for us. In realising this I think we are sometimes terrified of the enormity of it, and maybe society has shied away from the overwhelming power of sex because in its very nature it is possibly the most powerful thing in the world.

At the point when there is a dawning of sexual liberation, those in power get shit scared because subliminally or overtly, they know that nothing is more powerful than sex and they are terrified of the autonomy that positive and embracing sex may provide. This leads to suppression of sex and sexuality that in turn creates the sort of havoc that those in power actually rather like because it is something that they can control.

Actually, as a sex writer (she says somewhat grandly about herself) these sorts of articles are manna from heaven because it sends me off into all sorts of interconnected thoughts about what sex actually is, and the politics of sex is fascinating. Yet, we have hardly scratched the surface to see what effect sex and the suppression of sex has on our society. We spend plenty of time discussion the sexualisation of society but do very little to look at the more positive approach of sexual politics being the ultimate liberation of the people.

This is probably too complicated to try and tackle in one small blog so I shall probably return to it throughout my writing, but I am genuinely intrigued by the enormity of this subject and how little we have moved forward since Willhelm Reich’s work and the sexual revolution of the 1960s which could appear like a tea party once the real Age of Aquarius is upon us.

And in order to embrace the dawning of the new world, sex and its significance has to be at the forefront, just as Reich had stated in the middle part of the last century.

I don’t even know where to start with this one but I am just going to go with the flow and see what happens.

Once upon a time when we were just losing the hair off our Neanderthal backs, humans probably had a lot of sex. They probably had sex as naturally as they stalked off into the countryside to catch food for their hungry bellies. They probably had sex as naturally as needing to sleep. And according to research, they probably had sex with lots of different people; as a natural form of communicating when language was yet fully formed. These people, our ancestors, were highly unlikely to be monogamous.

Then along came a few little problems. One man wanted to feel more secure. One woman wanted to feel less hungry, so small units were formed to create the sort of stability that people desired. If a man killed a wildebeest, the woman might think she was going to be better fed by him than the man who was still hunting squirrels. So she would provide more sexual communication with this mate than the other. Eventually wealth from buying and selling became the norm and the first sight of capitalism was born with the added extra of possession and therefore possessiveness. Families emerged and so too did the monogamous form of living that we still apparently adhere to and aspire to today.

Sex itself became a bargaining tool. Added to this there was the old Darwinian issue of the survival of the fittest. The humans became somewhat choosy in their mating and sex became the means to greater success, greater riches and allegedly better offspring.

As time progressed and the viability of family units was seen as the only way to live life, sex became associated with intimacy (and economy) rather than its most natural instinctual form of physical expression.

Once this society was established, what happened to sex?

It became imprisoned in the socio-economic stability and soon it was finding itself hidden in secrecy along with the bodies that were now covered from view. With such intimacy and possessiveness, sex changed and was no longer the natural act that you could freely do with anyone you happened to fancy. And with that suppression came all sorts of other problems because ultimately man and woman could not lose that natural instinct. Ultimately, there was almost a natural disorder in chaining sex down and associating it directly with that possession and ownership.

Please note, I know I am being somewhat simplistic here but bear with me.

Jump along some centuries, and humans suddenly found themselves in a situation where sex was only supposed to happen between two people in a loving relationship. Its physical necessity was restricted. Once coupledom had been created, the thought of one’s partner being sexually intimate with another was abhorrent, and yet infidelities continued and will always continue until we realise the power of sex and its place in the natural order of things.

And then we conditioned ourselves to this way of thinking. Furthermore, possibly because as a society and individuals within we were constantly reminded about our duty to perform coupledom, we decided that sex was naughty and rude and shouldn’t be discussed. And why was this? Because anything else, any other decision would have opened a Pandora’s Box and absolute anarchy may prevail. If we were sexually liberated to have sex as and when we chose, the economic stability of society could come tumbling down purely because we had created this unnatural environment for living along with the destructive emotions that were at the heart of maintaining this madness of unnatural life.

Suppressing sex in this way and demonising it meant that we could pretend it was a bad thing even though we all knew and indeed practiced within coupledom (!) sexual acts that we knew were beneficial to our souls, our minds, our bodies.

It is like an ultimate irony.

We created this society. We were the ones who put sex in the wrong place.
Now here is something that is possibly a little contentious but needs to be considered. We bang on and on about the sexualisation of society these days and we laud any attempts by people to continue in their prudish manner but isn’t it possible that the sexualisation of society is an subliminal attempt to get back to basics, to return sex to its status as one of the main instinctual actions in life; flight, fight, fuck – along with sleep, eat, drink?

And yet we still cannot see it.

Please be assured, I am not advocating inappropriate sexualisation here but as I have said before, why do capitalists use sexual imagery to sell their products? Because it helps to sell whatever they are trying to burden us with. And why does it help to sell them? Because we are essentially sexual beings who have learned to suppress their sexuality and given an opportunity to associate a certain car, for instance, with a sexy blond draped across it, gives us a little pleasure and therefore we buy the product. Because we ARE sexual.

Too simple I know, but again, bear with me.

Let’s look briefly at the porn industry. It is so popular because people want to look at wonderful bodies. The may be getting the best sex that they have experienced in their lives but this does not prevent them wanting to look at others. Why? Because we are sexual beings. It is our instinctive nature to want to explore sex. The savvies in this industry know this, just as Reich and Kinsey had known before them. WE ARE SEXUAL BEINGS.

The whole suppression of sexuality has made an entire industry; the biggest on the internet if you look at certain figures. And still, with all this mass of evidence, we cannot admit to being sexual people for fear of being called a freak or a pervert just because we like sex.

The politicians scream about the appalling industry of porn without realising that it is the development of society and the suppression of the natural way that has caused this industry to profit so effectively.

Looking now at relationships and we are seriously fucked, without a single cock going anywhere near a juicy pussy. This unnatural order has been embedded for so many years that even those of us who are slightly more enlightened than most still have this gut-wrenching feeling as soon as we know or think that our ‘partner’ has slept with or had sex with another person because we have come to be conditioned to think that sex and intimacy and partnership and love are all safely and carefully enmeshed together, and this feels threatening to us, to our intimacy and sex and partnership etcetera. We are well and truly fucked unless we can break free from this, and the societal politics of sex is doing nothing to help us.

I know. I am there right at this moment in time. And I hate it, and I hate being there.

Sex should be about the physical joy of communicating amorous feelings. It should not be about all the other things, though there is clearly an issue here because it should be about all of these things as well (apart from the possessiveness) as sex is far, far more wonderful when it happens with somebody that you adore and care for.

And therefore, it should be perfectly normal to have sex with people that you like and for it not to be an issue for the other important people in your life. This is as it should be and yet we are so conditioned into the existing economy and politics of sex that we are driven to all manner of destructive emotions in trying to contain the uncontainable, if the natural order of things are to be assumed.

There is every possibility that Willhelm Reich was just a madman and that his Orgone theory was totally insane, but I cannot dismiss him as such. We know, we all know what good sex does for us. We know how we feel, how free and liberated we feel when sex and the relationship with the one that you are having sex with is bloody wonderful, so how would society benefit from finally casting aside all that imposed conditioning about sex and we looked at it in its truest form of the instinctual act as the dominant force?

Sexualisation and the politics of it somehow seem to work in favour of the politicians and the powers in society. It diverts thought from the real issue of sexual empowerment and freedom. If we are all caught up in the inappropriateness of sex, we don’t have to consider the inappropriateness of sexual confinement and we don’t have to concern ourselves with the empowering nature of sex that could possibly change society to the point where those in power have less influence.

Reich’s Orgone theory is one thing. I happen to think that there is something in the power of this omnipresent force. Whether it could be captured in a wood and tin box is another matter but there is certainly a force about sexuality that has to be to the good of all people if only there were less hang ups about the act of sex itself.

However, we should not dismiss the essence of Reich’s work as the mad rantings of an insane and quirky man. What he was trying to do was address the whole issue of sexual politics and make people realise that if we are ever to be free we need to have an enormous cultural, spiritual, moral, political and social shift in our views on sex.

There could be a million mini-revolutions with power returning to the hands of the people, but if we still maintain the constraints associated with monogamous sexual activity, then no manner of political and economic freedom will make us truly free. As Reich says, we need to overthrow sexual repression and we cannot possibly have the freedom that so many of us desire until we have done so.

Getting back to my own situation, it is all very well living a polyamorous existence but it is never just about two people and about their theories and expectations. It is not just me that is conditioned. Others are too. And there is a strong possibility that if one person has sex with another person or sleeps with another person, then assumptions as to the nature of the friendship or relationship ensue. It should not be that way but that is how we are conditioned; into thinking that the giving of oneself sexually is the ultimate act of togetherness or communication or intimacy when in actual fact it is nothing of the kind.

I actually do aspire to a polyamorous existence for all but until that happens, it feels as though the pockets of it in society cannot operate effectively because not everyone within fully appreciates the politics of sex or the extent to which they have been conditioned, even subliminally to see sex as some sort of commitment.

People are fascinated with sex for a reason, for a multitude of reasons. It is a fascinating subject and not just merely for the physical and emotional aspects.

Sex is life-giving and I really think that there is some Orwellian force going on here.

If we open our eyes we know that the natural high of sex could be the most liberating force that has ever existed, and quite frankly, I reckon that the powers that be are utterly terrified of the prospect of such liberation that would put the political revolutions of the previous century into insignificance.

Reich knew this which is probably why, with my conspiracy theory hat on, that they spent so much money in prosecuting and imprisoning him.

I wonder whether we really are on the verge of a brave new order which readdresses the true nature of sex. I wonder if, one day, the likes of Willhelm Reich and his appreciative followers will be seen as the greatest thinkers, politicians and philosophers of our time for having the foresight to see the suppression of sex for what it really is and the power of sex for what it really could be.

Groundhog Night

That bloody ferret-like animal reared its ugly little head from its hole last night and the Groundhog was back in the picture, despite all my protestations that it was not going to come back and start the whole sorry saga all over again.

It’s not bloody fair. Not on me, not on him. I am slowly and carefully unpicking all the positives that my writing and meditation has given me over the last few days. I am re-reading and re-reminding.

I thought I had hit rock bottom, which is a really silly phrase. I actually thought that there was nothing else that could hurt me any longer. I had accepted many things and had started to embrace the emptiness that I felt, to the point that it was no longer emptiness but nothingness. Or rather the emptiness was also wholeness. That is where I wanted to be.
I realise now that the wound was still a little too raw and I am still susceptible to the type of negative and destructive emotions that I so dearly wish would either disappear or be managed.

But, can we not forget that this is still a relatively new situation? Can we not realise, can I not realise that this is a small section of time that has to be seen as relative both to the past and the future, without dwelling on either?

The story so far............

·         Woman meets man – simple as that. Not.

·         Woman is attracted to man and visa versa

·         Woman spends time with man developing a friendship

·         Friendship turns into a physical attraction

·         Physical attraction becomes very sexual

·         Woman is married

·         Man is in another relationship; an ‘exclusive one’

·         Attraction is firmly established and they continue with the relationship

·         Man tries to stop additional relationship and removes sexual element from their friendship

·         Woman is devastated

·         Man then rekindles his sexual relationship with woman

·         Man invites his partner to meet his ‘other’ woman

·         Woman and woman develop a friendship of their own

·         Woman and man and his woman all have a gloriously horny time with one another, simultaneously

·         Man and his woman have arguments over his attraction to the other woman.

·         Man and his woman split up

·         Woman remains married

·         Woman and man develop further intimacy in their relationship

·         Man has a few interesting encounters with other women

·         Man reminds woman that he does not do exclusivity, especially with a married woman

·         Woman and man continue to develop further intimacy and further intensity to their relationship

·         Woman remains married but realises she doesn’t want to be

·         Man feels somewhat in need of further friendships

·         Man rekindles friendship with an old colleague

·         Woman becomes a little concerned (didn’t tell you that one!)

·         Woman and man continue to have a fantastic time together, even when they cannot physically be together

·         Old colleague introduces man to two of her friends

·         Man decides to contact both women when there is a signal of friendship to do so.

·         Man goes out with woman no.1 and ends up kissing her and touching her

·         Woman (from the first bullet point) is envious for no reason other than she has had man to herself for a number of years

·         Man goes out with Woman no. 2 and ends up staying the night with her

·         Woman is hurt and upset because she cannot sleep with ‘her’ man and she is not sure she can cope with the reality of polyamory, especially if the other woman is oblivious to their relationship

·         Two days later, man goes out with Woman no. 1 and ends up sleeping with her too, with an added fuck to boot

·         Woman is hurt and upset because she cannot sleep with ‘her’ man and she is not sure she can cope with the reality of polyamory, especially if the other woman is oblivious to their relationship

·         Woman remains married but has long since stopped having sex with her husband and sleeps in separate room

·         Man continues to see woman no. 1 and woman no. 2 because he is who he is. That is him

·         Woman finds it difficult that he needs these other women, despite knowing that she cannot currently give him the things that he wants and even if she was available to do so he would still need other women in his life

·         Woman has major fits of insecurity that result in destructive emotions and immature behaviour

·         Woman requests of man that Woman no.1 and woman no. 2 know about the significance of woman and man’s relationship

·         Woman continues to have bouts of insecurity despite constant reassurance by man

·         Man tells woman that she is the most important person in his life and that their relationship is essential to his life

·         Woman believes this to be the case but is still concerned about the other women and their expectations

·         Man continues to have sex with woman no.1

·         Woman has a clear moment of calm when she accepts what is happening

·         Man is excited and pleased that woman is calm at last

·         Man sleeps with woman no.1

·         The next night man sleeps with woman no.2

·         Woman makes assumptions about who he has slept with

·         Man explains in detail what he has done for the last two nights

·         Man and woman go away for a night of quality time

·         Woman fucks it up

·         Woman gets a fit of the jitters when man falls asleep, assuming he is so knackered from sleeping with no. 1 and no.2 women from the previous night that he cannot keep awake for a cuddle with his longest standing woman

·         Woman flips, calls him a fucking bastard and cries all night

·         Woman is physically sick in the morning outside the hotel

·         Man and woman have sex

·         Woman still feels sick at the thought at what has happened

·         Man perseveres with woman, for the time being!

·         Man tells woman that he is going away for a few days with woman no.1

·         Woman thinks this is somewhat soon in their relationship and has the heeby jeebies but understands

·         Woman is still concerned about woman no. 1 and for that matter woman no.2’s longer term aspiration regarding the man..............................................

Makes “Vicky, Christina, Barcelona” look like an episode of Coronation Street!

Ultimately of course, the latter half of the bullet points will all be merged into one point which says “Man stops talking about being polyamorous and gets on with it”.

The next bullet point might say, “Woman cannot cope with her destructive emotions and insecurity”

I am hoping that the sentence after than is “Woman fully embraces everything about her adorable man and stops being a twat” (obviously assuming that her twat as well as her mind and soul is gloriously cared for by the man).

...............................................

I hurt. I am hurt. I will be hurt.

And it has to stop. But despite what I might deem to be causes beyond my control, it is ultimately up to me to stop it because the cause ain’t going to disappear.

I will embrace change but everything has happened so damn quickly. Less than a month ago, things were so very, very different, and yes, there is a big part of me that can hardly contemplate how a man who is so caring, so loving, so in need of the continuation of our wholesome relationship can continue bombarding me with more and more things that take me out of my comfort zone, challenge me (which can and is a positive thing) knowing that it is really, really hurting me.

And yet, in a bizarre twist, not only do I know he is right to pursue this pathway, I actually want him to and I fundamentally believe him when he says that our relationship will flourish once I have got to grips with my fucked up emotions.
I just need time to readjust and some appreciation of what I am trying to do and the difficulties I am facing.

And in all of this time, I have also had elation, intimacy beyond even my expectations and a hell of a lot of time and love from my beautiful man.

I have read a fair amount to try and help me and still the issue of embracing the emptiness, the passion and the pain as one is the most sensible advice I have encountered, and it still remains my hope, and just as I feel as though I am getting somewhere, another challenge, another change in circumstance comes my way.

IT IS DIFFICULT.

But of course, we have now come to the stage where if I do not contain my emotions, the whole thing could come tumbling down.

Sometimes, it seems that everything, everything is my fault. It is my fault that I had certain assumptions about what our mode of polyamory was going to be. It is my fault that I cannot contain my destructive emotions. It is my fault that I have a hang up about the sleeping bit. It is my fault whenever my emotions run into childish behaviour. It is my fault when I get angry and frustrated. It is my fault if I ask an innocent let alone a deliberate question. It is my fault that I want to be seen as the main relationship in his life. It is my fault. It is always my fault and whilst I can see very clearly that in many of the above the reaction that I have to certain causal factors is indeed my fault or certainly my responsibility, one cannot get away from the fact that there are causal factors. I would not be having to see my fucking awful darker side all of the bloody time if............................... and what the hell is the point of ‘if’?

Back to calmer moments. They are in the majority despite it looking and seeming to the contrary sometimes.

But I need to talk briefly about those outbursts of mine through the media of quotes from the Dalai Lama.

I have been looking at these today, and incidentally, whilst I have taken many quotes recently from a variety of sources and interpreted them to my situation and me, there is no doubt that the readers, known and not known, can also look at these quotes and challenge themselves too.

Change does not have to be one way. Change is about ALL of us changing, not just me. Nobody should stagnate.

“Follow the three Rs; respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions”

Yes, I know.

Sometimes, in all of this I have lost respect for myself but oddly never respect for others. As for the responsibility for your actions, that is precisely what I meant in the previous paragraph. There is a huge difference between being responsible for your actions, than being responsible for the outcome of your actions to the responsibility of being mindful of the outcomes of your actions and all of this is different again from, as the Dalai says, having responsibility for all your actions.

Worth thinking about. I know I am doing just that.

I have fully taken on board in an extremely painful way, as recently as twenty odd hours ago responsibility for all my actions. I fucked up, big time, and I am left with the horror of what I did.

I have responsibility for my actions and I am damn well going to try again, but as I said, as soon as I get over one little setback or one little issue, another one comes my way, almost immediately.

Going away with someone that you have only just met seems a bloody big thing. I knew it would happen one day, but this soon? I know there are advantages, I know you want to be you but it does seem very premature and it does seem a little intense. I know, I know.

But once more, I start with sadness and hurt, and that evolves into resignation, and soon I will lose the resignation and embrace the emptiness.

I might even get to the stage of being content and the embracing of emptiness is no longer required but so soon? Time. Not always the great healer that the stupid saying suggests, especially when the time seems so short.

In accepting every further issue, do I lose respect for myself? I know this should not be the case but sometimes it feels that way.

And in all the respecting that I am doing for other people is it always reciprocated? I actually think, in the main, that it is but as I said the other day, when does the ego turn so far inward that it becomes more than ‘being yourself’? Where does the latter part of the Dalai Lama’s statement fit in?

This is the darker side talking but in a much calmer way.

“Take into account that great love and great achievements involve risk”

Don’t I know it, but ultimately one could argue that the greater the challenge, the greater the reward or the greater the love the greater the achievement in dealing with and embracing risk.

We all risk in all of this, and we know it. I risk in not being able to control my emotions. He risks in needing to be who he is. We all take risks. But if we get it right, if we can manage to get through everything that is happening to us right now, then the greatest of achievements is the greater amount of love – and if you do not like the word ‘love’ then the greater amount of affection, caring, consideration, intimacy, honesty, trust, peace – call it what you will.

“Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship”

Or a great relationship, or a great partnership, or a great companionship. Ultimately, as I said right at the beginning, this really is a little dispute when you put it in the larger context of the ongoing and continuing relationship. I need to hold onto that one, thank you Your Holiness.

"When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it."

It takes two. I tried but to be honest, when you have pissed someone off with a shed-load of brain ache for the umpteenth time, any amount of immediacy is not going to be readily embraced. It needs the recipient of the error to enable immediate steps of correction and sometimes, understandably, the will is not there.

“Open your arms to change but don’t let go of your values”

I cannot say any more about this other than the fact that I will embrace change but not at the expense of me. Emptiness is one thing and holding onto things about yourself that should well and truly be eradicated is quite another but my core values? Yes, they must be challenged but eventually I have to find me.

............................................

That’s it.

Not the horniest of writing today folks but I think it is important to keep a record of the conflicts that I have, as I said in the hope that it may help others.

My Groundhog night still fills me with horror despite the fact that it is in the past, despite the fact that we have moved on and had a lovely, lovely morning talking and much more besides.

For those who want a bit of arousal, there was lots of juicy cums. I am still amazed at how fucking horny I got in all my abundant and ludicrous temper. In fact there is a feisty element in me that actually gets quite turned on in the middle of a confrontation. And there was a piss in the woods as I removed my panties to go with nature, and there was lots of ogling and boob touching, and much appreciation of me from my lover despite the provocation of my ridiculous reaction to innocent nothings.

The Fat Lady is still not singing but it is getting to the end of the show, I hope, and she can sing all she likes to remind me about my complex, painful and passionate journey, once it is all over, if it is ever over( and I mean that in the most positive way possible).

But of course, the journey is never going to be over, not completely. There will always be new challenges from brain ache to misery, from elation to passion, for both of us, for all of us.

This relationship IS NOT going to be conventional, IS NOT going to disappear under a quagmire of destructive emotions.

The Fat Lady will be singing to congratulate us as we companionably wander on.

To finish, another fine fellow – really must get my copy of “The Prophet” out sometime soon.

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." Khalil Gibran

What a perfect description of what I am going though because the shell really does need to be shattered before my understanding is at one with everything else within me.

And to really finish this off.........

"It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship.
Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment,
it will not be created for years or even generations." Khalil Gibran

THIS is why I am know I am taking the right path. The spiritual affinity was created in a moment but those moments keep coming and coming. Companionship is vital, persevering courtship is mundane. I am not into courtship but I sure as hell am into recognising and nurturing a spiritual affinity that knows no boundaries.

There is a dark side too. Can spiritual affinity come again in a moment, with other people?

Yes, it can which is why I am still slightly nervous of the speed in which events have taken place but it needs lots more moments than an initial exchange. And it needs the will and desire of two people. I know that in my situation. Without wisdom and desire, without will and spiritual affinity, without knowledge and understanding it will all disappear. I KNOW that woman no.1 and woman no. 2 will have very different relationships with the man than I have and so will woman no. 3 and woman no. 4,5,6,7,8 and so forth. I stupidly like to think that I am the most important. I want to be, but in some ways I have to lose that thought because if I am ever to achieve what I aspire to, well that Numero Uno will be there, of course, but it won’t need to be reiterated. It will just BE.

And really, really finally – is love the offspring of spiritual affinity or is spiritual affinity the offspring of love? Ultimately my path, my aspiration is the spiritual affinity which outweighs ‘love’ in every possibly significant way.

..............................................

Goodnight Groundhog. Now please fuck off and leave me alone to grow.