Extreme pain and letting go?

[7luminaries]

Thank you. Can I ask you something? Is it possible to indulge in casual sex while having love and kindness for the other party involved? Then moving on to another human, claiming to have love and compassion for them and getting physically involved with them. Especially when both the parties involved have made a choice to not get emotionally involved for a relationship and keep it to physical intimacy only?

Let me ask you something...if someone asks you to do something that is fundamentally inconsistent with who you are at core, such as eating but not keeping the nourishment...or drinking but not keeping the fluids...could you keep that promise? What about reading but not comprehending anything you read, on pain of death? Or being mocked or shamed, or being scorned for not being sufficiently "chill" about cold shags?

Let's say some of us are broken or misaligned and we can eat loads of stuff without absorbing the nutrients, and somehow stay alive without apparent physical harm (just go with it). Then, they can do things which will kill you. And when they bend the whole scenario to their way, you are either shredded and ground up...Or, you step away from it and look for a place where you can eat food in peace...and let it nourish you as it was intended to do -- and as you are intended to do.

The demand or "disclaimer" is null and void IMO amongst humanity at large because it is unnatural for some if not most to force ourselves into a box which is dehumanising and by definition NOT compatible with humanity at large, in part or in whole either way.

Let me take a stab at translating this disclaimer for you:

Translation of Disclaimer: "I propose to dehumanise you whilst making use your body and perhaps your company for my own selfish purposes, and by means of this disclaimer, I get to shut you down, mock, &/or scorn you when you protest that your humanity (heart and soul) is being dishonoured by my casual sexual use of your person. In this manner I will viciously fight to claim the moral high ground and eternally see myself as great and noble, so long as you sign on to the disclaimer. You are not allowed to grow, to feel, or to reconsider without "losing" the moral high ground and I will scorn you for "breaking the deal" which I crafted purely to my convenience.

Further, just like Old Scratch, I will NEVER let you out of "the deal" -- it's as if you've signed in blood -- so that I can continue to view you and treat you as less than fully human, and never have to consider your perspective nor own my past behaviour".

If you are not more or less down with that translation (which is at least 95% accurate IMO), I would strongly advise you (and all of ye) to run not walk the other way

You are human and of course such a robotic, dehumanising deal doesn't work for you...nor probably for most women nor for many men. If it never works for a huge chunk of humanity, then it's not a relevant or workable proposition as a "normative default". So IMO we just need to toss it out, full stop. And start discussion other ways of relating that CAN actually work for some or most folks at some or most points in their lives.

Here's where the ownership comes in...we have to own that this is not workable or innately resonant or right-aligned with our core humanity. AND then we have to own our choices and not go there. Full stop. Don't go there.

It means don't go anywhere with anyone who makes you swear to be less than fully human and forces you to adhere to dehumanising "disclaimers" for the privilege of his or her company (and I use the word privilege very loosely)...

These are narcissistic, utilitarian demands on your person which absolutely forbid the fullness of your humanity and absolutely deny the reality of your humanity. And IMO they are, as I said in another thread, morally bankrupt and spiritually unjust.

Another thing someone asked me some time ago was: why should we involve ourselves with only one person when spirituality is about loving everyone equally?

Wow...I'm still a bit gobsmacked anyone would put this forward seriously. My response to this is that clearly this person cares not a whit for you as a person, though they're happy to shag you and whomever else they can get their grimy hands on.

To this person...I would say that we can love many, whether fam, friends, neighbours, or strangers. The love is closer to us and more richly textured for those we know personally, and more distant and universal for those we don't know -- the compassion and care we would show a stranger in need, for example. None of this love and these relationships require sexual contact and the vast majority outright preclude it, because it is both inappropriate and a violation within the context of most human relationships.

Thus sexual contact is required and is not "love" in and of itself. It has nothing whatsoever to do with love unless it is contextualised within a place of authentic love, which TBH women overwhelmingly prefer. Overwhelmingly. Within this context, sexual contact becomes physical intimacy. Physical intimacy is an entirely different level of engagement.

Physical intimacy is therefore an entirely different level of engagement.
IMO it is reserved for the beloved and for myself.

The depth and breadth of mutuality in authentic love, trust, and vulnerability form the circle of belonging within which true intimacy is possible when a physical sexual dimension is added.
Without this circle of belonging, the physical dimension lacks integrity of authentic love and cannot be naturally sustained. Only by force or coercion can it be "sustained". IMO.

Peace & blessings
7L

Originally Posted by hellabomer

Thank you. Can I ask you something? Is it possible to indulge in casual sex while having love and kindness for the other party involved? Then moving on to another human, claiming to have love and compassion for them and getting physically involved with them. Especially when both the parties involved have made a choice to not get emotionally involved for a relationship and keep it to physical intimacy only?

Another thing someone asked me some time ago was: why should we involve ourselves with only one person when spirituality is about loving everyone equally?

If I may put my tuppence worth in here please as it raises some interesting questions and about which in younger college days, as an amateur hedonist I had some experience.

It comes down again to the uselessness of words like "love". Surely, unless you're a prostitute indulging for money or some charitable cause, then unless you're being violated, you must feel something toward the male to be able to physically respond. Whether you call that love or desire or passion of the moment seems irrelevant. There has to be something there.

Whether the sex is fulfilling under those conditions is a different question. Good sex and good love should never be confused and are extremely rare in the same person.

So it's likely to be with "casual sex" or "free love" (as the hippies once called it) some men will be better than others in satisfying a woman - physically or sensitively - grant it them, some through experience or just their sensual natures are more sensitive to the individual needs of the girl. Likewise the girl will respond more sensually to some men than others.

So some encounters will be intense and beautiful, some inadequate. And there's a natural attraction toward the passionate and beautiful and a tendency to try to keep hold of the good one(s) LOL. (For which there's a tendency here, you bet (or I bet) for the girl to whip out her banner and cry out "Twin flame!!"...because there's this unfortunate tendency to believe a fabulous orgasm comes with a deeper love. It doesn't!

But you asked the right question at the end. How much of what's expected of us is down to societal convention? Actually those conventions came into being for various good reasons (kids, STDs, life purpose etc) and sex has become swathed in masses of taboo. Break from the taboos and sex is a natural drive deep in our unconscious minds (according to Freud) so you are free. .

However, when it comes to the spiritual use of sex on our "paths", for inner-universe exploration it needs a deeper affinity. It still doesn't take traditional love with its long-term commitments and demands. That deepest of spiritual aims comes with its own implicit and explicit expectations but they're rarely about extra-relationship sex. It IS probable that sensual intensity, the very limits you're driven to, will avert interest in sex with other people. This may indeed be love. Its emotions are intense, spontaneous and imminent, they, with the surrender of the body (which is the surrender of one's entire sensuality) are given freely. There's no anguish or pain.

Even so, the relationship may have a limited time. Sometimes though that sensual affinity covers a greater common ground and a long term relationship could be built from it. That hasn't happened to me and now I seek that easy, comfortable, demand-free relationship first with sex taking second place. I feel that sexual extravaganzas are the province of the young. In common terms, one grows out of them!!

Thanks for bearing with my outburst if you've bothered to read it!

[7luminaries]

Hellabomer...I want to say one thing about my response.

I cannot know for certain, of course, whether someone doesn't care a whit about you when he proposes to sleep with you and also whomever else he fancies to shag.

He may care and that is what has confused many a woman. The problem as I see it is when his primary, overriding focus is on sex with loads of women (or men? who knows and you certainly wouldn't)...then he has stated that he will relate to you from a limited and (to many of us) a fundamentally dehumanising way. Per "the disclaimer" rubbish.

That is, in a situation like this, even if he has some genuine care for you as a person, which is the best case, you cannot get to it directly. A person in this situation IMO has a filter or an obstacle in the way, through which he views and relates to even those he cares for as things for his use. That is the problem.

This utilitarianism and exploitative perspective is the behavior we historically have associated with an addict or a narcissist. But it has become so normative in our culture that we forget how far off-center we've moved.
That is the desensitisation I mentioned. Like live crabs slowly boiled to death, many can't even name the pain and the dissonance when they're continually told it's OK to be outright abused or dishonoured.

However, I did want to mention that clarification, and I didn't want to seem overly harsh in my reaction, even though I don't think it reflects a perspective of anyone who has your highest good at heart.

Peace & blessings
7L

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

If I may put my tuppence worth in here please as it raises some interesting questions and about which in younger college days, as an amateur hedonist I had some experience.

It comes down again to the uselessness of words like "love". Surely, unless you're a prostitute indulging for money or some charitable cause, then unless you're being violated, you must feel something toward the male to be able to physically respond. Whether you call that love or desire or passion of the moment seems irrelevant. There has to be something there.

Whether the sex is fulfilling under those conditions is a different question. Good sex and good love should never be confused and are extremely rare in the same person.

So it's likely to be with "casual sex" or "free love" (as the hippies once called it) some men will be better than others in satisfying a woman - physically or sensitively - grant it them, some through experience or just their sensual natures are more sensitive to the individual needs of the girl. Likewise the girl will respond more sensually to some men than others.

So some encounters will be intense and beautiful, some inadequate. And there's a natural attraction toward the passionate and beautiful and a tendency to try to keep hold of the good one(s) LOL. (For which there's a tendency here, you bet (or I bet) for the girl to whip out her banner and cry out "Twin flame!!"...because there's this unfortunate tendency to believe a fabulous orgasm comes with a deeper love. It doesn't!

But you asked the right question at the end. How much of what's expected of us is down to societal convention? Actually those conventions came into being for various good reasons (kids, STDs, life purpose etc) and sex has become swathed in masses of taboo. Break from the taboos and sex is a natural drive deep in our unconscious minds (according to Freud) so you are free.
.
However, when it comes to the spiritual use of sex on our "paths", for inner-universe exploration it needs a deeper affinity. It still doesn't take traditional love with its long-term commitments and demands. That deepest of spiritual aims comes with its own implicit and explicit expectations but they're rarely about extra-relationship sex. It IS probable that sensual intensity, the very limits you're driven to, will avert interest in sex with other people. This may indeed be love. Its emotions are intense, spontaneous and imminent, they, with the surrender of the body (which is the surrender of one's entire sensuality) are given freely. There's no anguish or pain.

Even so, the relationship may have a limited time. Sometimes though that sensual affinity covers a greater common ground and a long term relationship could be built from it. That hasn't happened to me and now I seek that easy, comfortable, demand-free relationship first with sex taking second place. I feel that sexual extravaganzas are the province of the young. In common terms, one grows out of them!!

Thanks for bearing with my outburst if you've bothered to read it!

Lorelyen, hello there and I don't want to get in the way of Hellabomer's response. I only want to mention a few things. As usual you make many good points. I know they will apply to a fair number of women in some aspect. I will also say that a good many women were never about the sex as a primary means of connection...meaning it was a vital part of a serious relationship and they enjoyed it (or preferred to), but that the sex was in a context of love (or they strongly preferred that).

I myself am not wired to enjoy casual hookups or casual relationships. Folks vary but I know that IMO most women either start and remain here, or grow to move into this domain as they get older, as you've described. What I mean is that I agree when a woman is very young she may confuse sex and love, though some never do. But most emotionally mature women over quite a young age IMO do come to the realisation that authentic love, real love, is what fuels desire. As you're certainly right that if you don't have a deeper emotional connection, you can't just manufacture it from the sex.

But the social conventions she's said she is facing are about being pressured to give sex without emotional engagement, and how the culture of her age group is very much one of shaming emotional engagement and of actually propping up an arrangement in which the casual hookups and casual sexual arrangements are portrayed as morally superior to getting to know one another more deeply and more sincerely.

So...I think we may need to acknowledge that it's been 20 years, at least, maybe 30 or more, since society pressured anyone to marry. I certainly didn't feel pressured to marry in my 20s, if at all, though some did feel pressure. Now for college age and 20somethings, even beyond maybe....it's so far the opposite extreme that we might almost say it's come 180 degrees. Now the oppression runs in the other direction...and we might say this is arguably even more dehumanising...certainly it is not a whit less so IMO.

And that's why she's writing us saying, is there something wrong with me, that I prefer love and emotional engagement with sex? Because the folks around me mock me and tell me to "chill" so they can get on with it, like doing their business in the loo (Yanks: toilet).

Peace & blessing
7L

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by 7luminaries

Hellabomer...I want to say one thing about my response.

I cannot know for certain, of course, whether someone doesn't care a whit about you when he proposes to sleep with you and also whomever else he fancies to shag.

He may care and that is what has confused many a woman. The problem as I see it is when his primary, overriding focus is on sex with loads of women (or men? who knows and you certainly wouldn't)...then he has stated that he will relate to you from a limited and (to many of us) a fundamentally dehumanising way. Per "the disclaimer" rubbish.

That is, in a situation like this, even if he has some genuine care for you as a person, which is the best case, you cannot get to it directly. A person in this situation IMO has a filter or an obstacle in the way, through which he views and relates to even those he cares for as things for his use. That is the problem.

This utilitarianism and exploitative perspective is the behavior we historically have associated with an addict or a narcissist. But it has become so normative in our culture that we forget how far off-center we've moved.
That is the desensitisation I mentioned. Like live crabs slowly boiled to death, many can't even name the pain and the dissonance when they're continually told it's OK to be outright abused or dishonoured.

However, I did want to mention that clarification, and I didn't want to seem overly harsh in my reaction, even though I don't think it reflects a perspective of anyone who has your highest good at heart.

Peace & blessings
7L

That's true. I know that he cares. But when a person's main driving point is sex, and mine is love, we clash, and I doubt that it can fulfill me in the ways I want.

And if a person chooses to get closer to me, and then push me away all the time, such behavior is extremely toxic.

Somehow, all of the things that have happened has made the lack of self-love more prominent. And I want to grow in my own ways without being influenced by any guy or society. Your responses have actually made me feel better. You were not harsh in any way. In fact, your perspectives aligned with mine.

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

But you asked the right question at the end. How much of what's expected of us is down to societal convention? Actually those conventions came into being for various good reasons (kids, STDs, life purpose etc) and sex has become swathed in masses of taboo. Break from the taboos and sex is a natural drive deep in our unconscious minds (according to Freud) so you are free. .

Hello, Lorelyen. Thank you for your response.

As 7luminaries has pointed out, the problem I am facing is not the taboo against sex. But instead, prioritizing sex over love to the point that those who choose the path of authentic love are often labelled.

And that's what I mentioned in my previous responses, too. That in the current society, among my age group, casual sex is considered a source of liberation, freedom, rebel. But on the other hand, a loving companionship is seen as something which ties you down. I might say that choosing to love authentically in a world which is driven by selfish desires is the actual source of freedom or rebel. But not many people sees it in a positive light unless it's their age to settle down or if they have been alone for far too long and have lost the appetite for casual sex.

So, even those who want a relationship, many of them are driven by their own desires or needs, societal needs to have a partner or the kind of romance we see in movies. But it's very rare to find someone who accept the kind of love which is not only freeing for both the parties involved, but they radiate the same love on the outside. When the love doesn't erupt from the point of need, but the point of growth, from the inside. And I will say that when two people are involved, things are never easy. It requires efforts.

Yes, that's kindred to my point about it's pretty rare to find good love and good sex in the same person. Of recent years I've turned from the latter to the former, no longer looking for that rare "one". He may turn up oneday he may not. I'm content with things as they are now, though.

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Yes, that's kindred to my point about it's pretty rare to find good love and good sex in the same person. Of recent years I've turned from the latter to the former, no longer looking for that rare "one". He may turn up oneday he may not. I'm content with things as they are now, though.

Lorelyen, hello!
I totally get that you have come to where you are now, through your own experiences and reflections. Which is to a place where emotional engagement and resonance with others, and here specifically your partner, are at the centre.

I also totally get that this is where loads of women have always been. And this is why it's so doubly difficult for so many of us. Having been mocked and scorned, and many also having been badly used and deceived. And their honest words and heartfelt feelings from their centre, largely or wholly ignored and devalued by others operating under the utilitarian norm.

Precisely because to be at this place we are all at now -- and where loads of us have pretty much lived for our entire lives -- is in fact designated and judged as non-normative in our present day. As we've been discussing, there is even a notion that the dehumanising element which so often enters into this is also seen as "OK" and even "good"...resulting in the professed moral superiority of the "sex no love" position over the rest of us backward and morally inferior lot. Which is a toxic subversion of the highest order IMO.

And I have to admit, full disclosure, that I may be way off centre by today's standards. Because sex was never good for me without love and presence. Above the age of innocence (around uni age), too, which is when I came of age, any man who ever thought to touch me with a cold or "exploratory" hand was cut short. If he had gone there, I'd have loathed him greatly and would have been gone yesterday. However, yet again, loads and loads of women are also more or less just like this...they cannot make the experience of sex "good" in any fashion without the deeper heart connection.

As you've said, if we don't start out there as women...loads do but it's natural enough to confuse the sex and love when you're very young (and/or heart centred and naive)...then you do tend to move there as you come into your emotional maturity.

And I think it's important to put our voices out there as a counterbalance. Lest gents think that the vast majority of what mainstream culture says about women and partnerships is valid or authentic or resonant with emotionally mature women of any age.

Peace & blessings
7L

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by hellabomer

Hello, Lorelyen. Thank you for your response.

As 7luminaries has pointed out, the problem I am facing is not the taboo against sex. But instead, prioritizing sex over love to the point that those who choose the path of authentic love are often labelled.

And that's what I mentioned in my previous responses, too. That in the current society, among my age group, casual sex is considered a source of liberation, freedom, rebel. But on the other hand, a loving companionship is seen as something which ties you down. I might say that choosing to love authentically in a world which is driven by selfish desires is the actual source of freedom or rebel. But not many people sees it in a positive light unless it's their age to settle down or if they have been alone for far too long and have lost the appetite for casual sex.

So, even those who want a relationship, many of them are driven by their own desires or needs, societal needs to have a partner or the kind of romance we see in movies. But it's very rare to find someone who accept the kind of love which is not only freeing for both the parties involved, but they radiate the same love on the outside. When the love doesn't erupt from the point of need, but the point of growth, from the inside. And I will say that when two people are involved, things are never easy. It requires efforts.

I might say the same

Hellabomer, I am moved by your words...it's wonderful to hear your voice. BTW I agree. Why is it the way it is, particularly as of the last few decades and getting ever more extreme, shrill, and righteous in their "sex no love" dogma? What are they really afraid of? It's authentic love that's feared... as the most subversive, uncontrollable, liberating force of all, IMO. Just as you've said.

I think getting beyond the oppressively judgmental and moralistic layer of PC speak and thought surrounding the "sex no love" dogma will also be freeing for many. I know I myself just decided at some point that I would no longer accept the burden of forcibly "toeing the line" and simply decided to speak my mind and heart. However, for many, many others, the burden of shame and scorn is brutal and crippling to the soul...and so I want to affirm folks wherever I can.

Peace & blessings
7L

Originally Posted by 7luminaries

Lorelyen, hello!
I totally get that you have come to where you are now, through your own experiences and reflections. Which is to a place where emotional engagement and resonance with others, and here specifically your partner, are at the centre.

I also totally get that this is where loads of women have always been. And this is why it's so doubly difficult for so many of us. Having been mocked and scorned, and many also having been badly used and deceived. And their honest words and heartfelt feelings from their centre, largely or wholly ignored and devalued by others operating under the utilitarian norm.

Precisely because to be at this place we are all at now -- and where loads of us have pretty much lived for our entire lives -- is in fact designated and judged as non-normative in our present day. As we've been discussing, there is even a notion that the dehumanising element which so often enters into this is also seen as "OK" and even "good"...resulting in the professed moral superiority of the "sex no love" position over the rest of us backward and morally inferior lot. Which is a toxic subversion of the highest order IMO.

And I have to admit, full disclosure, that I may be way off centre by today's standards. Because sex was never good for me without love and presence. Above the age of innocence (around uni age), too, which is when I came of age, any man who ever thought to touch me with a cold or "exploratory" hand was cut short. If he had gone there, I'd have loathed him greatly and would have been gone yesterday. However, yet again, loads and loads of women are also more or less just like this...they cannot make the experience of sex "good" in any fashion without the deeper heart connection.

As you've said, if we don't start out there as women...loads do but it's natural enough to confuse the sex and love when you're very young (and/or heart centred and naive)...then you do tend to move there as you come into your emotional maturity.

And I think it's important to put our voices out there as a counterbalance. Lest gents think that the vast majority of what mainstream culture says about women and partnerships is valid or authentic or resonant with emotionally mature women of any age.

Peace & blessings
7L

You make some very good points, 7luminaries, and I happily concede to most that you say. In one sense I was offering what seems to have become an alternative view and yet I've moved closer to your viewpoint over recent years, let's say my "thirties". It does depend on age and one's starting point as it were, although I've long integrated what I think of as my sensuality with my spiritual interns. Total surrender now would have to be just that on both sides which would presuppose what many would call love. It's difficult to describe what spiritual "surrender" might be as it's no longer a separate component. Perhaps it's selflessness, an adoration of the partner's transparency, the lack of abrasion, the motive of giving rather than receiving, nothing to do with creed or believing this or that... Perhaps this sounds too innocent.

Some of the change could be ascribed to younger excesses which desensitises the need for and expectations of sensual fulfilment. It matters little now. fulfillment comes from a bonding of beings. But this won't happen overnight. In one sense it looks back to courtship and "getting to know" someone which takes time and a readiness to converge. This is something men don't seem too good at probably because they are less connected with their emotions; they can't put them in perspective. Not all, obviously. In this absence their self-fulfilment dominates. It's possible many can break out of this if they meet a woman who inspires positive introspection.

I'm not sure. I said somewhere else that I avoid the word "love" like the plague in favour of a more descriptive term. It's like the word "sweets" (candies). If someone offered me sweets I'd be happier if I knew what kind as I don't like all sweets!

But....thank you for your response.
peace and light.

L