but I’m more and more convinced that celibacy was the right choice for me.
It just led to me feeling a lot more integrity in my relationships. There’s a real purity to getting to know someone without focusing on what their body can give you (which is nothing, btw ;-).
It’s probably hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t tried it.
My mind is still open. So we’ll see.
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Btw, I don’t know exactly what happened today, but I received a HUGE number of comments, many of them on older posts. In case anyone’s curious, When A Man Leads received a lot of comment traffic today. Some very interesting perspectives on expectation management, a topic that I personally would like to see more people addressing.
hey John,
You know, you may be right. It’s very possible that I’m just having a temporary emotional backlash right now from getting triggered. But getting triggered can be a very good thing cuz it’s a way to expand the comfort zone.
Anyway, Connection Guy has been really helping me through all this. His perspective is very refreshing and calming. Perhaps he’ll let me share some of his insights on another blog entry.
It is so beautiful here right now. I may post some photos on the blog so you all can share in the magnificence of this winter wonderland :-)
Again, thanks for all the comments. I received so many in the past 24 hours that I haven’t had a chance to digest fully or respond to all of you yet, but please be assured that all your perspectives are much appreciated.
Love,
Erika
But it doesn’t matter what you see sex doing to other people. It can make other people green and floaty for all you should care…the important thing is what it does FOR YOU.
“Harmony and continuity” are just flowery words for “status quo”. Do you really think sex will upset the applecart?
There is fear there. There doesn’t need to be.
If things are indeed so precious, then you would want to increase their importance to you, you’d want to encourage growth and strengthen that relationship, and sex is one way to do that.
Or you could remain afraid of it, dance your way around it, and the harmony you know would only remain a doughnut — something with a hole in it.
If you are interested in emotional complication, if you are intrigued by its existence, and not for the possibility of the drama and validation and attention it could yield you if done manipulatively, then sex becomes a great reservoir for emotional depth.
So, simply: What do you want?
Well, I had just an awesome day on the ski slopes.
John, I like the idea of embracing emotional complication and so forth. Kinda like tackling steeper and steeper ski slopes :-)
To put my earlier point more affirmatively: my relationships — all of them — are so precious to me that I’m not particularly interested in taking them sexual. This is not just based on my own experience but from watching others too. I see sex disconnecting people way more often than it connects them. And quite frankly, the harmony and continuity of my relationships is way more important to me than sex.
Put down the ACIM book, and look to your own body for a minute. Even in the most religious of contexts, we can come to agree that this body, this collection of muscles and chemicals houses the soul. It is through this body that we express the soul. It’s a conduit, it’s a medium for desires and passions and ideas and plans.
So it is not the body that seeks physical pleasure and hormones, it is the soul looking for them to be experienced through the body.
If there is stability in the absence of physical intimacy/sex, this leads me to think that there is fear in the intimacy and sex. Maybe not fear in the act, but fear of the emotions that move parallel to the act.
Emotional “complication” and emotion action are VITAL for all levels of personal growth…otherwise you are just going through empty motions without meaning.
If you want it to mean something, put emotion to it. If that gives you a lack of control, then your grip is too tight — you don’t need control for experience. You need only control the results of experience.
This isn’t something easily solved by diving into a text and pulling passages, this comes with the trial-and-error of life. You cannot fear the error, nor avoid it.
I am the Anonymous that responded to John’s post above (12:19 pm). I am the body-oriented psychologist. This is the first topic on this blog where I have chosen to comment.
I don’t have long at the moment, but I can tell you it is very possible to be fully embodied and still completely recognize that the soul is not bounded by the body. In fact, the body is a gateway into the soul.
I’m well aware that I’m WAY outside the mainstream on this, but I am not as fully convinced as everyone else that physical intimacy is where it’s at. Maybe it is.
It’s just that every time this discussion comes up, I think of this quotation from ACIM:
“While you believe that your reality or your brother’s is bounded by a body, you will believe in sin. While you believe that bodies can unite, you will find guilt attractive and believe that sin is precious. For the belief that bodies limit mind leads to a perception of the world in which the proof of separation seems to be everywhere. And God and his creation seem to be split apart and overthrown. For sin would prove what God created holy could not prevail against it, nor remain itself before the power of sin. Sin is perceived as mightier than God, before which God himself must bow, and offer his creation to its conqueror. Is this humility or madness?”
http://acim.home.att.net/text-19-03.html
“But you cannot downplay the importance of physical intimacy as a method of expression, rather than the alpha-omega goal. The body can give you a lot, with perspective.”
John is absolutely right in this statement. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
And regarding your feelings of “I don’t like what I see hormones do”…. well, two thoughts pop to mind. First thought is that hormones are a product of nature (or God, if you are so inclined to think that way). They have a purpose. They also don’t control us and “make” us do bad things…ultimately people have a conscious choice over every action they take.
Second thought is that you seem to be fearful of situations where you don’t have complete and total control over all that is happening…particularly as it relates to physical intimacy and your interactions with men. It’s almost like you are afraid to just let go and be.
Well, that’s deep, John, and I’ll need to digest it while skiing today ;-)
The vast majority of my experiences don’t “rush to be overtly sexual,” as you put it. That’s what I’m saying. I feel a lot of integrity in my relationships with men that have lasted, sometimes for years now, without a lot of physical intimacy. I like how solid and stable those relationships feel to me.
Obviously I don’t have all the answers, and I haven’t worked this all out yet. I don’t like what I see hormones do though, to girls or guys. And I don’t like seeing people around me blaze through a series of superficial, conflict-ridden, and ultimately fleeting sex-driven relationships. (Mind you, I’m talking now about mainstream City dating, not the seduction community. At least guys in the seduction community tend to be more honest if their intentions are short-term.)
It’s not the relationship that has the integrity, it’s you. The relationship doesn’t get integrity until you get into one (and bring your already existing integrity into the mix).
The feeling of purity is only strengthened because of being around people only interested in the body. If you were to find other people, find new experiences that weren’t rushing to be overtly sexual, then this sense of purity could be muted, only because it wouldn’t be an issue.
But you cannot downplay the importance of physical intimacy as a method of expression, rather than the alpha-omega goal. The body can give you a lot, with perspective.