Occasionally, while facing forward and paying full attention to my wife and our lives together, I'll suddenly start dreaming our love and lives a little different, perhaps we've met earlier in life, have more money, are more successful at something or another, and often with different levels or corridors of intimacy. However, I've recently discovered daydreaming too often wants me to be different than I am, or worse my wife to be different than she is.
When I was younger this wouldn’t bother me so much; I could have wonderful fantasies about a partner who was, well, not really my partner. These days once I recognize a daydream as veiled excuse for variety's allure, the fantasy suffers terminal failure. Without true love, imagination's sheer multiplicity holds little real relationship appeal, probably because it faces backwards towards prideful sex game tabulations.
Yet I believe in positive daydreaming, good fantasy that builds on what's immediately present and moves further along the current path. It can help us recognize what is acceptable, what will work, and what our parameters are. Such fantasy helps us feel our way forward helping us understand ourselves better in the dynamics of intrapersonal relationships and it strengthens us.
December 19, 2009
December 18, 2009
The Sex Game
Yet the sex game goal is gaining social status, and it often has such gradual change it leaves many bewildered players looking back unsure if they haven't already lost. They feel as if they've lost something anyway, and if they aren’t quite sure how they lost it, neither are they entirely sure what it was. When suspecting it's sexual currency or social worth, they hope it's not entirely lost, perhaps only partially off the market because currently they're unsure what the rules are for getting it back on.
Of course, the game has never had any unbreakable rules, partly because though sex is fun to play, it's more than just a game, possibly not a game at all. Obviously when we're already using our market worth to hold down whatever social status we may have already gained with it, we can't continue to use it for gaining more on the market. Yet while occasionally we later feel marketability loss, we shouldn't forget we're currently using that worth for more than staking a social claim with bragging rights.
For while desire is the unavoidable fate of every human interior and woven within the very flow of our lives, love is but one interactive destiny we have the freedom to seek as a culminating fruition of our inmost desire. Let us not confuse the two, for whatever game of desire we've had, once we get where we're going, we must face forward, learning love as an act of destiny.
Of course, the game has never had any unbreakable rules, partly because though sex is fun to play, it's more than just a game, possibly not a game at all. Obviously when we're already using our market worth to hold down whatever social status we may have already gained with it, we can't continue to use it for gaining more on the market. Yet while occasionally we later feel marketability loss, we shouldn't forget we're currently using that worth for more than staking a social claim with bragging rights.
For while desire is the unavoidable fate of every human interior and woven within the very flow of our lives, love is but one interactive destiny we have the freedom to seek as a culminating fruition of our inmost desire. Let us not confuse the two, for whatever game of desire we've had, once we get where we're going, we must face forward, learning love as an act of destiny.
December 17, 2009
Intuitive, Instinctive, Gradual - Change
Perhaps because we intuitively understand our need for genuine and earnest interactions, we don't take on roles we can't play well, roles that can’t become a part of us and be roles no longer. Perhaps we intuitively know how much we're willing to give, as well as instinctively know which love widgets we're able to give and yet remain ourselves. And when we don't listen to our self knowledge, our interior compass, things usually end badly.
So I don’t think my wife should give more than she does, I'm not even sure I should give more than I do because we, like everyone, inevitably want more than we're able to do, have, handle. Sure change will gradually happen, but change is inevitable, and gradual is often the best way for change to happen.
So I don’t think my wife should give more than she does, I'm not even sure I should give more than I do because we, like everyone, inevitably want more than we're able to do, have, handle. Sure change will gradually happen, but change is inevitable, and gradual is often the best way for change to happen.
December 16, 2009
Feedback Need
Actors choose roles, but those roles have planned end dates when the role is finished. No one wants relationship role playing because relationships with planned termination aren't really relationships. What we do want is love from our partners in symbols we understand. While we need to give (period), we also give to get what we need, and so we do what we can: compromises, give and take, do things in certain ways simply for our partner's satisfaction. And such things are not solely widgets bartered, because we do them out of our love and for our partner's sake.
We choose like actors, but unlike actors our choice of roles becomes part of us. And as the relationship becomes a part of us, those love widgets become more than lines we speak or motions on a stage. They become the currency of our relationship, the currency of our love; they become love symbols and we become a person who loves by those symbols.
And yet there are always limits to what we're willing to do for widgets, whether hard limits or soft parameters. I want my wife never to sell short of her desires, never to compromise, never to take less, certainly never for my sake. Of course this is unrealistic, so I have a soft goal with just enough of her active pleasure, to make me feel her interior isn't changing too much for my sake. Yet even this requires me to know, guess, assume, how much desire she has for, how much happiness she derives from, any particular widget.
On the other hand, she doesn't want the obligation to constantly tell me what to do and exactly how to do it; it's a rather exhausting role, and one few people truly want to play. Thus quite quickly the loop becomes a matter of communication and feedback, in both directions, how to most effectively get everyone the love they want, in love symbols they understand, without role play artifice, in either direction. Perhaps the most difficult love symbol is to simply feel earnest and genuine with your partner while perceiving they likewise feel earnest and genuine with you.
We choose like actors, but unlike actors our choice of roles becomes part of us. And as the relationship becomes a part of us, those love widgets become more than lines we speak or motions on a stage. They become the currency of our relationship, the currency of our love; they become love symbols and we become a person who loves by those symbols.
And yet there are always limits to what we're willing to do for widgets, whether hard limits or soft parameters. I want my wife never to sell short of her desires, never to compromise, never to take less, certainly never for my sake. Of course this is unrealistic, so I have a soft goal with just enough of her active pleasure, to make me feel her interior isn't changing too much for my sake. Yet even this requires me to know, guess, assume, how much desire she has for, how much happiness she derives from, any particular widget.
On the other hand, she doesn't want the obligation to constantly tell me what to do and exactly how to do it; it's a rather exhausting role, and one few people truly want to play. Thus quite quickly the loop becomes a matter of communication and feedback, in both directions, how to most effectively get everyone the love they want, in love symbols they understand, without role play artifice, in either direction. Perhaps the most difficult love symbol is to simply feel earnest and genuine with your partner while perceiving they likewise feel earnest and genuine with you.
December 15, 2009
Gender: Kinked, Bent, or Straightened
As an adult who recently discovered his erotic truth, I found very quickly I needed to question that truth in terms of an eroticized gender role switch. Since gender is a social construct, not an anatomical or biological difference (though there is no lack of theories connecting the social differences to biological differences), I realized I could be eroticizing the 'taboo' switching of a social role.
There are, of course, people who find switching gender roles (various dress-up, sissification, forced feminization, etc.) kinky and erotic, and well, hey, that's okay. However, I think for me there's too much disconnect between such sexuality and the idea of gender equality. And whether it's gender prejudice or discrimination, mixed-up gender fears and phobias, or even gender attraction and sexual desire, we each make our peace with gender equality, whether that peace is consciously made or not.
Personally, I do not believe there should be such well-defined gender roles, thus much of the arousal, taboo, guilt, humiliation etc. based on breaching such socially recognized gender roles just doesn't have much personal value. Even the mere titillation of 'bending' gender a little bit bothers me because I don't believe society should be so rigid as to easily see gender as being 'bent'. Even 'erotic cross-dressing' (i.e. not transgendered psychology) seems to somehow fall afoul the idea that clothing makes the man, or the woman, or is somehow a significant difference between them.
This is not to say words and concepts like 'emasculation', 'sissification', or 'feminization', do not hold meaning for me; I certainly understand what people mean when discussing such ideas. I just look forward to the day when they generally have more historical value than contemporary. I don't believe my erotic truth has much to do with society, or gender roles, or their switching, but ultimately, I can’t help but think perhaps gender in society needs no play, no drama, no 'role'.
There are, of course, people who find switching gender roles (various dress-up, sissification, forced feminization, etc.) kinky and erotic, and well, hey, that's okay. However, I think for me there's too much disconnect between such sexuality and the idea of gender equality. And whether it's gender prejudice or discrimination, mixed-up gender fears and phobias, or even gender attraction and sexual desire, we each make our peace with gender equality, whether that peace is consciously made or not.
Personally, I do not believe there should be such well-defined gender roles, thus much of the arousal, taboo, guilt, humiliation etc. based on breaching such socially recognized gender roles just doesn't have much personal value. Even the mere titillation of 'bending' gender a little bit bothers me because I don't believe society should be so rigid as to easily see gender as being 'bent'. Even 'erotic cross-dressing' (i.e. not transgendered psychology) seems to somehow fall afoul the idea that clothing makes the man, or the woman, or is somehow a significant difference between them.
This is not to say words and concepts like 'emasculation', 'sissification', or 'feminization', do not hold meaning for me; I certainly understand what people mean when discussing such ideas. I just look forward to the day when they generally have more historical value than contemporary. I don't believe my erotic truth has much to do with society, or gender roles, or their switching, but ultimately, I can’t help but think perhaps gender in society needs no play, no drama, no 'role'.
December 14, 2009
Motivation
On the other hand procrastination does not work. It's terrible but if I cannot adequately connect the work at hand to the experience of her active pleasure, I remain unmotivated for that task, procrastinating indefinitely if possible. Work not involved with passion by contrast becomes drudgery, and I just don't seem to have enough self-discipline to do what must be done. Yet with a simple word from my wife about the expectation of accomplishment, or even my failure to accomplish, suddenly I am ready to tackle the world again.
Although the problem is akin to simply wanting more push back, there's no octopus pride here. It's a bit distasteful, but I'm more minded of an unmotivated five-year-old who must either be constantly encouraged or scolded. Of course, the 'simple word' is a wonderful symbol effectively communicating active pleasure, and so I conversely end up wondering how much we as adults are no better than children, unconsciously assessing the worth of the workload as investment against the promise of paying approval. Or worse, consciously assessing.
And while I now wonder if children sometimes behave badly just to feel the affirmation of their parents' desire, such economy of interest in an adult, even in unconscious motivation, seems to also betray the limits of the maintenance of loyalty. Moreover, I don't want to act like a child, I want to act, you know, like an adult, one with his own readily available supply of interior motivation.
Although the problem is akin to simply wanting more push back, there's no octopus pride here. It's a bit distasteful, but I'm more minded of an unmotivated five-year-old who must either be constantly encouraged or scolded. Of course, the 'simple word' is a wonderful symbol effectively communicating active pleasure, and so I conversely end up wondering how much we as adults are no better than children, unconsciously assessing the worth of the workload as investment against the promise of paying approval. Or worse, consciously assessing.
And while I now wonder if children sometimes behave badly just to feel the affirmation of their parents' desire, such economy of interest in an adult, even in unconscious motivation, seems to also betray the limits of the maintenance of loyalty. Moreover, I don't want to act like a child, I want to act, you know, like an adult, one with his own readily available supply of interior motivation.
December 13, 2009
The Intimacy of Symbols
These points I've made about freedom, about passion and desire, about active and passive pleasure, about self-imposed restrictions, about kink and porn (or the absence thereof), about truth, erotic truth, pride and loyalty, relationship push back and communication, about love and the symbols of love, all these things are ultimately about the intimacy and the desire for intimacy.
Intimacy is knowledge of a person, their interior, their love, their passion and desire. Intimacy is the sharing of our hopes, fears and dreams - all these things and thereby it is sharing of our selves. It is easier for a couple to become intimate when they have common interests and passions, because it is easier for them to understand those pathways down into the self of the other. The symbols to understand each other are already closer to adequate and accurate, and those symbols communicate their interior spaces more easily.
Those with fewer symbols in common should remember symbol commonality is not the road to intimacy, communication and understanding is. The creation and use of adequate and accurate symbols between two interiors leads to intimacy. With more accurate and adequate symbols, greater intimacy is possible, and with a wider scope of effective symbols, a greater interior space may become intimate.
And people use all kinds of shared experiences, shared histories, shared jobs, shared entertainment in music, movies, and television, and all manner of various shared kinds and types of the above, as bases for creating pathways to interior spaces, bases for the creation of intimacy. Sometimes it happens accidentally, sometimes intentionally, sometimes spontaneously, and quite often people do not become as intimate as the efficacy of their symbols might allow, perhaps by choice perhaps by chance. Yet always people become intimate through adequate and accurate symbols.
Sometimes people become intimate without love; well matched enemies may share and understand a great deal of each other. Sometimes people become intimate without much interior space similarity, and where the spaces are similar, sharing and understanding happens faster. But we share and understand, even love and appreciate, spaces unlike ourselves all the time, and often such bonds have great strength because great effort and great patience themselves are great symbols of love.
I haven't a game plan for the further creation of intimacy with my wife, and though sometimes I think perhaps I should, we value spontaneity as an honest truth disseminator. It works, for us, and perhaps that's the point: 'intimacy happens' and 'what works, works' - both good things, for all of us.
Intimacy is knowledge of a person, their interior, their love, their passion and desire. Intimacy is the sharing of our hopes, fears and dreams - all these things and thereby it is sharing of our selves. It is easier for a couple to become intimate when they have common interests and passions, because it is easier for them to understand those pathways down into the self of the other. The symbols to understand each other are already closer to adequate and accurate, and those symbols communicate their interior spaces more easily.
Those with fewer symbols in common should remember symbol commonality is not the road to intimacy, communication and understanding is. The creation and use of adequate and accurate symbols between two interiors leads to intimacy. With more accurate and adequate symbols, greater intimacy is possible, and with a wider scope of effective symbols, a greater interior space may become intimate.
And people use all kinds of shared experiences, shared histories, shared jobs, shared entertainment in music, movies, and television, and all manner of various shared kinds and types of the above, as bases for creating pathways to interior spaces, bases for the creation of intimacy. Sometimes it happens accidentally, sometimes intentionally, sometimes spontaneously, and quite often people do not become as intimate as the efficacy of their symbols might allow, perhaps by choice perhaps by chance. Yet always people become intimate through adequate and accurate symbols.
Sometimes people become intimate without love; well matched enemies may share and understand a great deal of each other. Sometimes people become intimate without much interior space similarity, and where the spaces are similar, sharing and understanding happens faster. But we share and understand, even love and appreciate, spaces unlike ourselves all the time, and often such bonds have great strength because great effort and great patience themselves are great symbols of love.
I haven't a game plan for the further creation of intimacy with my wife, and though sometimes I think perhaps I should, we value spontaneity as an honest truth disseminator. It works, for us, and perhaps that's the point: 'intimacy happens' and 'what works, works' - both good things, for all of us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
