Lust and Love: Part One

I don't know if we'll ever get to Part Two, but there's a lot on the cutting floor.

On New Years Day, National Public Radio played a Best Interview of 2009 with famous sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman, who is an inspiration, seriously. But Laura had nothing of substance to say about the L-words, as far as I can remember, so somebody should. I understand her new book has pictures, by the way.

Is it possible we’ve never discussed this, lust and love?

Let's get right to it then, start with lust.

There’s a lot to be said in favor of lust, without being facetious. Twenty-five percent of all marriages dissolve due to sexual problems. So it stands to reason that lust might be factoring in there somewhere.

Maybe it's there, but not reciprocated or appreciated. Or the object of lustfulness is someone outside the dyad, a lady, a gent. And if lust is there for someone else, and it isn't there X2 in an ostensibly committed relationship, then that dyad (two-some) could be in trouble. Heaven forbid. But it happens.

Which is why I'm thinking it needs to be bi-directional, it really does. Both partners need some luster at the same time in the same place at least some of the time. And it totally gets a bad rap, lust, and maybe it shouldn't, which had to be said, because without it, without the arousal associated with lust, sexual relations can be a real pain, as in painful. And who needs that?

And there's the idea that although sexual intimacy is only one of the five intimacies,* it facilitates the others, is a metaphor of every process, every problem in the relationship. Thus it is high on the hierarchy of couple needs. Associate lust, as we've just done, with sexual intimacy, and working the lust matters. It's a good thing, not bad.

Have I lost any subscribers yet? Oh, give me time.

Sexual intimacy, which should include lustfulness, looftness, whatever it was Woody Allen used to say when he was expressing his love/lust in one of his neurotic films, feels good, and it's free. So it has to be good for marriage, can surely be the marital glue, way up there on the list of intimacies.

That said, if a couple is not married, is not legally or emotionally committed, then good sex can be glue for that couple too, making it harder to get out when intellectually, emotionally, rationally, you know it's not a good match.

Still, it's hard to say, I have to go now, when a vibrant part of you wants to stay.

Lusting for a bad boy/bad girl, just one of those things so many people lust for, or lusting for an ex, can be easier than living with one of these 'til death (or divorce) do you part. People cut bait, are capable of rational decisions, even when the lust refuses to relocate. We get out of dysfunctional or second-rate relationships and think back, sometimes years later, with a fondness and desire. You bet.

There are clergy-people who tell us to extinguish the flame. But the brain has a mind of its own. We can fight the process, crack a mental whip, control the wandering, but it's difficult. Just like any other obsessive, ego-dystonic (annoying) thoughts, these refuse to leave home.

Sex therapists suggest distraction, focus upon the body, the senses, not thoughts, if they make us feel bad or conflicted. We're supposed to get into our five senses and how they affect our internal arousal, search inward, deep into the self, beneath the skin, although skin is good, too, touching it. We focus on the body, find a wave of arousal,** and zero in on what makes the body happy, the source of stimulation that makes it so appealing, this reaching for higher heights.

Call it meditating with a purpose.

Then, once it is located, once that certain predictable, happy-centered neurological pathway is found, we coach the main squeeze. Instruct a partner accordingly.

So simple.

Except for the instructing a partner, and taking instruction part, difficult for some couples. Which is a problem, illustrates the salience of problem-solving intimacy, a topic for another day. For a partner who doesn't want to give instruction (too embarrassed) denies the other an opportunity to pleasure her (let's just say it's a her).

And a partner who doesn't want to take instruction (let's say it's a him) reduces the chance that his partner will feel pleasure.

It is like saying,

I want to give you a present, one that will make you really happy, but I don't want you to tell me what you want, how you want it delivered, or when.

I'm assuming that what I've got to give is what you want, because you couldn't possibly not want what I've got to give. Right? Please tell me that's so.

Without hints from the other, we're lost. This is all especially sticky for people-pleasers who go ahead and say, It's so. When it isn't.

Ah, but if there's no issue taking instruction, then once this is accomplished, the instruction, the humbled down student is very sexy indeed and will listen, follow, and soon add individual polish. Together the couple finds that variations on a theme are infinite.

And exceedingly intimate. More intimate, surely, than wandering where the brain prefers to go, along those short-cuts, the exes, the models, the movie stars. Of course, not everyone worries about the short-cuts. Indeed millions celebrate vibrant brain circuitry, grateful that it is being put to good use. We're not judging.

But for those with too much guilt to fantasize about the mail-person, the gardener, the babysitter or the boy next door, for those who wish that extra people in the psychological bed would just go away, working the lust the natural way is a prime directive.

And in this process, lust becomes a function of love. For what we've just described above is nothing, if it is not love. You can't tell just anyone what makes you happy sexually. You just can't. Some of us have to love someone to do that. It's so embarrassing. You're only going to tell someone you love, someone who is in it with you for the long haul, someone you know will move mountains so as not to disappoint, at least furniture. Working every one of the intimacies feels like moving mountains, you realize, over time. Sex is just one of those mountains.

What's all this got to do with the Pina Colada song?

I was tired of my lady
We'd been together too long
Like a worn-out recording
Of a favorite song
So while she lay there sleeping
I read the paper in bed
And in the personal columns
There was this letter I read

If you like pina coladas
And getting caught in the rain
If you're not into yoga

It's his lady who answers the ad, if you remember, and she likes pina coladas, obviously, and getting caught in the rain, just like him. But he doesn't know it, not until he meets her a second time. He's tired of his lady, he doesn't even know her, and he's stepping out on her.

You gotta' wonder what it is they talked about.

therapydoc

*Sex is only one out of the five intimacies. Tweak them and other problems disappear. Tweaking well, unfortunately, isn't always easy.

In no particular order, The Five Intimacies:

(1) emotional intimacy
(2) sexual intimacy,
(3) problems solving intimacy,
(4) work intimacy, and
(5) recreational intimacy

No particular order.
That said, I'd place sex high on the list-- emotional intimacy higher.

**This wave of arousal is what the yogis call kundalini (correct me if I'm wrong), and worth the search, the game of hide and seek. You can play it alone or with your partner. Makes it more fun. Call it a joint marital responsibility.

"Am I getting warmer?"

"Yes, and a little to the left."

Domeena Renshaw, world-renowned sex therapist, a psychiatrist, tells us that sexual arousal is one's own responsibility, whatever that means. This may not sound very romantic, but is the case for developing one's own appetite. She also says that sexual arousal is tucked somewhere between the belly and the brain. It isn't necessary to limit your research, is the truth.

New Years Greetings, Jewish Style

Just a quick post before the holiday. I left another over at the The Second Road , if you're interested, where I'll be guest posting once a week.

Here's how I ended my first entry (Commitment)

Hey, I could have gone anywhere with this post, and probably did. I wrote it on a plane, going over it in my head in hypnogogic sleep, eyes closed.

Thanks for having me, Second Road.

May your site become the GPS of recovery programs.

Sounded right at the time. But here's what I really wanted to tell you before I forgot, before taking off for the holiday.

Jewish or not, in the next couple of days, you might be hearing people around you saying,

Have a happy, healthy New Year.

Or,

Have a happy, healthy, sweet New Year.

This is because Jews like sugar. We really do. We'll dip an apple in honey on the holiday this week just to make the coming year sweet. If we eat sweet things, the year will be sweet. Like on Star Trek, Captain Kirk says, "Make it so, Suloo." We try to make it so.

It's a belief that by saying it, doing it, putting ourselves through the motions, we can make things happen. Change things. This is one of the secrets of behavioristic religions like mine (we're all about doing). And social scientists generally also subscribe to cognitive-behavioral interventions, and surely, hypnotism. Making it so is a little of both.

So...

Have a happy, healthy, sweet new year. May there be no more suffering in this world, and if there is, we should have enough honey to go around.

therapydoc

P.S. For those of you who want to know what the Jewish people are praying for in the next couple of days, the reason your Jewish friends won't be at work, won't be taking calls, won't be publishing comments, etc., take a look at this.

Is Marriage for White People

The CNN headliner is a good one: Is Marriage for White People?
Dionne Hill quotes statistics (I assume for 2000)

Forty-five percent of black women in America have never been married, compared with 23 percent of white women, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey in 2006. . . .

I am a statistic.

She says.

A CNN video (very good) informs us that in 1910, 64 % of black men remained single compared to 48% in 2000.

Social scientists might opine, regarding this crisis, that yes, there does seem to be a sociological trend. The comparable odds for marriage for black women are less than those for white women, and fewer black men are getting married.

But so what? You are not a statistic. You are a woman. Or you are a man. You are an individual. Group statistics don't apply to individuals.

Ms. Hill continues

I am part of a generation of Americans who are choosing to postpone marriage while they pursue their careers....Among the men I have dated, there were definitely some who were ready for something a little more significant than I was willing to give. Did I drag my feet because I wasn't ready? Or was it because those men weren't right for me? It's debatable and probably a combination of the two.

How honest. How refreshing. Owning it, Dionne.

Even more illustrative are the clips in the CNN video, Black in America.

We hear poet Saul Williams tell us that the most challenging days for black families lie ahead. Men disappear into the streets. Seventy percent of all black children are born to single black female-headed households. I didn't check that statistic, but the Department of Commerce tells us that half of all children in America will spend time in a one-parent family (Zill, 1988; Bumpass, 1990). A challenge, for sure, for all of us.

And Bishop TD Jakes tells CNN that it is very difficult to get a black man to be what he has not seen. The bishop is referring to the roles of husband, father.

Black in America features a black couples counselor, Ronn Elmore (exquisite) who tells us that when a black woman thinks that there is only one perfect mate, that she will stop looking, stop putting herself out there.

Black women are raised to be independent and strong, and men (get it, are intimidated). . . When a man thinks,
She doesn't need my money.
I can't make her laugh.
I can't bring anything to this relationship
There is nothing unique and wonderful that I can bring to her life that she wouldn't have if I weren't there.
Whenever a man senses there's no opportunity (to give), a man backs away.

Read the article and go to the links. I don't do the content justice.

But statistics do refer to groups, not individuals. Divorce, beginning in 1960, rose to fifty percent, but has leveled off. The rate has stayed the same for a few decades, now. Still, no one looks at this trend quite like marriage therapists do. We're keenly aware that if half of all marriages are expected to fail, then half of them succeed, also. Half of all married couples make their relationships fly. Year, after year, after year.

Someone like me will say that therapy helps. Therapydocs talk about pre pre-marital therapy, pre-commitment commitment therapy. Understand yourself. Understand your style of communicating. Know what you need, and go after that.

See if he (she) can make you laugh. See if he (she) can add something to that already very extraordinary life of yours. Watch him (her) in those nascent stages of a relationship before sex (oh, and wait, please do, please wait for that, don't let it turn into that or that is exactly, what it will be). See whether or not you can grow together.

A baker might go with the metaphor, How good is the yeast, really? When you add the water to it, will it grow?

The obvious stumbling blocks, the stuff of that pre-marital therapy or pre pre-marital are the fears, the realizations of catastrophic, seemingly unresolvable issues. Another pair of eyes and maybe they're resolvable. Don't run from them. They'll catch up in the next relationship.

We fear commitment, we fear intimacy. We fear for our interpersonal conflict and fear raising children in a most violent, sometimes amoral society. We fear repeating the mistakes of our mothers and fathers. All good to talk about, work out.

But that being black and single thing? Sorry. It ain't necessarily so.

therapydoc