Jealousy, posessiveness, fear, change, LOVE

Possessiveness, territoriality, the hoarding mentality -- those things have always been so difficult for me to handle in loving relationships. When I was a child, I learned that the harder I tried to hold onto something I feared losing, the more of a certainty that fear became. So I simultaneously arrived at two things: In recognizing that loss was inevitable, I stopped fearing it. And, perhaps fatalistically, I prepared for it. In my past three long term relationships, which ran from 1988 through 2004, I had the same conversations with each of them: That nothing lasts forever, that no one person can be all things to another, that attraction to others is inevitable, that if one of us meets someone else we will be happier with, we should give our blessings to them. The happiness and well-being of the ones I love is essential to my own.

And so I find myself in a relationship with a man whose love makes me a little bit giddy. Who says the sweetest, corniest things that lure my inner child to come out and play. Who has more kindness and constancy in him than I had thought possible in someone of our generation. A man who devilishly plays with my libido like it is a cross between a lute and a cat's toy. He delights in me, melts at my touch, makes me laugh, and supports me. But he also wants me all to himself. And therein lies the very heart of the problem.

I've asked him for 6 months. Give me 6 months. There is a lot going on in my life, my world, and choosing him--which something in me very much wants to do and at the same time is very afraid to do--would be a huge change in my life. Not just a change from polyamory to monogamy, but a change in place, which would mean leaving my community. But when I ask myself what I want, more and more, I find myself answering "him", and when I think about it, I recognize that if I do not choose "us", then I'll always wonder what might have been.

Where does the desire for personal freedom and self-expression find itself when two people merge their lives to form an exclusive partnership? I remember what happened to it when I was younger, less secure in myself, more eager to 'fix' others or to 'make them happy.' I am so far from that place, and yet , I know that it is my daily rituals, my affirmations of self and non-self, my me-time, the pure freedom to be spontaneous--that it is these things which maintain the self I know as 'me' me. And I have seen how easy it is to slide out of healthy habits and ways of being, to let things slip for love, and I find myself conflicted, clinging almost jealously to my current life and way of being in the face of... love. There is tremendous possibility there. I love him like I have never loved another, in ways I never thought possible for me, and I know myself for 10 kinds of a fool if I pass up those possibilities out of fear or possessiveness.

"Mine. I am mine. No one claims me. No one owns me," my inner child says while at the same time she reaches out to him, teases him, shares with him. Loves him.

I like things just the way they are, and yet I know that change is inevitable. He won't keep forever like a doll in a glass case. He's a person with his own needs and desires. I suppose I am faced with the choices we all are: shall I sit on the side of the path and wait for Life to happen and choose for me? Or shall I take action and choose for myself what I want from Life, even knowing the path I choose to walk may not lead where I wanted?

I am reminded of the final words of a poem by slam-poet Shane Koyczan that go something like this: "Its a game. You play, you win. You play, you lose. You play. The world is a window that holds a sign. There is 'help wanted' out there but if you are playing to win, the first thing you have to do is 'apply within'."

Six months. Six months to wrestle with my choices and then take a stand for my own happiness, for what I want for myself and my life. Six months. 180 days. So many days. Why does it feel like so little time?

Reunion

Available in audio / podcast here.

When I see him, I smile self-consciously and say, "Hi."

I have a 'looking-good moment,' one of those moments in which I am conscious of every perceived imperfection in my appearance and I wonder if he can see them, too. Wonder if he sees the lack of grace in my movements, that slight hitch that I still have in my step, the stiffness in my body from pain I am not supposed to medicate away. I wonder if he will notice that I've finally grown a few grey hairs in the weeks since he saw me last. I wonder if he can see how desperately glad I am to see him. I wonder if he can see the toll the troll under the bridge I've crossed again and again this year has taken. And given.
I wonder if...
if....
if he will still love me even though I've been through another metamorphosis and am so changed. And yet the same.

All this goes through my mind in a heartbeat, perhaps two, and then he opens his arms. I walk into them and lean into him, resting my forehead against his shoulder. His arms encircle me and he gives that giggle-laugh of his, his inner 10 year-old laugh, his chick-laugh. And when he laughs the breath I didn't know I was holding flees my lungs. Tears smart in my eyes as he holds me for a moment that stretches, neither of us in a hurry, both of us basking in the comfort of the others body.

He holds me in a way I have not been held in what feels like a long time, holds me with all of him, with his heart. I pull back and look up into his eyes and I see the metta beaming from him, shining on me like a spotlight, and I know...
I know....
I know that he loves me, right now, in this moment, loves me like every person on earth wants to be loved every moment of their lives, and I am content to bask in the feeling of being loved so fully--just for being me.

Birthday in Monterey

I am 40 now, a pisces child born in the year of the monkey. A Monkeyfish. Nothing so beautiful as a jellyfish, I think.

Mostly right now I feel vaguely fatigued, and somewhat old. MR says I'm a four-year-old with a big "O" on the end. I told my family and they laughed. It is very appropriate. I'm growing older but not 'up'. And "The Big O" as we all know, is an orgasm. And I am so terribly fond of my Os.

So despite the grief and stress, I suppose I am still young at heart, and my friend MR indulged my inner child. We went to Monterey for my birthday and stayed at a nice hotel on Cannery Row called The Spindrift. We had dinner at an upscale restaurant with "Sardine" in its name, and then spent most of the following day at the Aquarium. Wow. I've been to many aquariums, and I enjoyed this one the most. The lighting is designed for optimum viewing of the fish, but is dismal for purposes of photographing them. Dark rooms and lighted tanks made my camera want to flash--and flashes cause reflections off the glass. Turning off the flash means the lens aperture stays open longer, and all the wonderful creatures moving around are captured as blurs. Still, I got a few good photos, and I found myself particularly fascinated by the jellyfish.

The drive from Monterey to San Francisco was pleasant. It was a clear evening, the hills were green, and the fudge we picked up on our way out of town was sweet.

Even in the midst of loss and grief, its nice to have reminders that life is good.

Women as objects of love and desire

Photo: The Sandstone Pudendum in Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park, Utah, USA (c) KR Silkenvoice
This is an essay about women as objects of love and desire. It is long and rambling, but it does have a point. Hopefully you will get it.

I tried to deny it for years, but I finally came to accept that my earthiness and sensuality can be powerfully attractive to people--regardless of gender. I am open, warm, relaxed, and most people feel comfortable around me--and feel comfortable talking to me about things they normally wouldn't dream of discussing with someone else. Due to the type of work I moonlight at (that is, writing & recording erotica) I come into contact with a lot of people who are already primed for conversation with sexual content. Especially men. Especially online.

Often, when I am conversing with a man, it becomes apparent that he is married or otherwise partnered and looking for a vicarious sexual outlet. Now, I'm not interested in wrecking homes or stealing husbands. Nor am I looking for another lover. I've never had an interest in marrying, and my chosen love-style, polyamory, is one that most people cannot handle well -- they're conditioned to the possessiveness and jealousy and insecurity which the socially-approved institution of serial monogamy engenders. So men talk to me. And depending on my intuition, on their responses to my questions, or the ideas I put out there, I'll often guide them towards erotic objectification of their partners -- instead of (or at the very least in addition to) me.

Now, I should state that I've observed that when men have been with their women for an extended period of time, their women become 'self' instead of 'other'. Which is a good thing, right? Well, mostly. The problem is that when a man internalizes a woman -- takes her identity into himself and begins to see her as an extension of himself -- she is no longer an object of mystery, novelty, denial, teasing. She is no longer a stand-alone individual -- instead, she is his, a part of himself, loved as he loves himself -- and thus she is no longer an object of erotic desire.

The happiest couples I know, the ones who are powerfully in-love after years and years together, seem to have one thing in common: a heathy sex life centered on her erotic objectification. For him, she is a fetish object, a talismanic creature radiating mystery and sensuality -- a Goddess. For her, he is the Summer King, her lover and acolyte, eternally in her thrall. They re-enact the ages old rites of worship between male and female, seeking to penetrate the barriers of their solitude in order to become as one, even if only for those few moments of orgasmic bliss.

Otto Kernberg wrote a book on love relationships which contained an analysis of a Hindu text known as the Ramayana, and in this book he stated: "...the beloved presents himself or herself simultaneously as a body which can be penetrated and a consciousness which is impenetrable. Love is the revelation of the other person's freedom. The contradictory nature of love is that desire aspires to be fulfilled by the destruction of the desired object, and love discovers that this object is indestructable and cannot be substituted."

At some point we all make this discovery, realizing, at least subconsciously, that the object of love and desire is both within our grasp and eternally beyond it. At this point, one of three decisions is made: one, to abandon the object and go in search of one that can be fully possessed/internalized, two, to hold on to the object, internalize what we can of them, and ignore/deny/attempt to destroy what we cannot possess, or three, celebrate the oft-times conflicting duality of love and desire, taking as much of the other as we can into our selves, and enjoy the mystery and delight of trying to grasp what can never be held -- no matter how hard we try. The way in which we cope with this love conundrum determines how well our relationships work, and how long they last.

End of spiritual and psychological analysis. Lets get back to sex.

So, as I established earlier, when men are with women for a long while, the women become 'self' instead of remaining 'other', and in order to re-eroticize their partners, men seem to need to objectify them -- to restore the mystery to the object of their sexual fulfillment. And for some reason I want to help make this happen.

How? Well, I'll sometimes guide conversation or role-play towards erotic objectification of their partners... sometimes the fantasies will be woman-woman, asking questions like, "Would you like to see her face between my thighs? Watch her press her lips to my bare pussy?" I sometimes invite them in..."Would you like to slip up behind her, and fuck her nice and slow while she eats me?" Once I have made the decision to re-eroticize someone's partner, I rarely, ever, suggest sexual intercourse between myself and him. I do not want him to focus on me as an erotic object, but on his wife. In general, my goal is for him to get 'off' thinking about HER, not ME. If he has D/s leanings, sometimes I'll suggest that I'll make his wife submit to me, and allow him to watch -- so long as he does not move or speak unless given permission -- regardless of what I do to her or what she says. This suggestion is powerfully erotic to many men. Sometimes I'll guide him through use of his wife in such a way that will 'please' me.. get him all worked up and then tell him to go to bed and wake his wife and take her... and report back to me on her responses. This has had spectacular results for some couples, results that have amazed the men... they wonder how I know that their wives will respond well to x or y or z, and I tell them its from what I learn from them about their wives...

I am sure a lot of women would freak out about this type of exchange... and here is where the humour of it all comes in. I am a woman who understands men. But I also understand women -- as much as it is possible to understand women. And women, well, we are raunchy. We tell our girlfriends things that make grown men blush. Our girlfriends tell us things that make us roar with laughter, make us horny as hell. We tease each other, flirt with each other. We talk about the best places to buy lingerie and sex toys, about the latest things we tried on our lovers. But heaven forbid if our lovers talk about it. Especially if the person they are talking to is another woman. Heads will roll. Tears will fall. Words like 'betrayal' and 'violation' will resonate in the air. And its ridiculous, the hypocrisy of it. Because for women, their lovers are also no longer 'other', they are 'self' and so talking about their lovers to whomever they choose is their right. But heaven forbid their lovers show an ounce of individuality and discuss such deeply private and personal things with someone else--especially another woman! Oh my.

It is illogical. I call it fuzzy feminine logic. And unfortunately, we're stuck with it. But we can work with it, keeping in mind that simply because women often defy logic does not mean they are irrational. I mean, part of what makes women an eternal mystery to men is this fuzzy, nuanced, emotional logic -- men don't 'get' it. In the everyday world, women are nuts and men are baffled. What men need from women is very simple, and what they want from women is very simple, but women are not simple. We are complex. We think that what we want most is to be understood, but really, we do not. We are complex and what we want from men is not that they understand everything about us, but that they understand that our natures dictate that we be true to the moment, and that this is both valid and rational. We like change, we need change, we are change. We are the source of creation and sustenance. We are mystery incarnate. We are objects of love, of desire, of denial, of fulfillment.

I suppose, when it comes down to it, my argument is that 'objectification of women' is a good thing. Perhaps the feminist movement's efforts to change the fundamental tendancy of men to eroticize women needs to take into consideration the archetypes which this touches upon, the deep-seated psychological reasons for objectification, and how it benefits both genders. Because as I see it, if romantic relationships between women and men are going to be fulfilling in the long term, women need to find ways to continue being erotic objects -- and men need to find ways to continue being enthralled by the objects of their love and desire.

In memorium

Ten days ago, I lost a friend.

We met online just over a year ago. We never touched, never saw each other smile, but we talked often, wrote, shared of ourselves. He guided me through my first attempt at editing a poem of mine, and I listened and gave feedback on a novel he was writing. Over the past year he went through many changes, several crises, strain in his marriage, etc; and me, I was working too hard, suffering through the crisis of my sister's health, and juggling an active social life. He developed a crush of sorts on me, and I discouraged it as best I could without abandoning our friendship, because the level of communication and understanding we shared was something special.

I tried to get him to tell his wife about me, to be less secretive about our relationship. But he was afraid. He did something stupid on New Years Eve, something not involving me, thankfully, but the effects were that he sent me an email stating that he had to break off our relationship because his behaviour was damaging his marriage and hurting his wife.

I've gone through a wide range of emotions. I recognize them as the grieving process. Loss. I've always been so bad about loss. But he taught me a lot in the past year, and now he is teaching me to grieve, as my therapist says I should.

This past year I learned a lot about the pros of putting myself out there emotionally--of taking risks: Joy, pleasure, love. This past week I've learned the cons, as well: Pain, loss, suffering.

And so far, I've no regrets. I could take away the lesson that I was stupid to become emotionally involved with someone I never met, but that is cowardice speaking. My life has been enriched for knowing him, and that is the lesson I will take away from this... keep taking risks, keep loving, continue to make connections and grow.

As for him, I wish him well. I wish him happiness and laughter and good health. He knows my boundless compassion and he has it. I will continue to include him in my metta meditations. I have always said that even when a relationship between two people must change, the things they love about each other do not. Love does not stop. At least... not for me.

Goodbye dear.

On the foundations of sexual psychopathology

[click here for audio / podcast]
I expect that, to the average American, I would seem to be a "sexual deviant", however, I think it is fair to say that my spontaneous, free-flowing eroticsm is but a extension of the way my mind works. I am a divergent thinker, and so I consider myself "sexually divergent" rather than "deviant". But again, that is a question of semantic nuances, I suppose.


Which leads to my next topic.... sexual psychopathology.

My morality, ethics, and sexuality were heavily influenced by two diametrically-opposed lifestyles: the hippie-hedonism of my parent's communal lifestyle, and the fundamentalist Christianity of my missonary evangelist grandparents. Perhaps as a consequence of being caught in the middle of their battle for my mind, body, and soul, I have long been aware of, and fascinated by, how the socio-religious regulation of sexuality is internalized to produce sexual psychopathology. I have long wanted to understand what it is about our society that creates 'child molesters' such as the one I fell prey to when I was 11. What I have learned over the years is that children have always been eroticized, but that the abuse factor is a fairly recent evolution in response to the Church's attempt to bring sexuality and reproduction under its control. It took centuries for them to bring marriage under the umbrella of Its authority, proscribing fornication and adultery, and condemning all non-procreative sexual practices as "unnatural".

The history of sexuality in the West is rather interesting and very convoluted. The Hellenic (Greek) culture tolerated pederastic and male homosexual relations for centuries. It was not uncommon for men and women to reserve feeling of higher 'love' for people of their own gender, or for children. It was understood that sex was required for procreation, but that loving sexuality was fluid in its expression, rather than static. Sex was recognized for the primal and necessary bodily function that it is, rather than being wrapped in and confused with 'love' like it is today. This ended rather quickly with the rise of Christianity--the pleasures of the flesh were directly at odds with the prospect of salvation in the imminent 'last days'.

In my readings, I found it interesting to learn that being a catamite in Hellenic days was not only accepted, but expected by those of honoured houses. It was an honour even, to the family whose boy was chosen. And homosexuality was no more looked down upon then as heterosexuality is now. I also find the evolution of prostitution from something accepted and deemed a necessary, if not always desirable thing, to the apparent abomination that some view it to be today. In fact, a great many things viewed as 'immoral' today were not so before the rise of Christianity.

In the 19th century, Darwin's work began to influence most aspects of Western Thought, and through it, religious views on sexual difference were provided with a biological and eventually an evolutionary logic, which then in turn was used to determine that departures from sanctioned demonstrations of heterosexuality were not only 'sins', but pathological deviations from physiological norms. The emergence of what could be called 'scientific sexology' at the end of the nineteenth century completed these developments by identifying as sexual 'deviants' the prostitutes, masturbators, and perverts whose sexual practices supposedly posed a biological and moral threat to the health of families, nations, and the 'race.' This was the pivotal moment in the modern history of sexuality -- when homosexuality, sadism, masochism, and the other 'perversions' were invented. It was not a simple medical or scientific conspiracy, but a decisive cultural revolution that,
when interwoven with the upwelling of charismatic Christian evangelism during the same era, left pyscho-social marks so deep, indelible, and socially transmissible, that most people in America assume that this 19th century construction is both natural and eternal.

In the end, I think it all comes down to pleasure. Pre-Christian cultures elevated pleasure and happiness as goals to be achieved in daily life. Early Christians, believing that Christ would come again within their lifetime/generation, embraced an ascetic lifestyle that renounced pleasure today in favour of the rigors needed to be worthy of the joys salvation in the afterlife. When it became apparent that Christ was not coming as soon was originally promised, the emphasis shifted to control, to controlling pleasure and pain, marriage and procreation through fear. The eyes of the Heirs of Paul ceased their inward look and turned to those whose lives were free of the oppressive fears of their Christian brethren, and seeing them as threats to the continuation of the Church, sought to bring them under the authority of the Church lest they influence new converts to return to the 'old ways'. Little did the Church elders know that the use of fear to control sexuality would last for thousands of years, and mutate to turn expressions of non-procreative sexuality into an underground phenomenon perpetuated from generation to generation by guilt and oppression. Christianity, and the culture it spawned, has a dark, twisted, and seedy underside. It makes sinners of its subscribers, who, knowing they are powerless to prevent themselves from participating in the cycle of Original Sin, become twisted by fear and the need to exert power and control -- over themselves and others -- in the most deeply personal and private aspect of their lives: their sexuality.

Perhaps, for ha-has, I should begin identifying myself as a Fundamentalist Pre-Christian, and begin dialogue on getting back to sound, healthy, pre-Christian values: de-nuclearization of the 'family' in favour of a return to the community as the basic social unity; the return of sexual worship to temples and other sanctums; rites of fertility and sexual initiation; placing procreation back in the hands of women, who, after all, bear children, and who for millennia, made the decision to bear or expose to the elements children born 'untimely'; viewing masturbation as a healthy and desirable expression of self-love; all as an effort to root out the sexual psychopathology, guilt, and repression rampant in our current society. I can just see their faces now. Wheeeee.

Nietzsche on Love and Avarice

The things people call love.— Avarice and love: what different feelings these two terms evoke!—nevertheless it could be the same instinct that has two names, once deprecated by those who have, in whom the instinct has calmed down to some extent, and who are afraid for their "possessions"; the other time seen from the point of view of those who are not satisfied but still thirsty and who therefore glorify the instinct as "good." Our love of our neighbor—is it not a desire for new possessions? And likewise our love of knowledge, truth, and altogether any desire for what is new? Gradually we become tired of the old, of what we safely possess, and we stretch out our hands again; even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession. Our pleasure in ourselves tries to maintain itself by again and again changing something new into ourselves,—that is what possession means. To become tired of some possession means: tiring of ourselves. (One can also suffer of an excess—the lust to throw away or to distribute can also assume the honorary name of "love.") When we see somebody suffer, we like to exploit this opportunity to take possession of him; those who become his benefactors and pity him, for example, do this and call the lust for a new possession that he awakens in them "love"; and the pleasure they feel is comparable to that aroused by the prospect of a new conquest. Sexual love betrays itself most clearly as a desire for possession: the lover wants unconditional and sole possession of the person for whom he longs, he wants equally unconditional power over the soul and over the body of the beloved; he alone wants to be loved and desires to live and rule in the other soul as supreme and supremely desirable. If one considers that this means nothing less than excluding the whole world from a precious good, from happiness and enjoyment; if one considers that the lover aims at the impoverishment and deprivation of all competitors and would like to become the dragon guarding his golden hoard as the most inconsiderate and selfish of all "conquerors" and exploiters; if one considers, finally, that to the lover himself the whole rest of the world appears indifferent, pale, and worthless, and he is prepared to make any sacrifice, to disturb any order, to subordinate all other interests—then one comes to feel genuine amazement that this wild avarice and injustice of sexual love has been glorified and deified so much in all ages—indeed, that this love has furnished the concept of love as the opposite of egoism while it actually may be the most ingenuous expression of egoism. At this point linguistic usage has evidently been formed by those who did not possess but desired,—probably, there have always been too many of these. Those to whom much possession and satiety were granted in this area have occasionally made some casual remark about "the raging demon," as that most gracious and beloved of all Athenians, Sophocles, did: but Eros has always laughed at such blasphemers,—they were invariably his greatest favorites. Here and there on earth we may encounter a kind of continuation of love in which this possessive craving of two people for each other gives way to a new desire and lust for possession, a shared higher thirst for an ideal above them: but who knows such love? Who has experienced it? Its right name is friendship.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (Book 1, § 14), 1886.

Personality profiling

A friend posted the results of a personality profiling test. It seemed accurate for her, even somewhat insightful. So I took it. The results are posted below:

My Personality

Neuroticism	20
Extraversion	50
Openness To Experience	77
Agreeableness	56
Conscientiousness	51

Overall
You are neither a subdued loner nor a jovial chatterbox. You enjoy time with others but also time alone. You are generally calm and composed, reacting moderately well to situations that most people would describe as stressful. Novelty, variety, and change spice up your life and make you a curious, imaginative, and creative person. You have some concern with others' needs, and are generally pleasant, sympathetic, and cooperative. You are reasonably reliable, organized, and self-controlled.

Neuroticism 20
You are a calm person who is considered almost fearless by some. You rarely get angry and it takes a lot to make you angry. You very rarely feel depressed and are usually in a good frame of mind. You are not generally self conscious about yourself. You feel strong cravings and urges that you have difficulty resisting. You tend to prefer short-term pleasures and rewards over long-term consequences. You are poised, confident, and clear-thinking when stressed.

Extraversion 50
You generally make friends easily enough although you mostly don't go out of your way to demonstrate positive feelings toward others. You like crowds but sometimes feel overwhelmed by them. Sometimes you feel like you need some privacy and time for yourself. You are an active group participant but usually prefer to let someone else be the group leader. You lead a leisurely and relaxed life. You would prefer to sit back and smell the roses than indulge in high energy activities. You love bright lights and hustle and bustle. You are likely to take risks and seek thrills. You experience a range of positive feelings, including happiness, enthusiasm, optimism, and joy.


Openness to Experience 77
You are a moderately imaginative person who enjoys a good balance between the real world and fantasy. You are reasonably interested in the arts but are not totally absorbed by them. You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings. You are eager to try new activities, travel to foreign lands, and experience different things. You find familiarity and routine boring, and will take a new route home just because it is different. As a person who is open-minded to new and unusual ideas, you love to play with and think about ideas. You also like to debate intellectual issues and often enjoy riddles, puzzles and brain teasers. Often you exhibit a readiness to challenge authority, convention, and traditional values. Sometimes you feel a certain degree of hostility toward rules and perhaps even enjoy ambiguity.

Agreeableness 56
You mostly assume that people are honest and fair, however you are wary and hold back from trusting people completely. There are times when you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary, however you are mostly candid, frank and sincere. People find it moderately easy to relate to you. You will help others if they are in need. If people ask for too much of your time you feel that they are imposing on you. You dislike confrontations and are perfectly willing to compromise or to deny your own needs in order to get along with others. You feel superior to those around you and sometimes tend to be seen as arrogant by other people. You are mostly a compassionate person, however you prefer to make objective judgments when possible.

Conscientiousness 51
You believe that you have the intelligence, common sense, drive, and self-control necessary for achieving success. You are well-organized and like to live according to routines and schedules. Often you will keep lists and make plans. Your sense of duty and obligation is average and although you are mostly responsible you can sometimes be unreliable. You are content to get by with a minimal amount of work, and might be seen by others as lazy. You have a reasonable amount of will-power and are able to follow through on tasks that you feel you need to complete. You can be distracted however and have been known to procrastinate. You are not an overly cautious person. You will think about alternatives and consequences but make up your mind fairly quickly.

Personal assessment of the results (itemized at the bottom of the results page):
I find it fascinating that on the breakdown of the various subcategories, under the "Neuroticism" category, I scored an 80 for "Immoderation", which accounts for the statement "You feel strong cravings and urges that you have difficulty resisting". I would probably say that "Self-consiousness" should be higher and "Anxiety" lower, except the past year or so, I have been more anxious than 'normal'.

Under "Extraversion", I think the "excitement seeking" rating is too high (71), especially as it results in the statement "You love bright lights and hustle and bustle", but it probably reflects my old adrenaline-addict (skydiving anyone?) mentality. Overall, though, its a fair assessment.

"Openness" Is spot-on I would say, especially the low (20) "Emotionality" score and the statement "You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings", though I can say that two years ago, the score probably would have been 5 at most. I think the the high Liberalness and Intellect scores are correct.

On "Agreeableness" I am uncertain, since it is difficult for me to be objective about the results. However, I find it interesting that I scored an 82 on "Cooperperation" which was the third highest sub-category score on the test, after Liberalness and Intellect. I also find it amusing that of all the subcategories in "Agreeableness" I scored lowest in "Modesty". Heh.

"Conscientiousness" is an interesting one, as it has to do with self-control and perceptions. I scored highest on "Self-Efficacy"(You believe that you have the intelligence, common sense, drive, and self-control necessary for achieving success)and lowest on "Acheivement-Striving" (You are content to get by with a minimal amount of work, and might be seen by others as lazy). Both are correct, though, with regards to the latter in the professional realm, I am often percieved as being a whiz at turning up the quickest, most efficient way of doing something--which praises I tend to counter with "I'm too lazy to do anything the long, hard way." The scores have given me some things to think about, since my awareness of my ability to do anything I want is not backed by any wants. I want for little, I do not seem to need success, and often, my drive for something is heavily moderated by my cooperativeness--if someone wants something more than I do, I let them have it-- and my laziness--I can't be bothered to fight over something.

Weekend with a friend

I spent the weekend in San Francisco with a friend of mine, M, who is one of my three closest friends. We have a deeply intimate relationship, one which he describes as nebulous. He's been there for me in so many ways the past two years, my biggest supporter, the one I leaned on the most the first year after S and I broke up. During my period of celibacy he was a sexual sink for me, as well, which definately crossed a lot of male-female friendship lines. But at the time I did not have a female friend I felt intimate enough with to talk about the more erotic thoughts and feelings that were flowing through me as I practiced my libidinous brand of celibacy.

And so our intimacy developed and deepened until he was friend and confidant and lover-substitute. I have a talent for complicated relationships, I admit it. Particularly with men, as I prefer the compay of men as friends as well as lovers. But some of my hetero frienships are fraught with tensions, tensions I will not go into as I already posted my thoughts on the subject here. Suffice it to say, however, that the levels of intimacy that M and I achieved created problems when I started dating, because we come from opposite places with regards to loving relationships. I have no problems being mentally, emotionally, and physically intimate with my friends, be they male or female--to me it is a natural extension of my affection for them. Its not about romance or desire or passion... its about the deeply pleasurable sharing of self.

Dating, sexual activity--these created strain, not necessarily because he wanted me all to himself, but because he is territorial, and male, and normal (vanilla), and because suddenly my sexuality (now that others were involved) became a topic he was no longer comfortable discussing. Which hurt. I tried to respect the new boundaries, but kept running into his, because I don't have them. I am not a labyrinth of internal boundaries like most people. Anyway, we both made choices, we said and did things, we tried being there for each other, through our various crises, and slowly, over a six month period, we found ourselves saddened by the gulf growing between us. Physical distance was starting to translate into emotional distance, despite our best efforts at communication.

I love him. I love him like I love few people in my life. His happiness and well-being are important to my own. And the well-being of our relationship, whatever form it takes, is important to my own. And so I invited myself down to San Francisco for the weekend, determined to show us both that we can enjoy each other's company sans sexual tension. I masturbated like a fiend Friday night--drained my libido so completely that it really didn't start bouncing back until Monday night. I was so well-sated that it was safe to massage him awake Saturday morning, sitting at the foot of his water bed with the sunlight pouring over me and his wonderful sleepy scent filling the air. And Sunday I woke him up with a cuddle, spooning myself against him, letting love fill me and hoping it would seep into him, reassuring him of his importance and place in my life.

We visited the Exploratorium, walked through gardens and parks, ate sushi and dim sum, watched Princess Mononoke and a couple of Ghost in the Shell episodes. We savored the perfect weather, walking the hilly streets in the North Beach area, wading through the people who jammed the blockaded streets for the festival, and stretched out in the grass at the park to listen to music. We had some good conversation and comfortable silences, and as he drove me to the airport I knew we would both be ok. That the entity that is 'us' would be ok.

Doing the right thing versus doing what makes you happy

So this friend of mine since college, this brilliant programmer who writes books for the dot.NET platform, etc, he's feeling guilty. He found a dream job, and took it, and now he is moving his family across country and he's having trouble reconsiling the joy he feels at finally getting to do what he wants to do, and the guilt of pursuing doing what makes him happy. Poor man.

I responded to him as follows:
Sybarite: Do what makes you happy, and it will be good.
Dotnet: I've lived a life where satisfying myself had negative connotations, made me feel dirty and guilty, and was something to be avoided. Its hard doing something so big that I want SO much.
Sybarite: I hear you on that.
Dotnet: But I'm enjoying the new "make me happy' thing.
Sybarite: I'm so happy for you!
Dotnet: I'm happy for me too, but its hard. Every time I buy something for myself, or do something purely for the sake of making me happy - a childhood of catholic "thou must be poor and love it" guilt comes flowing over me
Suybarite: Guilt is self-flagellation. And my opnion is that that Church has it all wrong. Self-denial in this life in the hopes that you will be rewarded in the next life is bunk. Its a remnant of the feudal era, in which reconsiling the poor to their lot was essential for maintaining control of the masses.
Sybarite: We are given this life, these abilities, these senses, and in my belief, it is an insult to God not live life fully, not to become everything you can, and not to enjoy the world through the body and senses we have been given. Pleasure and Happiness are the ultimate good. They are the fruit and goal of living, and striving for happinees and enjoying life is the only worship you can direct toward 'God' that truly means anything... Because you are appreciating what God made by using what God gave you.
Sybarite: So there!
Dotnet: I couldn't agree with you more.
Sybarite: Breathe. It will work out.
Dotnet: I know it will
Sybarite: Then stop getting in your own way. Just step aside and let it flow...
Dotnet: I just don't like giving control of my happiness to outside factors
Dotnet: You'll have to show me some of your erotic relaxation techniques to show me how ;)
Sybarite: I recommend frequent masturbation. Veeeery relaxing.

a thought on happiness

I think sometimes doing the right thing isn't necessarily the right thing to do. Especially when it comes to Happiness, which is so subjective, because Happiness is, was, and will always be the ultimate end toward which every human being strives. I am reminded of what Oscar Wilde said: When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

I think right now I'll go do what makes me happy: I'm going to masturbate. Release all that tension from a long day at work.