Ok, everyone, spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen Woody Allen’s fabulous Spanish romance, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (VCB), you may want to go out and see it before reading this post.
I must give credit here to Terrance Thames. I was staying with him in Los Angeles when I went down for Hristiyan’s workshop, and he introduced me to this movie, which I had never heard of before. Terrance told me that guys who are not in the community are dismissive of VCB and think it’s just a “chick flick.” Whereas guys who are aware realize that this is a movie to study and emulate :-) Haha.
Notice how the women are attracted to Juan Antonio because he is a LOVER of women. He doesn’t “do” a whole lot in the movie. Yes, he does some great “inviting” (Zan Perrion style) and he does some great “leading” (giving the girls a tour of the town). He gets them all charged up with adrenaline from the very beginning (Motorcycle Guy style) by taking them for a dangerous ride in his tiny airplane.
But most of what he does is appreciate women. Plus he has a big sense of compassion. He’s mostly being and listening and touching and experiencing, rather than doing (which distinguishes him from Vicky’s husband-to-be, for example, who is rather frenetic and very focused on which neighborhood their new house will be in). Juan Antonio has a very calming, centered presence.
There are some amazing scenes in the movie that I may write more about in future blog posts. Some fabulous inviting, some fabulous leading, some fabulous masculine vulnerability and authenticity. Mmmmm….
Anyway, VCB has one of the hottest triads (man and two women) ever to grace the silver screen, and I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed when it broke up. After all, Cristina really was the missing ingredient that made an otherwise unworkable coupling viable again.
Which leads me to the questions to ponder today:
* Can a triad ever be permanently viable in real life?
* Or will one person end up feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled and leave the scene?
* Deep in her heart, does every woman long to have a man (or woman) who is devoted to her and only her?
hey Matt,
The ACIM quotation that comes to mind is "You do not ask too much of life, but far too little."
In some ways this process is about eliminating expectations, and in other ways it's about having much much higher expectations of life and other people.
I agree with you that ultimately one realizes that the "other" is not separate
In my current thought, there is only one version of trust, and it does not rely on another person to attain it. To hold anyone to anything is to remove freedom of choice. It is containment rather than freedom. Our choice is the bedrock of our freedom. To remove one is to remove the other. If someone violates my trust, they have in essence violated nothing except my expectation of their
This is why it is SO important to be impeccable with our word.
To say what we mean, and mean what we say.
Thanks for the comments, guys.
Johnny, I do note that you are in a very stable primary relationship, though, and that the stability of that probably meets a lot of emotional needs that would not be met through haphazard polyamory … yes?
Matt, I agree with you for the most part and I'm not a big fan of rules. At the same time, and this is something I've been
If competition was dropped and if fear of surrender was dropped, love would display itself in whatever ways it would will. I am seeing more and more that our ideas of what sex should be and what marriage should be drive our behavior. The behavior is not intrinsic to the act of loving. The more guilt is removed from the equation, I find that the more rules go out the window.
I dunno, I tend to believe it's more trouble than it's worth.
My experience has led me to believe that the majority of bisexual women, especially the ultra-fem ones that most men would be into, are made that way via tramatic experiences with men at an early age. Usually abuse which was either physical or psychological. That keeps them firmly on the fence between men and women.
Triads and larger communal groups are completely viable, presupposing no one's upbringing/ego-issues cannot be overcome.
That 'dissatisfaction' is ALWAYS due to poor expectation management – generally on multiple sides – and can be avoided through open communication and honesty.
Women in First-World nations are culturally raised to believe in lifelong monogamy,
i think women can dismiss the physical things that may occur outside of her relationship with a man, but when it seems to be an emotional connection…..things fall apart.