Fear and Clinging

We all borrow trouble when approaching relationships by imagining problems and bad outcomes that haven't materialized--the relationship monster under the romantic bed. Other times, to avoid loneliness, we grasp and cling as if to a lifeboat in a threatening sea.

Both of these, fear and desperation, are turn-offs to a partner. And, in turning off a partner, the fears and aversion and grasping become self-fulfilling prophecies and self-reinforcing dynamics. Turning worse can push a relationship to be worse still. The relationship can get sucked down a vortex.

Yet, few things feel better than having an appealing partner approach us with interest and a desire to please. And in being pleased and desiring to please in return, the positive, harmonious aspect of a relationship can also become self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing. Reaching pinnacles of intimacy and joy can pull a relationship even higher.

And thus, romantic relationships become roller-coaster rides. Commonly, the crashes are more destructive than the pinnacles are positive. Experience enough cycles, and one becomes resigned to solitude of one sort or another. This can be actual solitude, or the solitude of a lifeless relationship, or the solitude of a life consumed by work and responsibilities, or the substitute of a pet who is at least constant.

The overall picture, for so many people, is just sad. With the right mind-set, good attitudes, and some healthy habits of interacting, we could all do so much better with each other.

We are a social species. Positive relationships with others are as vital to health and a good life as vitamins or exercise or oxygen. We resign ourseleves to eating spam in the dark, when--with a little insight and emotional courage--we could be enjoying feasts in the sunshine.

Sexuality, sexual minorities, BDSM, relationships, and neural science

Sexual minorities are forced to think about sex, applying reason to an area of human experience that most people seem unable to discuss with maturity. That is, if what I do and what I like is very different from what most people seem to do and like, then I'm constantly challenged by myself and others to explain "why?"  

If you think about what's important to humans deep down inside, sex would probably average priority #3 or #4, at least from puberty to late middle age. But if you think about the greatest pinnacles of human achievement and advances in understanding, they lie in areas that would rank in the bottom 1% of any normal person's priorities: science, technology, physics, mathematics, engineering, information technology.

In 5,000 years of civilization, we went from invention of the wheel to walking on the moon. It took those same 5,000 years of civilization to reach a rough consensus that women have a G-spot. Un-freakin'-believable. Try to examine these two contrasting facts from the perspective of an alien being studying humanity. It's not that human's don't spend time, money, and effort on what's important to them; sexuality is the foundation of most industries in one way or another. Apart from watching TV, sexuality is surely is what drives much of our leisure interests, directly or indirectly. We just seem to be, as a species, incapable of applying our reasoning abilities to one of our top personal priorities:  sexuality.  

You see this in day-to-day life all the time. Take a group of the smartest, most mature, most respected persons, bring the topic to anything frankly sexual, and everyone generally blushes and giggles and turns into 12 year-olds.

My interpretation, coming from a medical/scientific/biological mindset, is to explain this on the basis of complex neural mechanisms. One set of our brain parts is the primitive brain and "limbic system" which drive emotions and drives of hunger, fear, anger, sexuality, sleep, etc. A different area of the brain (frontal lobes mostly) drive reason, thought, logic, abstract thinking. No neurologist has found connections or mechanisms between limbic system and frontal lobes that inhibit each other's activity (as far as I know), but our brains seem to act as if there are.

So, when you're hungry, cold, or angry, you have a very hard time calculating the square root of 8. Or translating the Declaration of Independence into Latin. On the other hand, when you're immersed in an intense game of poker or engrossed in a page-turner novel, you might not notice that you haven't eaten in 12 hours. Activity on one side of this thought/drive divide suppresses the other.

Now, me, my brain seems to be wired a little differently than most. I think about everything, all the time, in ways that seem to strike others as unusual. Viva la difference. We all bring different strengths, weaknesses, and gifts to the world. When in the heat of passion, no, I'm not likelty to be thinking about the tissue pressure inside the corpora cavernosum, but I'm probably a heck of a lot quicker to have that thought cross my mind than most people. Or how the surge of prolactin in the brain is likely to affect emotional experiences.

So I've gotten interested in the people and behviors of minority sexual groups, like BDSM. In part, because less-common behaviors and perspectives are still an important part of this poorly-understood realm of human sexuality. But also because people in it are more likely to have something intelligent and interesting to say about sexuality and their own experiences than people whose preferences and experiences are more narrowly average or typical.

I don't get turned on by specific activities or roles. But as a prospective partner to a woman, I am very interested in what different kinds of approaches, roles, techniques, or mindsets might be desired or needed to please her and enrich the relationship. Personally, what turns me on is turning my partner on. If her being blindfolded and in four-point restraints allows her a fuller experience, I'm eager to go there. If being severely spanked turns her on, then I need to get my head around the paradox of lovinginly inflicting pain on a loved one to please her by inflicting a kind of violence. That's not easy for me to get into, but I know that for some individuals, that kind of experience *can* please, can satisfy, can give joy, and can enrich a relationship. So depriving a loved one of experiences like that is unkind.