Editor’s note:If you have a question you would like answered and explored in this forum, please email Jan at Drjanseward [at] gmail.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Don’t be shy — we’re enjoying what our readers come up with! — amanda
Hello Jan,
My question is about the intense energy experienced at the start of a potential sexual relationship. It is potent, of that there is little doubt. It can feel powerfully creative. It is also a playground for projection and fantasy. Where is the middle ground? Can something so powerful also be healthy and productive? Can you surrender to it without losing the plot?
Thank you!
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
Well, you said it. The ‘urge to merge’ is never so great as when we’re in the throes of a new sexual relationship. Your question speaks to the difficulty we can have of maintaining a separate sense of self while giving ourselves over to intimacy with another, in a space where boundaries can dissolve. Whether or not we can enter that space depends on who we are coming in, how permeable our boundaries are to begin with, and how comfortable we are with opening the gates.
That this place of melding boundaries is a playground for projection and fantasy is also certainly true, and it can become a battleground or a prison as well. Who sets the rules, who initiates, what responses are acceptable — all become part of the dance and each partner has to figure out the steps. What we bring to the encounter from our history will say everything about the fantasies we project onto our new partner and their ability or willingness to fulfill our fantasy or even play along.
As the posts on last week’s column attest, so many of us are searching, longing for the ‘other’, the ‘one’ that will complete us. The strongest moment of this longing is in that moment of limitless potential before encounter, where everything is possible in the unknowingess of who the other really is. What happens in reality after this moment can rarely match our fantasy of the possible, so we look for this moment again and again, often in serial new encounters. If we stay in the same relationship, we often end up asking the question of ‘how do we make love stay?’
In my practice, when my clients and I engage in discussions of how to make the passion stay, or how to stay engaged in life in the midst of new sexual intensity, we always travel to explorations about self and other, and self with other. We explore how the projections and disappointments, or idealizations, of the other will always point back to original fantasies and disappointments in the family, particularly about how power was handled, and what the client has had to surrender in order to maintain their sense of identity. They are always able to make the connections between these early negotiations and the negotiations they continue to make in their new or ongoing sexual partnerings.
Anonymous, how you surrender to the power of sexual connection while still maintaining your ‘self’ will have everything to do with how you have evolved in your relationship to yourself so far — are you comfortable with yourself and your body, with your relationship to your sexual self, and with your ability and desire to give yourself over to the contact and connection with yourself as well as an other? Are you able to truly let another ‘in’, with everything that intimacy and penetration implies? Can you surrender to the union without surrendering your power? Have you been able to integrate, acknowledge or overcome all that your religion, or your family of origin, or the media, has tried to push into you about what sex is supposed to — and not supposed to — be? And, after the merging, can you emerge again, as a complete self, or as complete as your are at this moment, and whole?
Thinking about your question makes me think about the ocean — the impact of the current depends on the strength and experience of the swimmer. In potent new encounters, whether we ride with the tide or get pulled under, whether we remain healthy and productive while we go with the flow will depend on our maturity and integration. Losing ourselves versus staying present yet connected is a decision that we ultimately face in each moment, not just in sexual encounters, and as best we can, we should try to stay at the depth where we can swim.
Thanks for you question!
Blessings,
Jan
This is a good question and one I think a lot of people have but never ask. The urge to mate is a very strong one and yes, giving in to it CAN cause a lot of projection and misunderstanding. I know this because I experienced it first-hand. I gave in and ended up feeling so intense that I acted on the feelings and unfortunately later regretted it.
I think it really depends on some important factors. One, how long and well you know the person you are having these feelings with. Having intense sex while not knowing someone well can short-circuit your feelings into a false intimacy because sex is such an intimate act.
Two, whether or not you and the person are genuine friends also is important because if you are, then when the intensity dies down to a burnished glow you won’t feel like the love is gone. Friendship lasts longer than intense passion so if you and the other person really like one another, the passion will be great but your relationship will last longer (through the dry-spells and such) than if it is just sexually based.
Three, passion is in response to pheromones, not personality. This means you can have really mind-blowing sex but now have anything else in common and that means eventually things can sour. Especially when the personalities begin to become more prominent as the passion slacks off a bit.
That’s not to say people shouldn’t “go for it;” they can but with their minds knowing these things and keeping the “relationship” in perspective.
mm.
“Can something so powerful also be healthy and productive?”
to me, this question is problematic. to me. that is because to me, this type of statement is indicative of a power imbalance in this potential relationship, and one of the parties is already questioning, perhaps worried, perhaps fearful, apparently unsure. whatever. they seem not to be comfortable with the situation.
warning bells!!
now, I want to be clear that I have no idea where Anonymous is coming from, and I don’t claim to, only they know. but I think the topic is interesting, so I continue for topic’s sake.
this is info. folks. someone saying “can something so powerful also be healthy and productive?” is letting me know they are NOT comfortable with the current (pun intended) Power/Energy flow, and that could mean many different things. but in my spidey-senses I am most concerned with the person asking because it already seems that they are getting overwhelmed. and apparently there has been no physical contact. mm.
Dr. Jan, this topic is really dove-tailing into last week’s topic. from my vantage. but not fr. “the One” perspective, but fr. people analyzing the Power aspect.
when I say warning bells: I guess it depends what one is into, another choice on the plate of Life. for me, I don’t like power imbalances in intimate relations, and I’m not talking about the gentle giving and taking within centre. to me, imbalanced relationships tend to be too chaotic/dramatic. oh I know, I know, you can set up rules and order… I prefer passionate. Flow. Synch. 1P + 1P = SP.
there is a big difference.
mm. One can be healthy and productive and Powerful. oh. and Wonderful.
and I’m not toning it down.
and I’m not settling.
(hands on hips drumming fingers on magic lasso.)raise eyebrow.
–dash—— into Invisible Airplane!!———whoshhhhhhhhh…..
just my 12cents. on 11 Sept.
peace.
~~~~~Surf!!!!~~—-;;;;;……..________ yeah!
–
k. I’ll go back and read the article now!
: D