Sexual addiction! and Male-Female energy roles/energies

[Pablísimo]

I so embrace the consciously merging with you fellow seekers in resplendent, joyful oneness. As it is, you blow my mind with a keyboard! To know oneness with you would be a never-ending joy.

Well said, my friend, well said indeed! I agree completely. You know, reading your post about the moderator headaches made me wish there was a thread about the different types of catalyst the moderators have received from administering the forums. I would be interested in your perspectives. Consider it a thread suggestion.

At the time, I sought help from other women. But, being young, my friends certainly weren't any help. I read the advice columns in which the advice was always the same: Don't make a big deal out of your man's porn habits or you'll lose him. Be ready and willing to have sex at any moment, if you want to keep your man. It's ok for your man to look as long as he doesn't touch.

The prevalent attitude among most women I knew was that this was something they didn't dare mess with. To take on the male obsession with porn was an insurmountable task, something doomed to failure. Any woman who didn't understand that was stupid and destined to lose her man and it would be her fault for being so possessive. After all, everyone knows that Boys will be boys, right?

This was the mentality I was dealing with, and I wasn't mature enough or confident enough at the time to trust my own feelings or guidance.

I just would like to note here that in my own path, I"ve often found the best position to take to be somewhere between two extremes. I believe there is always a Middle Way. The balance between tolerance and acceptance of your mate's challenges and insisting upon honor and respect for yourself must be struck.

(03-05-2010 08:02 PM)Pablísimo Wrote: Understanding is the ultimate key to forgiveness, in my view.
I would say that it can be a key, thus making forgiveness easier to accomplish, but in many cases we don't have the luxury of understanding. Understanding is not of this density, so if we have it, that's great, but many times we don't have it, and in those cases, making the choice to forgive first, before we have understanding, is powerful indeed. To choose to forgive someone when you really disagree with them and don't have a clue why they did what they did...can in turn unlock the key to understanding! So it can work both ways!

Very insightful, and true. I had felt understanding to be the key to forgiveness for a very long time before finding LOO. When I read that understanding was not of this density, I initially only thought that it applied to the greater questions of life. I had given up finding the answers fully a decade before finding LOO and that quote resonated very deeply with me and gave me a kind of peace about it. However, as I contemplated your words just now I realize that indeed in many cases I only think I understand a person or situation, when in fact, I do not. And regardless of my relative understanding, it should not be a prerequisite to forgiveness, especially since forgiveness itself can lead to at least greater understanding, as you eloquently noted. I liken it to the idea that life is difficult because content people cannot grow, but growth itself brings contentment. A self-resolving paradox.

Definitely. It's helpful if we can get past seeing the other sex as adversarial. Let's all work together to solve this, but in order to do that, both sides have to acknowledge the validity of the other person's feelings and challenges.

Right on, sister!

Well said! It is indeed a slippery slope. Perhaps the determining factor is intention. Was she intentionally challenging those men, so that she could then find an excuse to criticize men? Or was she reveling in her own youth and beauty, oblivious to the effect she was having on men?

Wow, some old catalyst just jumped up at me. All these years, I assumed it was the former, and I could be right, but what if it was the the latter? That changes the equation dramatically. Thanks for the insight on intent!

There is so much more. I've barely scratched the surface. Looksism is everywhere. Here are some examples:

Barbie dolls. Who designed Barbie dolls??? They are anatomically impossible. Totally unrealistic. What kind of signal is this giving to impressionable children? Most little girls play with Barbie dolls, and it's perpetuating the ideal male image of an impossibly tiny waist, long slender legs, and disproportionately large breasts. Did you know that there is a movement to change that? There are anatomically realistic dolls on the market, that aware mothers buy as an alternative to Barbie?

When was the last time you saw a movie with the female lead character played by a short, plump actress?

Good point. In all honesty, I was aware of these things peripherally but I don't think that they are something most men focus on because they don't directly affect the male gender to the same degree. In order to be more compassionate, I think it is helpful for men to try to be more cognizant of such issues. Indeed both sexes should try to better appreciate the unique challenges that the other gender faces on a daily basis. In that way, love and compassion grow.

While it's certainly good to offer compliments about her beauty, I would suggest giving equal time to complimenting her on her other qualities, when she is still beautiful. Don't wait until she loses her beauty! (We all lose our physical beauty eventually, some sooner than others.) Tell her now, that you admire her beauty but love her deeply anyway, regardless of how physically beautiful she is. Then, if down the road she ever loses that beauty, she will remember what you told her in the days of her youth, and it will comfort and reassure her more than anything you could say later. (This is just a generic suggestion and not directed to Pablisimo or anyone else personally.)

That is very good advice, Monica, and I'm glad you brought it up. While I am indeed quite physically attracted to my wife, it is her other qualities (Intelligence, compassion, nurturing, sense of humor, integrity) etc that really made me fall in love with her. It is important for everyone in a comitted relationship to see their partner in a broad light and not focus overmuch on any one aspect.

I learned Spanish as a foreign language a few years back and I maintain it by watching an episode of a Telenovela each day. Despite the cheesiness and formulaic qualities of some, if you are selective about which telenovalas you watch, there are some real gems out there. One thing that struck me years ago was how whenever a young female character was being comforted, the words used would always be "You're such a beautiful girl, you're so pretty, etc etc". When the guys would talk about their beloved, it's always "She's the loveliest creature, she's so beautiful" and on and on. Now, the shows themselves don't always portray women in a one-dimensional light. There have been some that present women in a very complex, multifaceted light (ie Doña Bárbara, Madre Luna). But always the speech patterns of talking about beauty as the first (and only) quality of worth. Some of these girls were very dynamic -- powerful, sassy, kind, sweet, intelligent, but it never seemed to get mentioned. Since the show itself showed many other fe male dimensions, I felt that perhaps the choice of lines was more of a reflection of a cultural predisposition towards judging a woman's value on her physical attractiveness rather than on other qualities. It was this catalyst that made me examine my compliments to my wife in a new light and I confess I was guilty of some of the same speech patterns despite my inner thoughts. That awareness helped me to adjust my speech to match my heart.

It's understandable that she would be concerned about that. Right now I know a woman 10 years older than her husband, and their marriage is falling apart for that very reason. She is 65 and has a lot of health problems and looks like an old woman, while her husband is young, fit, and virile. In fact, they look so mismatched that I was shocked when I first met them! Not so much because of the physical difference but because of the distance between them. He seemed to view her with disgust. There was zero affection displayed. She might have been his mother! I wonder how much of their problems are because of her own insecurity, and how much is the man not appreciating her.

Wow, no doubt they had some real issues. I would wager, though, that the age difference itself was not the cause of any of those problems.

(03-05-2010 08:02 PM)Pablísimo Wrote: Regardless of one's real attractiveness, a loving committed relationship blinds us to our mate's physical flaws and amplifies their inner and outer beauty.

I would suggest only a minor modification: Substitute the word physical for real. What is the real attractiveness?

Point taken. That sentence was carelessly typed by me. "Regardless of one's relative physical attractiveness, a loving committed relationship blinds us to our mate's physical flaws and amplifies their inner and outer beauty".

Love to all

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I am hesitant to comment on an already amazing, thorough and lengthy thread about the nature of Sex/Sexual Energy Transfers, but I guess that I am still wondering about it in relation to my own experiences.

Hi Origin! Good to hear from you. I'm glad you posted because no doubt your struggles and experiences are reflected in a hundred others that are not posting about it.

What I have been trying to figure out is whether this is the result of an energy blockage that I may have or that he may have or that both of us may have. He has shared with me before that he could have sex every day if I wanted, which surprised me. I have never quite felt that way because I always thought it was about the quality of experience and not necessarily the quantity.Blush So I am still contemplating this because this same sexual dynamic continues and I am feeling confused and saddened by it.

Each person, and each relationship is unique. I am always hesitant to speak in generalities, but perhaps I can share some of my own experience. My wife & I have reached the point where we frequently have sacred sexual experiences. That is, we do have purely playful (and sometimes primal) sex, but there is green ray energy transfer more often than not these days.

That said, it certainly wasn't always this way! Our love, and our sex life, evolved naturally over time. I think that if you focus on developing your love and deepening your relationship with each other in all other ways, that the quality of your sexual energy exchange will improve by itself. As you both become more spiritual and grow together, the sexual relationship will become more spiritual as well. To me, the sexual aspect of a relationship is a only one part of the picture, and it is not always helpful to focus overmuch on any one aspect.

thefool had some great insights and I loved the suggestion of horseback riding (Or whatever activity it might be). Learn to scuba dive (my personal favorite) or take a Tai Chi class together, anything!

As far as sex every day goes, there are some practical considerations here. If your mate is relatively young and especially if he has some red ray blockage, he may have a high amount of sexual tension and that could be part of the reason for his inability to appreciate more spiritual sex. In my early twenties, I had a much stronger appetite for sex than I do now and, at some point, we realized that my wife did not share that level of appetite. We didn't exactly plan this all out or have a schedule or anything, but what ended up happening is that from time to time, she "took care of me", that is, gave me sexual release without full intercourse as a gesture of love. Here's a delicate (and true) analogy. Sometimes she needed a backrub after a long day and even though my own back didn't hurt and I didn't want a massage for myself, I was glad to do it for her as a service of love.

Anyway, one of the surprising effects of that arrangement was that when we did have sex, it was calmer and more loving because I was not bursting at the seams with pent up passion, and she herself was in a more receptive mood and so enjoyed the experience more. That improved the quality tremendously. I'm not saying necessarily that this is right for you, and I hope this didn't come off as self-serving or crass, I'm only sharing my own experiences.

Still, my best advice is to focus on the love you share, do fun things together, share your feelings and learn to honor and respect eachother in all ways. Work on the love relationship rather than the sex relationship. I believe that if you tend the garden of your love well, that the sexual flowers within it will bloom in their own good time.

Love to all