People are beginning to use the label 'sex positive' and I use it as well, but I only use it because I am first 'passion positive', a label no one uses. Labels, symbols, words, arrows, the pointings toward the thing we mean, they only work when others understand them. Of course, this is the problem with neologisms.
But I believe in the power and positivity of people's passion. I believe they are a direct link to our soul, they are part of the fire that makes us alive, and if we listen to them closely I believe they can help us discover and understand purpose in our lives. When I fell in love with my wife, it was the first time in my life I felt truly passionate about something, and I began to order my life accordingly.
And suddenly it was easy to accept others who were following their passions. Where I was socially and politically conservative I became suddenly quite liberal, because while I believe we need some restrictions to help people not injure each other, I also believe all people should have the freedom to follow their passions, their dreams, their souls. May everyone finds theirs as I found mine.
December 12, 2009
December 11, 2009
The Desire Dynamic Difference
I seriously wonder, often, if my interior experience and erotic truth, what I am and what I want, really qualify me as an uxorious man or not. After all, for me it’s not her domination but her desire, not her control but her drive to control, not her power over me but her will to power, not her leading me but her desire to go where she will. And I don’t think I just have an attraction to confidence, although my wife does come by confidence naturally. I just like it when she desires something – when she loves me, wants me, or wants me to do something of course, but more basically I just want her to want things, anything, deeply.
I know everyone is different and that in any category there always remains a range of variation, but the label you accept is the label used. So if I feel ‘female led’ isn’t quite accurate enough, is there a more accurate label, symbol, or phrase? I am 'foolishly doting' and uxorious is accurate enough for what it describes, but it also continues to carry a context of submission, so it’s not good enough, not adequate enough, to indicate the difference between the power dynamic of female led and the desire dynamic of loving my wife.
Of course on some level I don’t care about labels; I have good reason to believe ‘that which we call a man by any other name would still be as sweet’ to his wife.
I know everyone is different and that in any category there always remains a range of variation, but the label you accept is the label used. So if I feel ‘female led’ isn’t quite accurate enough, is there a more accurate label, symbol, or phrase? I am 'foolishly doting' and uxorious is accurate enough for what it describes, but it also continues to carry a context of submission, so it’s not good enough, not adequate enough, to indicate the difference between the power dynamic of female led and the desire dynamic of loving my wife.
Of course on some level I don’t care about labels; I have good reason to believe ‘that which we call a man by any other name would still be as sweet’ to his wife.
December 10, 2009
The Push Back
I normally have no problem with wanting to do whatever will make my wife happy. It’s the way I want our lives and relationship to be; I want her to relax, do what she wants, and enjoy life. However, on the rare occasions of my octopus pride, I really have no idea what I really want, no idea why I’m saying what I’m saying, no idea why I’m doing what I’m doing.
After the fact I usually realize what I most wanted was for her to not put up with my nonsense, just push back at me with her expectations, push back at me and maintain an attitude of insistence. Just like any and every other time she wants something, I want her to just insist I do whatever it is she wants, do whatever it is her way. Even when at my worst, I still want to glory in the glow of her desire more than anything else.
On some level this ‘push back’ is reminiscent of the ‘female domination’ many men desire, and I also think men in any relationship want their partners to push back at them a little bit. In any relationship pecking order fight, the push back shows strength of character, and that’s good to have in a partner – except the female led man often fights to lose. He wants his partner to give some recognition of their relationship power dynamic because it’s a love symbol he understands, even though this is like throwing a temper tantrum to get the authority and attention of parental punishment. Something my wife recently said made me think I might merely have unreal expectations, and then just being unaware of my internal emotions leads me to act a little like an idiot and a little short of social expectations. I’m not sure if being an idiot is better than being a child, but I don’t think it matters.
Whether domination or something less than domination, riding roughshod over me is not her style, not something she actively enjoys, and I’d rather have her do more things she actively enjoys than have the push back. And I don’t want to act like a child or an idiot; if there’s a problem, I want to figure it out and communicate, you know, like an adult.
Relationships need adequate and accurate communication and symbolization, for everything from an effective ‘I love you’ to an ‘I want you to do this.’ What I want and what she is willing to give both have to be communicated and negotiated, probably constantly evaluated and ever adjusted, in order to consistently best meet both our needs. If I want an adjustment, I want two to tango on a two way street, not temper tantrums or idiocy until accountability or ’punishment’ is achieved.
So the sooner I learn to stop my octopus and listen to my interior compass, the better.
After the fact I usually realize what I most wanted was for her to not put up with my nonsense, just push back at me with her expectations, push back at me and maintain an attitude of insistence. Just like any and every other time she wants something, I want her to just insist I do whatever it is she wants, do whatever it is her way. Even when at my worst, I still want to glory in the glow of her desire more than anything else.
On some level this ‘push back’ is reminiscent of the ‘female domination’ many men desire, and I also think men in any relationship want their partners to push back at them a little bit. In any relationship pecking order fight, the push back shows strength of character, and that’s good to have in a partner – except the female led man often fights to lose. He wants his partner to give some recognition of their relationship power dynamic because it’s a love symbol he understands, even though this is like throwing a temper tantrum to get the authority and attention of parental punishment. Something my wife recently said made me think I might merely have unreal expectations, and then just being unaware of my internal emotions leads me to act a little like an idiot and a little short of social expectations. I’m not sure if being an idiot is better than being a child, but I don’t think it matters.
Whether domination or something less than domination, riding roughshod over me is not her style, not something she actively enjoys, and I’d rather have her do more things she actively enjoys than have the push back. And I don’t want to act like a child or an idiot; if there’s a problem, I want to figure it out and communicate, you know, like an adult.
Relationships need adequate and accurate communication and symbolization, for everything from an effective ‘I love you’ to an ‘I want you to do this.’ What I want and what she is willing to give both have to be communicated and negotiated, probably constantly evaluated and ever adjusted, in order to consistently best meet both our needs. If I want an adjustment, I want two to tango on a two way street, not temper tantrums or idiocy until accountability or ’punishment’ is achieved.
So the sooner I learn to stop my octopus and listen to my interior compass, the better.
December 9, 2009
Octopus Pride
I sometimes wrongly read the right symbols.
There are many things my wife doesn’t want to deal with and I have carte blanche to get the desired result any way I want. Of course with some things my wife isn’t even interested in the reasoning behind my way of doing it, she just wants it done her way. On these occasions, I sometimes I feel a blow to my pride, for without first understanding my way, it’s as though she already decided my way wasn’t valid, decided I’m invalid without first understanding me. It is a crime of extreme prejudice, and since perpetrated by the one who is supposed to love me most, a crime most heinous.
Or, perhaps I just want all my thoughts and ideas to have great value to her simply because they are my thoughts and ideas. I want her to value my opinions as much as she values me, so surely some inversion must also be true: the value she places on my opinion must be the value she places on me.
Of course, it’s all faulty logic and just not true. Everything you don’t understand is of lesser immediate value simply because you don’t understand it. We usually value the logic of own opinion before the unknown opinion of another. And when she has not the time or inclination to listen and compare ways and reasons, or if it’s an issue she feels too sensitive to leave to unknown logic, it is entirely understandable she would want me to do things her way, it’s the way she most confidently trusts.
In fact it may be the case that two people in a relationship both want their way to be the ‘default’ about the same thing. Then they have to communicate, negotiate, and work it out, but my wife and I have already done this, and (barring safety and some other important and obvious circumstances) we’ve already agreed our default is her way on anything she wants it.
So if I’m more than happy to do things her way, and pretty much whether or not my way and reasons get discussed at some other time, what’s the real problem here? Well, honestly, I think my way really is for her to stroke my ego a little before I go do it her way. I really just want it both ways at the same time, her to have it her way and me to have it my way.
Really she is giving me the right symbol and it’s nothing like a crime, quite the opposite: not only is doing things her way an expression and symbol of love that I use and understand, it’s one we’ve agreed upon. It’s just in the random appearance of octopus pride, I read the right symbol wrongly.
There are many things my wife doesn’t want to deal with and I have carte blanche to get the desired result any way I want. Of course with some things my wife isn’t even interested in the reasoning behind my way of doing it, she just wants it done her way. On these occasions, I sometimes I feel a blow to my pride, for without first understanding my way, it’s as though she already decided my way wasn’t valid, decided I’m invalid without first understanding me. It is a crime of extreme prejudice, and since perpetrated by the one who is supposed to love me most, a crime most heinous.
Or, perhaps I just want all my thoughts and ideas to have great value to her simply because they are my thoughts and ideas. I want her to value my opinions as much as she values me, so surely some inversion must also be true: the value she places on my opinion must be the value she places on me.
Of course, it’s all faulty logic and just not true. Everything you don’t understand is of lesser immediate value simply because you don’t understand it. We usually value the logic of own opinion before the unknown opinion of another. And when she has not the time or inclination to listen and compare ways and reasons, or if it’s an issue she feels too sensitive to leave to unknown logic, it is entirely understandable she would want me to do things her way, it’s the way she most confidently trusts.
In fact it may be the case that two people in a relationship both want their way to be the ‘default’ about the same thing. Then they have to communicate, negotiate, and work it out, but my wife and I have already done this, and (barring safety and some other important and obvious circumstances) we’ve already agreed our default is her way on anything she wants it.
So if I’m more than happy to do things her way, and pretty much whether or not my way and reasons get discussed at some other time, what’s the real problem here? Well, honestly, I think my way really is for her to stroke my ego a little before I go do it her way. I really just want it both ways at the same time, her to have it her way and me to have it my way.
Really she is giving me the right symbol and it’s nothing like a crime, quite the opposite: not only is doing things her way an expression and symbol of love that I use and understand, it’s one we’ve agreed upon. It’s just in the random appearance of octopus pride, I read the right symbol wrongly.
December 8, 2009
The Maintenance of Loyalty
And how important the interior compass is, for many uxorious men the power dynamic of their relationship is not just the way they show their love and feel their partner’s love, it is not only the context or functional symbol of love, it becomes what love is to them. Thus they attune themselves to this power dynamic rather than to the love it may represent.
Yet a partner may have a slightly different set of symbols for love in the relationship, and without communication and the differentiation of the internal compass, an absence or lack of the symbol they do understand is simply perceived and experienced as an absence of love itself. Then in the perceived vacuum they inevitably search for filler, perhaps porn, perhaps an affair, perhaps something else, but they are sidetracked from the course of love in their relationship; loyalty is not maintained.
And there are always problems and obstacles like these in any relationship; what if you had a long distance relationship and your love were divided by an ocean? My wife watches a television program in which the lead character has a very supportive husband. He is always one hundred percent behind her, and while neither the character, the program, or much of television is very believable, my wife always appreciates the demonstration of loyalty. Loyalty. How does one, no matter the obstacles, maintain loyalty, maintain focus on the love in their relationship?
It is no easy thing, but I think by the constant attunement to love, by the constant orientation of the interior compass upon love, and not simply upon the symbols of love, that a lover’s loyalty is maintained.
Yet a partner may have a slightly different set of symbols for love in the relationship, and without communication and the differentiation of the internal compass, an absence or lack of the symbol they do understand is simply perceived and experienced as an absence of love itself. Then in the perceived vacuum they inevitably search for filler, perhaps porn, perhaps an affair, perhaps something else, but they are sidetracked from the course of love in their relationship; loyalty is not maintained.
And there are always problems and obstacles like these in any relationship; what if you had a long distance relationship and your love were divided by an ocean? My wife watches a television program in which the lead character has a very supportive husband. He is always one hundred percent behind her, and while neither the character, the program, or much of television is very believable, my wife always appreciates the demonstration of loyalty. Loyalty. How does one, no matter the obstacles, maintain loyalty, maintain focus on the love in their relationship?
It is no easy thing, but I think by the constant attunement to love, by the constant orientation of the interior compass upon love, and not simply upon the symbols of love, that a lover’s loyalty is maintained.
December 7, 2009
Active and Passive Pleasure
While my wife never does anything she doesn’t want to do, the soul of our relationship is not female domination. Yes, she has a dominant personality, but she is not dominating in any way reminiscent of 'femdom' and she certainly is not a ‘dominant’ or a ‘domme’.
She occasionally does things for me, or does something my way, simply because she loves me and she’s a great woman who wants me to be happy, who is happy to make me happy, who is happy even just to see that I’m happy. I rather think of her enjoyment in these instances as a ‘passive pleasure’. Of course most times she does what she wants, does things her way, her way born of her own interior desire, and her ‘active pleasure’.
Once upon a time my enjoyment of my active pleasure wasn’t particularly fazed by the status of my partner’s pleasure; not only was I was young and oblivious, but I probably never had a relationship long enough to notice my partner’s pleasure and enjoyment. Now I have a devil of a time enjoying my own active pleasure unless she is also enjoying her own active pleasure – if she is doing something for me that is only passively pleasing to her, it is difficult for me to actively enjoy it very much. Often I don’t ask her for things because I don’t want to impinge on her active pleasure, and usually if I do ask for something I ask only once in the most nonchalant manner I can muster.
On one hand I know some beauty in life comes from the making of choices and compromises, and to live everyone needs to make them. So if she chooses a passive pleasure well then, I try to let her do what she wants to and not try to make do something different and active simply to increase my passive pleasure. Yet on the other hand, with her dominant personality I often think she would be happier if she felt more free to choose active pleasures more often. Perhaps the real problem is that out of our desire to be individually happy we are both trying too hard to make the other one happy.
But perhaps that’s the real point too. Perhaps the motions of our relationship solar system are powered by the gravities of our desire, and in our love for each other our individual enjoyment can no longer be full without (or separated from) the other’s enjoyment, no matter whose pleasure is active and whose pleasure is passive. The center and soul of our relationship cannot be summed by any one word or phrase; it is a nexus between us, a matrix of our combined gravities, a complexity of love we can know only by its direction on our individual interior compass rose.
She occasionally does things for me, or does something my way, simply because she loves me and she’s a great woman who wants me to be happy, who is happy to make me happy, who is happy even just to see that I’m happy. I rather think of her enjoyment in these instances as a ‘passive pleasure’. Of course most times she does what she wants, does things her way, her way born of her own interior desire, and her ‘active pleasure’.
Once upon a time my enjoyment of my active pleasure wasn’t particularly fazed by the status of my partner’s pleasure; not only was I was young and oblivious, but I probably never had a relationship long enough to notice my partner’s pleasure and enjoyment. Now I have a devil of a time enjoying my own active pleasure unless she is also enjoying her own active pleasure – if she is doing something for me that is only passively pleasing to her, it is difficult for me to actively enjoy it very much. Often I don’t ask her for things because I don’t want to impinge on her active pleasure, and usually if I do ask for something I ask only once in the most nonchalant manner I can muster.
On one hand I know some beauty in life comes from the making of choices and compromises, and to live everyone needs to make them. So if she chooses a passive pleasure well then, I try to let her do what she wants to and not try to make do something different and active simply to increase my passive pleasure. Yet on the other hand, with her dominant personality I often think she would be happier if she felt more free to choose active pleasures more often. Perhaps the real problem is that out of our desire to be individually happy we are both trying too hard to make the other one happy.
But perhaps that’s the real point too. Perhaps the motions of our relationship solar system are powered by the gravities of our desire, and in our love for each other our individual enjoyment can no longer be full without (or separated from) the other’s enjoyment, no matter whose pleasure is active and whose pleasure is passive. The center and soul of our relationship cannot be summed by any one word or phrase; it is a nexus between us, a matrix of our combined gravities, a complexity of love we can know only by its direction on our individual interior compass rose.
December 6, 2009
The Soul of Porn
There’s no point in denying that porn is appealing, after all I’m a man and sex is appealing, period. But if my wife is the Sun, porn is Pluto.
I didn’t always have a sex positive attitude but I did when I quit my porn habit, and at the time my wife put her foot down I didn’t feel there was anything seriously wrong with porn. In fact, I still don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with porn per se, I'm happy for those who have no problem with it and I wish them the best. However there’s a good reason I quit, and quit cold turkey with no tricks, no gimmicks, no filters, no nannies, no oversight, just quit and permanently. I can’t even remember how long it’s been since because it’s something I rarely even think about anymore.
On one hand I was never really into “hardcore porn” in the first place, but what I did I rather thought was, well, ‘fun’. And yes, sex can be fun, perhaps even sex should have ‘entertainment’ value. Yet obviously sex can also be something more, something intimately shared with someone, a physical intimacy reflecting the love and respect you have for that person, a symbol showing the beauty, grace and soul of both your selves and your relationship.
This was probably something my wife knew without ever having to learn it, and though I wasn’t listening very well at first, I shortly made the brilliant realization that she was saying she knew what she wanted concerning sex in our relationship. Yes, well, that’s the first thing that put me on pause, I saw her desire for something here, and better yet she wanted me to participate in achieving her desire.
Of course, we know old habits die hard and porn has some addictive qualities, but you should also know my wife is smart. She made a bright line with very serious repercussions, no exceptions. This was the second thing that put me on pause, and with all the pausing I was doing I had time to finally realize what she already knew: porn is soulless. It is desire without spirit, release without freedom, sex without love.
I don’t believe everything we do in life has to have spirit, freedom and love, but I do seriously love my wife and when I listened to her about how she wanted our sexuality to be an intimacy shared only when with each other, she was making a lot of sense. So I made a choice way down in the center of myself, a simple choice really if difficult to make. Now, scientists’ decision the definition of ‘planet’ didn’t include Pluto took years to make, and at least I didn’t take that long to decide my wife was right: the solar system of our relationship has a soul, and one whose definition we’ve decided will now no longer include porn.
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