I will say that last night sparked one of the best compliments a heterosexual man can give to a woman:
“I wish you had a dick so I could suck it.”
Lately, some people have taken me to task, for my constant juxtaposition of God and my sex life. But I swear last night it happened again. As I was lying, tied spread eagle to the bed of someone I barely know, suddenly things made sense. I was sent there to learn something. Without getting too much into the specifics, the whole night made me think about how we as a culture spend so much time watching action movies and TV dramas and it’s like we get conditioned, maybe even desensitized, not just to violence but to excitement. So much of our culture is entertainment and drama by its very nature is about conflict. I don’t think violence in the media is the problem. I think it’s conflict, the very essence of drama. We’re used to watching important people risk their lives and their careers on life changing decisions with dire consequences. Then we lead our humdrum lives in which the boring parts are not edited out. I think our brains are wired for conflict and to fill that need we either retreat into movies and books and TV or we create conflict in our lives, intentionally or unintentionally even if the consequences for ourselves and others are severe. There are no more dragons to slay. So we create them.
Maybe that explains my obsession with sex. At least it fits with regard to my obsession with having sex with this one particular woman who I mentioned the other day. I thought about sex with her constantly today. It was 100 degrees today and all I could think about was turning off the air-condition, shutting the doors and windows and having suffocatingly hot, sweaty, slippery, salty-stinging-my-eyes-and-any-open-wounds sex with her. But then what? For every way that I can think of that sex with her would fuck up my life, there must be ten more that I can’t think of. There are some mistakes you make in your life that make you feel like you’ve been exiled to a dark country. I don’t want to be there again. But why can’t I just forget about it? This girl is so amazing and I actually love her and it’s just all fucked up.
“the action is the juice… the reward is worth the stretch.” – Heat
Your observation on our need for conflict is very astute, I think… It explains a lot of modern human behavior… Personally, I find myself amazed at how an otherwise boring life can temporarily slip into the sublime from time to time through the right experiences…
Conflict?
I’m not sure we’re looking for conflict. Actually, I think what we’re looking for is transcendence. We’re either looking for a way out of ourselves or for a way to connect with something greater than ourselves.
Most of us live lives in which we’re confined to our experience of the world through our senses. The more we stimulate those senses, the more we feel a need to heighten sensation. We link our lives to the external world and become disconnected from the internal world, always convinced that if we have new or more intense experiences, that we will actually find happiness–we will move beyond ourselves. Most of us just continue to get further entrenched in our patterns, and end up continually seeking satisfaction through our senses.
Sex can be a powerful means of either transcending or reinforcing these patterns. There is an entire branch of Tantra devoted to sexual practices. The Tantrikas believe that if sex is done with awareness, that you can actually open all of the energetic centers of the body, and achieve samadhi, or self-realization, at the moment of orgasm. In order for this to happen, though, you have to maintain awareness, and at the same time, surrender to the outcome.
This is where, I think, S&M comes in, or where the power dynamics of relationships come in. Those of us who are submissive are trying to find surrender; we’re trying to experience sensation, whether pain or pleasure, with complete detachment from the results. People who are more dominant are trying to find that focus to maintain awareness, paying attention to the mechanics of each action. We do the same thing with relationships, either tying to control or surrender to the consequences. The problem is that we isolate our experiences to the senses world, and when we fail to transcend them, we simply seek more intensity.
I think we are seeking God through sex (well, at least I am.) The conflict, in the end, is our fear of facing ourselves. It’s much easier to immerse ourselves in drama.
Re: Conflict?
And you are?
Re: Conflict?
Well, I didn’t want to pay to post, so I went the anonymous route.
And I’m doing that again, except I’m about to contradict it.
Hi, it’s Eve.
Re: Conflict?
Eve in NYC Eve?
Re: Conflict?
Yup.