Each day in my office I see men and women who come to talk to me about their sexuality. Of course, you can imagine what happens in the intimacy of their bedrooms. But sexuality is not just limited to the bedroom since it is part of knowing what it means to be a man, to be a woman, as well as what it brings to our relationsips with each other, and what is involved in romance even before it takes on a physical form.
What I get to hear differs considerably from what we hear in the popular discourse portrayed, in large part, by the media, but above all portrayed by us, as we're fond of talking about our aptitudes and our performances and freedoms. Admit it, when finishing a dinner with friends, haven't you ever said, jokingly, a bit full of yourself: "Well, let's go, we have a 4th kid to make. " or, "For us, the night has only started.
" or then again, "Ah, sorry! Married duties call! " But again, have you really always made love when you came home?
Or did you let yourself fall asleep into the arms of Morpheus? No, we won't talk about all the things we like to say to each other to feel better about how others perceive us. Instead, I'd like to talk about the stories of two men and two women, who recently participated in a TV show, and who spoke about their sexual freedom.
There was a man, in his forties, divorced, saying how often this new situation offered him all sorts of possibilities to measure the boundaries of his sexual freedom. He accumulated mistresses, having 7 at one time, and he could see that was exactly what it meant to be free to have the power to decide who he wanted to see and when he wanted to see them. Moreover, he had read a lot, observed a lot all that he had missed during all these years of marriage and so that allowed him to imagine the power of trying these "nice things" with each of these women.
And then he said, frankly, to give your life to just one woman is very unfortunate because 7 was the best number, in his opinion. Another person, a woman, said her sexual freedom was in the fact of not being tied down by all this "fuss," she said, that is involved in the beginning of a relationship. She felt that the extent to which she wanted someone, and vice versa, did not need to be complicated by all these useless flirtations, useless courtships.
So for her, freedom was precisely the ability to go after her desires and physical pleasure, without encumbering herself with any preliminaries. The other woman was married. She was completely excited by the idea of being the perfect wife for her husband.
She loved him so much. So it was important to her that she could first justify making love regularly, which she did, and to respond readily enough to her husband's desires for games and role play. So he proposed introducing sex toys into their sex life and even if she didn't like it, since it wasn't always in the best taste, she thought she would try it readily because, she felt to be free, well, you must try a little to erase your modesties and your taboos.
The last one, sexual freedom meant to him having the ability to be able to satisfy all of his desires. And he had a lot of desires. So, every night he made love to his wife with joy, and, I hope, with reciprocity, but because that didn't satisfy him enough he added masturbation to his sex life.
He did it at least once a day, "like all guys do," he said, Here, he found himself both an opportunity to develop his masculinity and to verify his performance, so that maybe when he was with his wife it would be a better experience. Moreso, he felt that it helped to calm him because without it he was a ball of nerves. Thus hearing these stories, you can finally think sexual freedom, according to them, is the power to free yourself from outside morality a sexuality free from the expectations of others, perhaps freed from feelings, from emotions, from shame, and free to try any games or toys that our society offers, sexy, glamour, naughty, porno-chic, that we can easily buy.
I think of this wonderful phrase that adolescents say when their parents tell them again that something isn't allowed. Menacingly, they look at you and say: "You will see, when I'm 18, you won't be able to tell me what to do any more, I'll be free. " Isn't that what freedom means, openness to all possibilities?
And sexual freedom, all the possibilities of every combination, and every scenario possible and imaginable? It makes me think of a client that I had who talked to me about her sexuality burdened, shy, difficult, uncomfortable. She told me she always tried a little too hard, and him not nearly enough.
Which gave their sexuality, being very much in love with him, every night when getting ready for bed, she would say to herself, "You must go, you must give him pleasure, you must satisfy him," without actually knowing what it was he wanted. Suddenly, full of this somewhat forced excitement, she would jump on top of him with kisses, caresses, a position, a hand here, a hand there, and seeing her husband unresponsive to her efforts she would think that she had gone the wrong way, and so another caress, another kiss, another position. And him, like a deer in the headlights, he would stay completely still, not really understanding what his wife wanted from him, or wanted for herself, not daring to make the smallest gesture that could be uncomfortable for her, or judged by her, he remained completely inhibited.
One and the other, in a sort of vague drifting, they fell asleep. One day during a session, she told me about a daily scene with which she was regularly confronted, and her husband as well that illustrated marvelously what was happening in their sexuality. It was at the supermarket : going grocery shopping before dinner.
When she walked into the grocery store, she would be overcome with stress. The aisles, the packages, one more beautiful than the next, items that promised them the best meal, the best cooking, a glamorous dinner. .
. And she, overcome by panic in all of these choices, could not figure out what she wanted at that moment - so, thinking of her evening desires. .
. - what was it that would go best with what she already had at home, and worse, what could it be that her love, her husband wanted? Panicked, she would finish her grocery shopping, grabbing anything without thinking and then exhausted when the evening came, perhaps she would find the point at which her wants, the fridge, and her husband's desires converged.
When her husband went shopping with her, it was pretty similar in terms of stress level. He would pace down the aisles, look at all of the packages, promising the best meals, but completely overwhelmed by all the idea he could make the wrong choice, he would finally leave empty-handed or with a bag of chips or pack of gum, as you can see, two completely absurd options for an evening meal. Obviously when she told me, "I do too much, he does too little" I explained to her that, perhaps, things weren't so different, for each of them, each one was worrying what they could reveal of themselves, that perhaps wouldn't be in agreement with what the other was expecting.
On one hand, she proposed thousands of options, but without embodying them, on the other hand, he, remaining frozen, waited for what he could do, to understand what she was waiting for. I find this situation interesting because it poses the question of what freedom means. If freedom is the expression of a personal desire, maybe we must start with knowing how to say no.
No. Not this "Yes" that is meaningless. "No.
" This tiny little word, so difficult to say, as the issues at work make us face our greatest ambivalence. Imagine this. It takes courage to say no to a social group, to what society expects of us, this society I want to part of, from which I expect recognition, how can I dare make myself stand out, by my different style, my likes, my dislikes, my possibilities, my impossibilities, without risking feeling "abnormal"?
Normalcy is generally understood in the sense of the majority, or more exactly what I believe to be the majority, and I want to be part of the marjority. It is equally necessary to dare say to, perhaps, to another, this other, that I love, that I want, and whom I love and want to be loved in return. How not dare, being the immediate response, or semi-immediate, without risking the loss of this relationship and the quality of this desired relationship?
How dare I say or do something that could frustrate him, when everything in me wants to satisfy him, to prove my love to him? And then, it would also mean, perhaps saying no to myself, my family, my parents for example, what they said about me, what I was, what I could be, what it meant for them to "be a man," "be a woman," my opportunities, what's impossible, always according to them, essentially all of these little demands that contributed to my education, and to which, consciously or subconsciously, I want to be loyal, so much so that I define myself by my observance of them. So, finally, we should be able to say no to what I imagine others expect from me and my own visceral need to please someone or everyone else.
And we want this to be easy? Being able to say "no" opens a sea of possibilities. And when that doesn't exist, when it's difficult to start, should we be shocked that our psyche replaces it with other ailments?
These ailments, these little symptoms that come to annoy us in life, sexual ailments, or more commonly, symptoms that impede our relationships with each other, these symptoms that place distance between us, preventing relationships or tell me I'm not on the right path, that I'm not being myself, but repeting an inherited scheme, in which I wither. Thus, freedom, if one imagines that sexual freedom is the power to free yourself from games in relations to others, and equally from my personal history, it would be the desire to free it from everything that makes me human, from everything that is opposite from being a robot, we are ambivalent beings, constantly being changed by our contradictions and our emotions. Freedom cannot be made of our limitations.
On the contrary, it is in respect to these limits that we move forward and grow. At least, each of us deserves to push the boundaries of these limits, and to understand them, to better understand our own uniqueness, and to be able to reveal ourselves, and give us an edge. Thank you.
