It's not me, it's you

One of the most distorted notions we bring to our love relationships is the perception that whatever our loved one does is because of us. Nowhere is this more pervasive than when it comes to our mate’s desire to experience something sexually that does not include us. Most of us cry out in anguish “How could you do this to me?”

Yet, when my wife and I first met, we admitted to one another that we had never been monogamous in any of our previous relationships nor had we ever been truthful about it with our previous lovers. Why did we feel a need to hide our true sexuality from our previous partners? Because we have been systematically and successfully shamed into believing that any expression of our sexuality that does not include our mates is always bad and wrong, and, as a corollary, into believing that we should feel hurt when our mates have non-monogamous desires.

Most married men lie about how they really experience their sexuality then routinely set up a secret compartment within their lives where they hide what they do. In Lust in Translation: A Study of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee, Pamela Druckerman concluded,“In America it’s not the cheating, it’s the lying.” I am convinced that the success of our marriage is due in large part to our being radically honest with each other about who we are sexually. Unfortunately, odds are, this was probably a rare meeting of the minds. Let’s face it, our culture does not encourage couples to be open and honest about their non-monogamous sexual desires, but it’s the lying this attitude encourages that causes the real damage.

My wife and I felt we had to hide our desires from our previous partners for fear of hurting them, yet consider what Don Miguel Ruiz said in The Four Agreements: He wrote, “Taking things personally is the maximum expression of self centeredness because it makes the assumption that everything is about ‘me’. Nothing other people do is because of you. It’s because of themselves.”

How many of us can actually give up holding others accountable for how we feel? It’s so much easier to lash out at someone instead of focusing on our own insecurities as the source of our pain. What’s more, we live in a culture where, lately, hardly anyone is willing to look at themselves for the real answers as to why they feel the way they do. We never answer the question “Why does it hurt so much when someone we love wants to be sexual with someone else?” because we’re too scared of asking any questions that might point a finger at ourselves. Will we ever find the courage to hold ourselves accountable for what we feel? If we don’t, we will never give ourselves the chance to heal the insecurities that drive our responses, and they will continue to wreak their unabated havoc on all of our relationships.

Why fuck with a good fantasy?

I recently read a blog post entitled "The Joys of Theoretical Non-Monogamy," at Greta Christina's blog http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/05/the-joy-of-theo.html

Here's a key realization she makes:
"When you're monogamous, every single person you're even moderately attracted to seems like Shangri-La, a lost city of infinite erotic promise, with genitals made of divine light and chocolate ice cream that would transform your life if only you could have a taste. (It did for me, anyway.) The allure of the forbidden, and all that. But when you're non-monogamous, you remember that you don't actually want to go to bed with every attractive person who crosses your path."

I couldn't agree more! Sexual fantasies are better than reality. So my attitude is, why spoil a good fantasy with reality? I love my sexual fantasies. So I protect them from reality. I love them because they infuse my everyday life with a jolt of positive energy. So I want them to retain every speck of their power. That way I can rely on them to always have their way with me. I never want to become wise and prudent with them. Indeed, I want to remain their captive? It’s like having my very own individual stimulus package. Am I an addict? Absolutely! Whenever I need a hit I just dial one of my fantasies up into my brain and wham-oh, I’m transported to that little piece of portable euphoria where everyone or everything that I desire sexually is granted. Why would I want to fuck with that by diminishing it with reality?

How do you think the freedom to fantasize affects your relationships?

Interview

I'll be doing an interview with Lucia on LA talk radio's The Art of Love today at 3pm PT/6pm ET. You can listen at www.latalkradio.com. Stay tuned!

Who holds whose self-esteem?

Do men rely more on women as a source of their self-esteem than women rely on men for theirs?

Last week, I was a guest on the Striker Corbin Motivational Program. Striker is a motivational speaker who focuses on helping you create the life you desire by using your thoughts and emotions. He offers a weekly “Empowerment Quote” and this week’s quote was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

We agreed that both genders often look to their mates to uphold their self-esteem. But I believe men are much more dependent on women as a source of their self-esteem than women are dependent on men for theirs because men are much more externally driven by how they are perceived by others, particularly women. As I say in my book, “many of the ways heterosexual men act, think, and behave are influenced by their desire to gain or retain access to a woman’s love, access to her approval, and access to her body. So while men can go it alone to find food, shelter, and clothing, they have to rely on women to fulfill their other basic needs. Additionally, when men are young boys, they are taught to cut themselves off from how they really feel. Consequently, men are disconnected from their inner-selves as a source of their truth. Throughout their lives, men rely on women (their mothers, teachers, and girlfriends) to tell them what is true about them.

What do you think?

Hear me live tomorrow

Listen to my live interview Wed. (9/29) at 1pm EDT with Striker Corbin. www.blogtalkradio.com/strikercorbin

What is non-monogamy?

Anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Monogamy is the hardest
of all human marital arrangements. It is also one of the rarest.”

I believe monogamy is rare because the fact is human beings are
not naturally monogamous. Most human beings, by their biological
nature—men and women alike—have a desire for a variety of sexual
experiences. Sexual variety is stimulating, exciting and renewing. We
love the tingle of excitement that a new sexual adventure gives us.
Why wouldn’t we want to enjoy it?

Our culture, our religions, the media, and our families choose to
ignore the fact that human beings are not naturally monogamous.
The American culture has successfully brainwashed us into believing
that having sexual desire for more than one person is bad and wrong.
They condemn our natural human desire (God-given, if you will) for a
variety of sexual experiences and try to convince us that we should be
able to fulfill every one of our sexual needs, wants and desires forever
and ever, with only one person—a belief so unrealistic it borders on
the ludicrous.

I believe most people, if they were completely honest, would love to
be in a committed relationship but have other sexually stimulating
experiences, too. So where do we realistically draw the line between
monogamy and non-monogamy. Each one of us might draw it
differently. Where is it for you?

Exactly what constitutes non-monogamy?

If you’re in a committed relationship, are you being non-monogamous
if you:

• Flirt with other men/women?

• Share a passionate kiss with another man/woman?

• Masturbate without your mate?

• Watch pornography without your mate?

• Get a lap dance from a stripper?

• Get a secret blow-job?

• Or, is it just having sexual intercourse with someone other than your mate?

Please vote. Tell me your definition of non-monogamy.

The Monogamy Lie

When a man couples with a woman, he semi-consciously adopts a “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement regarding his true sexuality. If he’s like most men, he tells her very little about his sexuality. What he does tell her fits perfectly with what she tells him is acceptable to her. His silence about his sexuality conveys an implicit agreement that her restrictions on his sexuality are acceptable. He avoids expressing the unvarnished truth about his sexuality because it is risky and it might plunge him into a volatile and vulnerable position, a position he has spent a significant chunk of his life avoiding. But because he does not stand up and tell the truth about how he actually experiences his sexuality, the culture, the prevailing mindset, and his wife define how he should behave sexually.

So what does a man in this situation do? He lies. He lies a lot. He lies when he doesn’t even have to. When a man is forced to lie about something as fundamental as his sexuality, it gives him license to lie about anything else. As part of this sexual charade, he lies the lie men have been telling for hundreds of years: The Monogamy Lie. The lie that men are monogamous and have no problem keeping the 7th Commandment: Thou shall have only one vagina for the rest of thy life. But, when a man is forced to hide his sexual truth, he eventually gets caught doing something that is not sanctioned by his mate and he quickly becomes one of the millions of men who find themselves flailing around trying to defend their actions. Unfortunately at this time, there is nothing in the environment for men to latch onto. Nothing that can help lift them back up onto their feet because their gender has failed them. The male gender has never done anything to declare the naturalness and legitimacy of male sexuality. So men are left out there on their own without a leg to stand on or a scintilla of science, biology, or anthropology to support them. There is no one to protect them from the onslaught of shit that will be hurled their way. No one who will try to defend them. No one who will tell the truth about male sexuality. Instead of uniting around our sexuality and defending one another, our gender brothers publicly condemn each another while feeling secretly grateful that they themselves weren’t caught in the act.

This scenario does not happen by accident. It happens systematically as men from every stature and station in life bow their heads in shame as they mindlessly accept our culture’s condemnation of what has been scientifically shown to be normal human male sexual behavior. Our counterparts, women, would never allow themselves to treated so harshly. They stood up for themselves in the 1970’s and have been standing up for themselves ever since. When will men dare to emulate women and stand up for themselves, too?

The fact is human beings are not monogamous. In “The Myth of Monogamy” David Barash Ph.D. and Judith Lipton M.D. a husband and wife research team concluded after their exhaustive study that “there is simply no question whether sexual desire for multiple partners is natural. It is. There is simply no question of monogamy being natural. It is not.” Margaret Mead a highly respected anthropologist wrote, “Monogamy is the hardest of all human marital arrangements. It is also one of the rarest.” Yet our culture spreads the propaganda that any decent man should have no problem being 100% monogamous 100% of the time; and, if a man cannot uphold a vow of monogamy year after year, he is a cheater, philanderer, or womanizer. When are men going to come out of the closet and tell the truth about their sexuality? When are men coming to come clean and begin to be honest? Gay men are out of the closet. It’s time for heterosexual men to come out too.

Men Lie

Men lie. We lie a lot. We lie when we don't even have to. Why? Stay tuned.