The Myth of Sex Equalling Intimacy
So, here's a book recommendation for you.
You have GOT to read Radical Honesty, by Brad Blanton.
An excellent book that was being recommended out at Haven. His premise is that we all lie to ourselves and others, creating tons of distress. His prescription is telling the truth about what you do, who you are and how you lie about both of the above. Sounds like Into the Centre, but with even more bite. I set up links below to Chapters and Amazon. If you want to order it and have it shipped from them, please use the links below. We get a little profit from the sale, and after all, Into the Centre is free to you, but not to me! You can help by ordering from one of the links below.
10 Myths to Live Without
The Myth of Family Bonds
The Myth of Fairness
The Myth of No Consequences
The Myth of Sex Equalling Intimacy
The Myth of Absolute Truth
The Myth of Altruism
The Myth of "Shoulds"
The Myth of Right and Wrong
The Myth of Scarcity
The Myth of a Soul Mate
The Myth of Sex Equalling Intimacy
Canadian readers may well remember an ongoing series of TV commercials from Star Choice, a satellite TV company. One of the commercials features a man and a woman sitting on a couch. The woman turns to the man and says something like, "Tell me about how you are really feeling about our relationship." The guy looks like he's having his prostate checked. The announcer walks on screen and says, "This disaster could have been avoided, if only he had gotten Star Choice TV." We then see the couple sitting next to each other, staring blissfully at the TV screen. There's a romance playing, the woman is teary eyed and smiling, and they guy is also smiling and looking altogether too clever by half. Moral: watching satellite TV averts a disaster -intimate communication.
Leading me to an off ramp on the highway of today's Myth. Intimacy, it seems to me, is something that many people are seeking, at least in the abstract. Intimacy, however, is not solely about dialogue nor using the Communication Model. It's not about long walks or shared interests. It's not about raising kids together and contributing to the running of the household. Intimacy may contain all or many of the above, but intimacy is about, first and foremost, vulnerability and trust.
Vulnerability - is about openness and honesty.
My present favourite book is called Radical Honesty, by Brad Blanton. His theory, and I would concur, is that living in our head and spending all our time "thinking" is something to be escaped from, as our head lies, all the time. We tell others lies about our past, our present, our thinking, about whom we are and what we know. The author calls it all "bullshit," and prescribes total honesty as a cure. This core of honesty leads to a feeling of nakedness before others. I know that only I can wound myself, and when I am vulnerable I am placing myself naked before another, by choice, in order to be seen and known.
Trust is about having faith that the person I am being vulnerable with will not attempt to take advantage of me.
If I tell them something, they will treat my revelation with dignity and respect. They will not try to hurt me with what I've said, call me names, nor use what I've shared as a weapon. They will never try to control me, or the relationship. They want to be with me as I am, and that "as I am" grows with each revelation. In this relationship of trust, I learn to be more and more open and vulnerable.
Contrast that to most relationships. One of the sentences I head a lot, from clients, is "Well, I can't tell her that!" I can count on one hand the number of couples I know who tell their partners everything. And this is especially true in matters sexual, but we'll get to that on the next off ramp.
Most couples fight by dredging up something the partner said in a moment of vulnerability. The idea behind such fights is to hurt, to wound - not to resolve whatever issue the couple first disagreed about. This firing back and forth of vulnerabilities naturally leads to less and less intimacy.
Another favourite is "I've been hurt in the past, so I won't risk being completely open with you. You'll have to wait for intimacy." One young woman of our acquaintance knows of our erotic massage work, but "scares herself" over thinking that this could happen with anyone other than her spouse. (The process is often done, and taught, in seminars with other participants.) Now, I have no problem with her statement, nor her choice, but I also know she seldom has erotic or sexual contact with her husband, and doesn't really enjoy it. Why? She had a shaky childhood of feeling unloved, thinks, "All men think about is, you know, that!" and is too scared of being hurt to risk vulnerability. I just find it ironic that she has a hard and fast rule "only with my spouse" and then doesn't even do it there.
Excuses abound over why intimacy will take a long time and besides, "I'm too busy right now." As if there is all the time in the world.
Most of this comes from our upbringing, naturally, as we've been saying throughout this myth series. The sharing of emotions is often cut off in families. Kids who scream or cry are fed or punished or disciplined into stuffing their expressions of themselves. Even more deadly . . . well, I had a client once, a 17-year-old. Her parents, like most, had told her repeatedly, "You can tell us anything. We won't get mad. We'll just help you sort it out." She found a way to let them know she'd become sexually active. All hell broke loose. Yelling. Name-calling. Dad slapped her. During our session, I gave her a long hug, so she could cry on my shoulder. Then, I said, "Tell me about it. That's a big moment!" She did, with relief, pride, awe and a bit of fear. Too bad mom and dad chose not to experience that with her. Needless to say, she learned a lesson about the dangers of being honest, open and vulnerable.
And, of course, we've all had the experience of telling a friend something in confidence, and having it spread all over the school-yard. Now, as adults, we want friends, intimates, to share ourselves with and to be seen by. Our terror of past betrayals freezes us in our tracks.
So, many people substitute sex for intimacy, without even noticing. Some of you who know me know I consider sex to be mostly recreational, as opposed to a marker of something deeper. I suspect I'm responding, in a sense, to the many couples who tell me, "We fight all the time, don't like each other very much and have nothing in common, but at least we're faithful. We don't fool around." As if I'm supposed to hand out an award.
Our culture is abysmally ignorant about and embarrassed about anything sexual. Which is odd, given the amount of sex in ads, movies and music - it pervades our culture. We are repressed about our own sexuality, and desperate to see sexual imagery shoved in our faces. Most people are shy about discussing their favourite sexual practices with others, sometimes including partners. Seldom do partners, while making love, talk to their partners about what they want. And, of course, refusing to have sex with a partner is a principal form of "punishment."
I suspect, from my experience, that most people have a "young adolescence" attitude about sex. Sort of from the first 2 years of puberty. It's something joked about, whispered about. Kids teach kids. We've been taught to be modest, (God, that there were more nude beaches, but I digress) to think that someone seeing us naked is an intimate act. (Beginning to see the connection?) We want to be intimate, to share who we are, at the core of us, and often the best we can do is to get naked with them. And then be embarrassed about our bodies.
And then there's the mystery of orgasms. If you think back to adolescence and remember if you figured them out to any extent, you were blown away by the intensity. Now, you likely had that experience first with yourself, (and many times since, if you're honest J ) - and then you had sex. Our minds go, "Wow. That was so . . . so . . . special!!! I came, (s)he came, and (s)he treated me so . . . so . . . special!!! I'm in love! That was so. . . so . . . intimate! (Of course it wasn't. It was sex, which is the ultimate solo act. (Memo to self - Stop interrupting and do a series on sex.) ) S(he) saw all of me, liked me, loved me!!! (S)he must be . . . oh!!! ... my . . . soul mate!" (Yikes!! See last article in this series.)
Well, phooey. Sex is a marker, an indicator, in and of itself, of exactly nothing. Having sex is simply a way to find out whether or not you'll let your body experience pleasure. It only seems to be "special" because sex, our bodies and passionate horizontal encounters scare us so, and the logic goes, "This is so scary that I'd only do it with someone special! This must mean we're in an intimate relationship!!!"
There are still tons of folk (mostly women, a few men) who won't make love with the lights on. They seem to be thinking that although one has sex for pleasure, one should deprive oneself of full pleasure out of embarrassment.) And many are so scared they simply want to get it over with.
People get disgusted with sex when they wake up and realize that it didn't produce intimacy. Because it's the only item in most couple's intimacy bag of tricks, (since they don't have deep and meaningful conversations, and thus vulnerability and openness and trust doesn't happen,) people feel cheated. So, because they have already predetermined that sex should equal intimacy, they run off and screw someone else. Or, they have tons of sex for the momentary charge and for the thrill of the seduction, using the other person for a quick fix, never intending intimacy. This is great if negotiated and agreed to in advance, discussed as to purpose and carried out as an experiment in intimacy. (Yes, negotiated sex could be an experiment in sex and intimacy. The intimacy part comes in the talking through of motivations, expectations, wants, and desires.) Because such discussion seldom happens in seductions, the seductee often thinks something intimate is happening, and we get the speech recorded above. In this case, the sex is recreational for one, a marker of a deep and meaningful (non-existent) relationship for the other.
Intimacy is an act of continual stripping away - of revealing who we are, with total honesty. There can be no element of one person trying to control the other, no holding back, no blaming. Intimacy is an ongoing process, not an isolated, single act.
Sex, on the other hand, is a great way to let someone know you find them attractive and, practiced as "safer sex," is simply fun. When sex is combined with an intimate relationship, it transcends both intimacy and sexuality and becomes a sacred act.
Sex never has to become dull and boring. The dull and boring part happens as couples drift apart, refusing to be intimate - open to each other, vulnerable with each other. Couples can't quite figure out why they are together, and refuse to discuss it. In desperation, they turn to sex, trying to make it more "interesting." I don't get, however, how sex can be interesting with someone I find boring. Or as Ben & Jock might have it, using their relationshipmodel, how can I expect great sex when I'm apathetic about my partner?
If you're trying to use sex to find intimacy, you'll most likely fail. If you refuse to be fully, deeply, vulnerably, out-of-control intimate with your partner, sex will never be what it could be. It will either become a weapon, boring or non-existent. If you think fidelity means your relationship is solid, think again. In the end, intimacy produces the energy of life. Sex, in and of itself, is simply an activity. Combined with true, honest intimacy, it's a symphony. And the best eroticism, sensuality and sexuality is experienced nakedly and openly - without shame.
