Sunday's epiphanies

An online acquaintance contacted me for my perspective on something. We talked about what was going on with him and once we'd discussed his dilemma, he asked:

"So life has been hectic for you this past week--you get it all resolved?"
"Does one ever resolve life?" I responded.
"Your question intriques me. Is it possible for a person to resolve life if they isolate themselves from society and all influences?"
"I think that is the wrong approach"
"What is the approach?"

And the answer to his question pulled from somewhere deep inside me. I didn't think about it. It was like something in me was waiting for that question to be asked.

"One resolves the ambivalence of life by ceasing to attempt to impose expectations on the present in order to influence the future."
His next question showed that he was misunderstanding me. "So just exist? For me to take that approach in life--would be death--not to have expectations which I equate with having goals - direction or path in life. So with that I guess I really don't want resolve my life. Or am I missing your point?"

The past few months of living sort of gelled and this moment of clarity illuminated me. I felt like I was glowing, like I was a beacon of metta. I had this sensation of overflowing with love and gratitude and compassion.
I said, "We put the past into the future. We carry it around and our expectations create a future based on our pasts. And by 'expectations' I dont mean goals and what not.

I'll use an example to illustrate what I mean... Lets say you call you mother, and it seems that every time you call your mother, she says 'so when are you getting married' and it annoys you. So you avoid calling her, because you KNOW that she will just ask you when you are getting married. And when you do call her or talk to her, you already have expectations of what she is going to say, and you already know how you are going to react. So you aren't really being fully present to the moment...you're clinging to expectations of what will occur in the future--carrying unresolved issues from the past forward. And thus the phone call goes more or less as you expected."
He is a quick one. "This I understand. My body and mind are ready for the question--I am ready to pounce back--I should make the call for the right reason and and approach with an open mind and allow the moment to create itself. In speech communication we talk about not allowing outside influences - verbal, auditory, past experiences etc to interfere with the moment--to shut it all out--exist in the moment--so If I understand your approach in life--you have learned to do that in your life more than most --and thus why you are so clued into all that is going on around you."

I wasn't sure if he was trying to flatter me, or if he was being genuine, but I responded to his words at face-value. "I still do it. Its not a matter of tuning it all out. It is a matter of accepting it all, and then none of it clamours for attention."
"Ok understood," he said.

And then we embarked on a conversation about various topics that eventually lead to me saying that lately I've been finding it a challenge to communicate with others lately, and how it bothers me.

Eventually he said, "Is that what bothers you--that people fail to understand why you respond the way you do--that they can't understand your belief system?"
I tried to think to the best way to explain. "I dont care about being understood, in general. I dont feel misunderstood, I dont feel a need to be understood. But when someone asks me a question, and I give them my best answer, they sometimes look at me like I have three heads. Like the question and answer session about 'can you ever resolve life', but worse. I've responded to others to relinquish expectations of the future, and most people dont get it. Really dont get it, that we drag the past, kicking and screaming, into our futures."
He answered, "I understand what you are saying: let go of your past so you can move on in you life. It is difficult for most people to let go of the past--right?"

I knew he was missing something, a nuance, something I'd been working out the past couple of years. "Its funny--when we think about letting go of the past...we think about discarding it. Wadding it up and throwing it away. But really, uts about not clinging to it. Letting the death grip of fear go, and accepting the past--all of it. And then it is where it belongs.. in the continuity of the moment."

"Yes, but there is a difference between not forgetting, and allowing the past to influence. There is a distinct difference..."

He was close, but he wasn't getting my meaning. So I decided to use an example again. "Did you read about that dream I had, the one about being hit over the head while I was travlling, and panicking about my suitcase being empty, and how it seemed so important to be able to prove who I was?"
"I did."
"My analysis of the dream is that I have anxiety...Over the past two years I've emptied the emotional baggage, but I'm still towing the empty suitcase along... because w/o the baggage, I am afraid I won't know who I am. My ID, Everthing that made me 'me', everything that I identified myself with--was in my baggage. And so I am anxious to figure out--to prove--who I am."

He said, "Well - you are the sum,of your past. But today and tomorrow can add / change who you are. Letting go of the past does not mean giving up your ID."

"I am a vessel. Emptied and filled continually... what happens changes me, but does not become me. I am the container, not what is in it. Does that make sense? And one day, perhaps, I will release the container too :) Perhaps that day I will be enlightened?"
"So you don't believe what happens to you today--that in 2 yrs when you look back--is not a part of your new id?"
"What happens changes me, but does not become me. I can feel fear, anxiety, joy, pain. Do they become a part of me? Or do they effect me? And don't I have the ability to decide how much?"
"Why can't they be both?"
"I never used to feel afraid. I used to BE afraid. As a child I was convinced of the inappropriateness of my emotions, so I ceased expressing or feeling them... I pushed them down, deep down... and they became a part of me in ways they were not meant to be."
"If I remember correctly -- enlightment is what buddhism strives for."

"No. The end of suffering. Release from the wheel of suffering."

"Mmm... ok. Now here is something I have observed in life. Very talented writers, producers, muscians - artsy people - all have unusual suffering in light but give us positive views on a number of subjects in life. Life without suffering is less interesting. Jesus had to endure suffering -- so we know he was not a buddhist."

"Ah, but there are some compelling argumnnts for the idea that for the period of Jesus life of which there is no record--that he disappeared into Asia, and came into contact with Buddhists. Jesus, out of love, suffered for the sins of all mankind. His sacrifice was supposed to release his followers from suffering. They were supposed to be assumed into heaven during their lifetimes. They were supposed to become enlightened."

"Well it didn't work did it?"
"Apparently did not."

"I can't wait to talk to my dad about Jesus converting to Buddism," he laughed.
"I think that... Well...it is blasphemy to some, but I think the Rapture is a figurative expression of what it is to become 'enlightened'. I think that the imagery for early Christian texts, the attempts of the writers to give people something concrete to imagine what enlightenment was like... have been taken too literally. The inducement to give up one's clinging to pain and fear and suffering and 'sin' by one person's suffering for all...was apparently not enough.
Jesus said: This is my commandment, that you love one another. And love/lovingkindness/metta is the foundation of what Buddha taught. Loving yourself, loving your neighbor, your family, and your enemies... this is part of metta meditations. 'Love thy enemy as thy self' is so very buddhist."

"There are basic commonalities in most religions."
"It is amazing...How it all fits together... all the religious teachings. You are correct. They all say the same thing: Let go of your pain, your fear, your hatred, your 'sins', and love instead, and send it out into the world, and you will be set free--you will find the way to heaven / nirvana / paradise."

"Yes it is, and yet we can't seem to get along."

"I think the judeo-christian-islamic 'sin' is actually 'holding on to negatively charged past experiences.'"
"Interesting observation."

"The catholics tried to make it easier for people to let go by 'absolving them'--by giving them a ritual by which they could release their sins / regrets / pains... but it all got twisted. Eventually, you had to buy absolution. One way or another, you had to pay. It is all so very clear to me. I've considered posting some of this on my blog, but I'm worried someone would track me down and burn me for being a heretic :) The fundamentalist movements in all faiths create such zealots."

"You are a female -- witch burning in Oregon will pass."
"I'm only 30 minutes from Salem :)"
"Yes and now killing is ok to defend your beliefs."

"The world is crazy. But what is crazier is that every day it becomes clearer and cleared what the insanity is. And it is too simple, and people would not listen."

"So - simply put you would recommend?"
"The insanity is fear of the uncertainty of everyday life. The solution is accepting that uncertainty, and loving every moment you have.

And it is fear of death, dying, going broke, loss... Fear of loss. Fear of the unknown. That is why we project the past into the future... why we drag it along with us. Because it is familiar. We know we can survive what we have experienced before."

"Fear keeps us stuck."
"You have come along tonite for me at a perfect time... to help me put into words what I have come to understand intuitively but felt unable to express coherently."
"So you better understand yourself?
"Its not about understanding myself. There is nothing to understand :) The bags are empty."

"Sure they are "
"Right now, in this moment, they are."
"Got it - :-)"

"5 minutes from now, tomorrow morning, it may be different. God, I sound like..."

"Your grandparents?"
"Such a... such a smug ass."

"Nah--I understand and relate to what you say."

"Good to hear. Maybe others will."

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.

Word-choice nuances

What is the difference between childlike and childish, between impulsive and spontaneous, between sensual and sexual, nevermind sensual and sensuous? What is the difference between acceptance and passivity, between aggressive and assertive, between creative and inventive, between religious and spiritual, intelligent and intellectual?

And then there is love. In English we have just one word to use. Sure, we can add modifiers such as maternal, filial, erotic, romantic, and platonic to describe who we love or what love or how we love them -- but love is such a deep and yet broad-spectrum emotional state, how can we possibly find the words to describe how we feel, and if so, how can we be sure that the words we use mean to others what they mean to us?

I was asked by CW today how I felt about someone.
I said, " I love him."
He asked, "Could you be more specific?"
I said, "He's one of my dearest friends, the friend of my soul."
He said, "But he's your lover, too..."
I made a face at him. "Yes, sometimes, but that is not the focus of our relationship."
He said, "I know you say men and women can be friends, but then you break the rules by having sex with your friends. Isn't that confusing?"
I looked at him and smiled. "Sometimes."
"C'mon Kay, talk to me."
"What do you want to know that won't violate his privacy?"
"How can you be friends and lovers?"
"Look, its not romantic. There is none of that new relationship energy, none of that passionate 'oooh baby I want you' stuff. I love him. He loves me. Sometimes... sometimes being sexual is a natural extension of the intimacy and affection between us, a natural progression of sharing ourselves."
He thought about it. "If it is so natural, why doesn't it happen more often between friends?"
"That is a good question. I will answer it with a question: how often do you think friends want to make love to each other, but refrain?"
"I think quite a few. More than people would willingly admit... I know there are a few times I've been really curious."
"Ok. So..there is curiousity, and there is desire. And then there is trust and love and sharing. I've got friends that I would never have sex with--mainly because I'd worry one or both of us getting 'romantically' confused.... It happened to me a couple of times, and... well... I like to think I've learned enough from those experiences that I do not need to repeat them again."
"How do you decide then?"
"Decide?"
"Which friends to sleep with and which ones not to..."

I swear, the groan I let out came all the way from my hara. Why is it that so much boils down to sex? I don't get it. I will never get it. Sex itself is an act we are programmed to desire to repeat as often as possible, partly for reproductive purposes, and partly for pleasure. It alleviates a need, like any other, like eating alleviates hunger and pissing alleviates a full bladder. And yet, sex, with love, can be so much more. It is a gateway to the spiritual, I find, and that is what gives it significance beyond reproductive and pleasure drives.

"Its more a matter of spontaneity. If, in the moment, it feels right, and there are no reservations, I act on it," I tried to tell him.
He looked surprised. "You're not the impulsive type."
"Ah, but there is a difference between spontaneity and impulse. Impulses are internally motivated, often subconsciously. Impulsive is going shopping when one does not have the need or the funds. Spontaneity is responding naturally and appropriately to the present moment."

And so we went round and round about nuances and verbage and his insistence that I need to remember that though I may choose my words to express exactly what I mean, that those hearing me are catching the words through their own emotional filters, adding their own nuances. Since I've been told the same by others, I suppose I should give this point more thought. It doesn't help my efforts to communicate if other's are not understanding what I mean.

On population decline in First World countries

Robert J Samuelson posted an op-ed column in the Washington Post called "Behind the Birth Derth."
It is an intersting commentary on Putin's incentives to get Russian women to have more babies, as well as addressing the larger issue of plummeting birth rates in First World countries. This is not an issue I have given a lot of thought to, but as I read the article, a few thoughts percolated up.

That this is not a new issue. A hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt urged native-born Americans, especially those in New England, to make the sacrifices necessary to raise larger families, because (if I recall correctly) 'eugenics' was on the rise and there was a perception that the "superior" Northern European race would eventually die out as a result of low birthrates. And this, long before the widespread availablilty of birth-control devices and pharmaceuticals.

That, while he posited various possible reasons as to why the birthrates are so low in industrialized countries, Samuleson missed a few things, either becasue he did not think of them, or because they are too 'hot.' They are as follows:

One, education, particularly a socially liberal education, suppresses the desire to reproduce. In grade school we are educated on the causes of so much poverty and disease and infant death in Third World countries, the primary culprit being over-population. The same thing with envrionmental degradation: over-population--too many people and too few resources. People who are aware of the world and their responisiblities toward their fellow man are not going to go on a breeding binge. It is perceived as a very selfish thing to do. Additionally, the availability of education and career paths to women created options they did not have before. Women, particularly those who choose not to reproduce, are no longer economically dependent upon men, and are no longer pitied as 'spinsters' and 'bluestockings'.

Two, those religions which stress abstinence from sex until marriage, consider birth control a sin, and relegate women to child-bearing, child-rearing drudgery have been falling out of fashion the last couple of centuries, again, partly as a consequence of the growing liberalization of society and the increasing availablity of information across socio-economic levels. Religion, supersition, poverty and ignorance would appear to go hand-in-hand with a brood of runny-nosed kids who themselves are having children while their mothers are still pumping out their younger siblings.

Three, the rise of the "nuclear family" in Western culture has destroyed the incentive to reproduce which one would think that a higher standard of living might give. Really. Lets face it, It takes two people working full-time++ in order to support a First World household, with or without children. We like our high standard of living and want to maintain it, and we don't have the internal or external resources to earn our bacon, fry it, and serve it up to our children without feeling overwhelmed.

By this, I mean that raising children responsibly is time-intensive and financially expensive--health care, child care, the necessity to take time off work to care for them when they are ill, the cost of keeping them educated and participating in supervised and "age-appropriate" activities, the cost of keeping up with compulsive consumerism of the pop culture which is driven by children and teens who lack purpose and meaning in their lives... Until relatively recently, children were raised in a more communal/community environment--they lived in the same house, neighborhood, or town as their extended families, of whom grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles were the primary caretakers of young children. But with industrialisation and increased mobility, it is much more common for adults to live separated by hundreds of miles from their families--and raise their children themselves in a small, nuclear, family. This creates a lot of financial and emotional stress, and the observation of this stress by others who have not gone the 'child' route tends to raise doubts. I know this from personal experience: I am known to say that "I like other people's children" or that "I like being an auntie" far more than I would enjoy being a parent, myself.

Fourthly, there are social and environmental ills in the world that provoke people to refrain from reproducing, if they have a choice. The world is so full of murder and rape and molestation and extinction and pollution and scarcity and neglect--why pass that on to children? Many feel that we should first make the world a better place to live in, before bringing more people into it. Why add to the epidemic of suffering?

Lastly, those who do not examine history are doomed to repeat it. It is obvious to me why Europe's birth rate is much lower than that of the US. Sure, the US has a far more religious population, in general, than European countries, and thus more children (heck, religious states like Utah have birth rate that is something like triple that of states such as New Hampshire), but that's only part of it.

Europe is more crowded, it has fewer resources, and its people are still living with the consequences of World War I and II in ways that the US is not. Much of Germany's aggressiveness in the early 20th century was attributed to a growing population that was feeling crowded and resource hungry, a population that, having purged its country of most of the immigrant and non-Arian resource competitors, began looking at expanding their territory to give themselves more room to grow.

To quote Samuelson quoting Wattenberg:

"The forthcoming and dramatic depopulation of Europe and Japan will cause many problems," writes Ben Wattenberg in "Fewer," his excellent book on the subject. "Populations will age, the customer base (for businesses) will shrink, there will be labor shortages, the tax base will decline, pensions will be cut, retirement ages will increase." All plausible. In 2000, one in six people in Germany and Japan were 65 or older; by 2050 the projections are for one in three.

Is opening borders and allowing immigration from countries that cannot support their populations a solution to the above-mentioned consequences of de-population? Probably. But immigration is a real sore point in most First World countries, as illustrated by immigrant riots and demonstration in France and the US. And the reason (I think) is because we socially-enlightened First Worlders do not feel it is right to maintain a second-class of laborers supporing a social and cultural elite---and yet, as a whole, we do not want to comprise on our standards of living in order to help raise others up...

There. I'm done babbling. Really. Now that I've emptied my mind of such dark thoughts, I'm going to wash my hands, brush my teeth, and retire to my delicious bed with a yummy fantasy involving me, a man who knows how to use his mouth and fingers, and restraints. Mmm.... yes.... I feel much better already.

Reflections on Integrity and the Human Dilemma

Lately I have been thinking about drive and ambition, purpose and resolve, and the confidence needed to support that resolve, and how integrity fits in there, between the drive of the ego to survive, to thrive, to achieve, and the conscience which tells me that it is of vital importance that I not hurt others in the process of getting what I want.

I recognize that my words, thoughts, deeds, and intentions create an environment that either supports or weakens my resolve. And whether it supports or weakens my resolve is dependent on my integrity, my ethics, my system of values. I am a person of conscience. And while I have few morals in the sense most people seem to, my values are very simple and I live in harmony with them: I do what makes me happy. And I try not to do what will make me unhappy.

Notice there is no undertone of fear. I lack fear with regards to my integrity/values because I am not a religious person. I do not have a 'faith' which dictates my ethical integrity. I do not allow myself that luxury: faith does not confront the questions of existence and how we respond to it; faith simply provides consolation and assurances that following a certain spiritual and moral road map is the answer to those questions.

There is not much that I invest 'belief' in because... in believing something, in taking it on faith in the absense of experientially substantiated fact, I close myself off to other things, one of which might actually be the truth. I refuse to believe in things that I cannot know. I neither affirm nor deny the existence of a god or gods, or an afterlife, or reincarnation, or a soul, or any of those Big Unknowables. Instead, self-honesty requires that I recognise what I do not know and I cannot know, and focusses me on what I can address: the human dilemma and the possible resolution of it.

And the human dilemma is this: at core, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we humans are are isolated, anxious creatures in a hostile world. Most of us experience ourselves as beings pitted against the rest of the world--just one more desperate soul struggling to survive amongst countless others. It is this desperation which puts us in conflict with our own integrity, I think. Desperation often drives us do or say things which hurt others and thus ourselves. Whether we admit it or not, we humans are empathetic beings in a participatory / shared reality, and we cannot hurt, abuse, or lie to others without diminishing our own Integrity, that law within. Thus the sense of conflict between survival and integrity. Thus the human dilemma.

And the possible resolution? Remembering that we have 'reality' in common. Remembering that we are more than just competitors for the 'better' things in life. Remembering that everything is transient: that we are all born, that we will all die, and that we will all suffer in between those two inescapable events. And lastly, realizing that as long as we fear the inevitability of suffering, we perpetuate it.

I think that most people don't realize that when we act with integrity, when we operate from a place of compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other, when we stop clinging to our fears of the undeniable and inescapable transience of life, we create a world with less suffering. Or at least, we are less likely to contribute to the fear and suffering. Ultimately, my integrity, and the integrity of my thoughts, words, intentions, and deeds, are based upon my sense of what I have in common with others, rather than what separates or distinguishes me from them.

The Internet, more than anything, has taught me that much.

Simone de Beauvoir and me

A friend compared me to Simone de Beauvoir.

Who is Simone de Beauvoir? I knew of her vaguely as a feminist and philosopher, but not with any direct experience of her work. So when he called me his Simone de Beauvoir, my curiosity was piqued. I did some research, and as a consequence of that research, asked myself the following questions, and determined the similarities and differences between us.

I wonder, does he call me Simone because of my sexuality? My fondness for triads, my bi-sexuality, my conviction that monofidelity is unnatural? On the surface, it would seem she and I are similar in these ways, but upon a deeper examination of her life and writings, I can only conclude that our approaches to sexuality were very different.

What I know of her indicates that her licentiousness was driven by her circumstances: she was in love with a little troll of a man (Sartre) who was questionably her intellectual and philosophical equal (I think she was his superior in these areas), a man whose interest in sex was so centered on conquest that he had no interest whatsoever in his partner's pleasure. Simone de Beauvoir never had an orgasm with Jean Paul Sartre. Her first orgasm with a man occured while visiting the States, when she was nearly 40. Her love-life was driven by her complex relationship with Sartre, who was a strerotypical Frenchman--the quintessential seducer. She seduced teenaged girls, her students, young women who were disadvantaged or orphaned. They often shared these women, or took as lovers the siblings of each other's paramours, and spoke cattily to each other of these others, even while speaking words of love to their faces. Theirs was an epic half-century love affair, but it was not a positive one, and it is not one I would care to emulate.

I wonder, does he call me Simone because of my focus on the sensual immediacy of living? She wrote entirely from what is called 'lived experience'. She seemed to live in the moment, but I do not find in her work a true appreciation of the sensual, rather, she seems to focus on the indisputable reality of her experience as a vehicle for advancing her personal philosophies regarding freedom and power.

And what of those philosophies? Is my own philosophical stance similar to hers? Is that why he calls me Simone? I never took a course in phenomenology or existentialism, never read nor received mentoring or instruction with regards Sartre, Husserl or Heidegger--each of whom were highly influential to her. In fact, until my friend called me his Simone de Beauvoir, I'd never read anything by her, either. A shameful thing, I suppose, seeing as some of her works are considered feminist classics and I attended a women's college. But there it is. I've had no formal education or introduction to her views or those of her contemporaries, so I cannot speak with authority on them.

I can only state my own: that, with regards to religion, I think that all true belief-systems lead to the same place and thus each are equally valid. With regards to love, I think we should be free to love whomever we wish. With regards to sex, I believe that the creation of monogamy and its regulation, first by religious bodies and later by society, has devalued the sensual and perverted the erotic. With regards to gender, I believe that men fear women, have always feared women, first because we embodied the once-mysterious generative process required for procreation, and later because we were capable of controlling them via the pleasures of sexual intercourse. I have long understood that if one controls a person's pleasure or pain, one also controls him or her. This premise (or law) is the coinage in sexual power-exchanges, and is clearly acknowledged by those who are active in BDSM . Indulging or withholding sex, one way or another, a woman controls a man -- and men feared that power over them so strongly that they considered it magical or demonic and set about disempowering and then exploiting women.

Simone was a woman who flaunted the moral rules and social roles assigned to women as a result of thousands of years of domination and violence. In fact, she refused to be complicit in her own subjugation, and perhaps, in this, we are alike. She insisted that as a woman she should be free: free to vote, free to earn a living, free of dependence upon men, free of the passive role society created for women, free to experience and explore the world. But for all her personal philosophies and insistence that she was free, she was still influenced by her own social conditioning with regards to love. She could not have the man she wanted all to herself, so she had him in her life the only way she could keep him there, and she mimicked his sexual aggressiveness as a way to either prove her sexual and emotional independence, or as a way to get back at him for his disinterest in both monogamy and pleasing her sexually.

I am a woman who is very conscious of convention, who pays lip-service to it in my public life, but privately leads a very different life, and in this, she and I are very different. Some might think it is a lack of courage that prevents me from putting myself out there, flaunting my sexuality and my compelling hedonistic beliefs, from carrying forward the feminist agenda to undermine the societal strictures that continue to keep women passive and objectified. But the truth is, it is consideration. To get in society's face and demand recognition of my freedom in all areas-- intellectual, economic, religious, reproductive, and sexual-- without compassionate regard for the humanity (and sensibilities) of others is, well, unethical and objectionable.

Not all revolutions are of necessity violent ones. Mine is a silken one. I hope to live my life with integrity, to embody my values and beliefs, and in doing so, create my own sphere of change and progress. Unlike Simone de Beauvoir, I do not feel that I need to prove anything to the world, to my society, or to the love of my life; nor am I driven to say or do things that are hurtful to others--I do not need to prove my equality with men by taking advantage of young women and men ignorant of my agenda.

No matter what others think, the only one whose opinion of and evaluation of my life that truly matters--is mine. No matter who I take as a lover, I am acutely aware that when I close my eyes to sleep at night, I am the one who has to sleep with me. And at the end of my life, people will not read things about thesmelves in posthumously published works that generate feelings of dismay and usury. Unlike Simone de Beauvoir.

No. I am no Simone de Beauvior. I am me.

But after eliminating all this, the question still remains... Why does he call me Simone?