Today and through the weekend, the Sun is conjunct Nessus, a planet that addresses two themes apropos of sexuality: one is potentially inappropriate sexual contact; and the other is the psychological level of abuse often perpetuated on us by families and society. The two are related and are often one and the same thing.
This image is striking for its ironic contrast: the idealized woman and the real woman, side by side on a spring afternoon. Few would call this a form of abuse, but we all feel the results: as this odd tension in the air. Women are conditioned to constantly live up to something; then they project this onto men, who in my experience are far more forgiving of women’s supposed imperfections than most women are themselves.
And they project it onto one another. One result is a highly competitive (catty, is the word) environment among women comparing themselves to advertising and then to one another, in an effort to size up who has the most or the fewest imperfections and who is thus more or less worthy of love.
This crisis is set in a larger environment of sexual secrecy, and the relationship between feeling inadequate and the need to keep secrets may not be obvious at first — but it’s there.
In my many hours and years of exploring the inner sexual landscape, I have often wondered what it is that we are so afraid of; why it is that we don’t want to be known, and thus why nearly any reference to or experience of sex can be turned to a scandal.
Part of the answer can be found in how we feel about ourselves. That’s the thing that we don’t want to be known; the thing we’re terrified will get out. It’s less about not feeling perfect and more about judging ourselves for this feeling. Perhaps you would not be amazed, because you know what I’m talking about: but the misgivings people feel about themselves are stunning, and painful. Many, many people run a constant litany of self-judgment and ramped up sense of inadequacy.
The environment that sustains this would simply not be possible if we learned how to regard ourselves with something besides the same judgment we fear from others, and then created an environment that supported our nascent steps on the path of self-acceptance.
It’s exhausting to live in an environment of constant fear of judgment. For one thing, those who dare to come out of self-judgment for a moment are often subject to immediate persecution for not adhering to the cultural standard. For another, it is a severe drain on all our emotional resources to be surrounded by people who for the most part invest their psychic energy hating themselves, however subtly, rather approving of themselves and their desire to express and share who they are.
We often participate in the games that lead to this, without counting the cost; yet it’s time to count the potential of a world in which we gave ourselves and one another some room to feel and to be. It’s going to start with creating a culture of selflove.
If you want to understand more, the book “The Triple Bind” by a psychologist, Stephen Hinshaw available on Amazon illuminates the subject beautifully. Sexism is incredibly cruel towards women. Hinshaw documents the triple bind put on women of having to have all the female qualities, the male qualities and be impossibly perfect. And that effort does not result in women being seen as simply human beings. The level of despair among women is a serious issue; women need a serious amount of compassion. The last thing we need is to hear how men are more forgiving. Of what? How patronizing! Create impossible expectations and then wonder what is wrong with women? That IS the problem. Stop contributing to it.
Ketchup1
The forgiveness I’m talking about involves enjoying companionship and sex. What most people don’t quite get up to recognizing is that sexual contact is based on chemistry, not a checklist.
Chemistry can be subtle, it can be overt, and it can be so strong that it backfires, but when it’s there, it’s there. It’s based on emotional makeup and interplay, and intellectual, and I believe to some degree aesthetic. There are women I think are absolutely gorgeous, who are exactly “my type,” who I am not interested in. Taken from the other side of the spectrum, we have all had the experience of, “this person is not my type, but damn, they’re hot.” And – notably – just about every possibility in between.
In almost every instance (in my experience) the psychic chemistry overrides the physical details, no matter what they are. That chemistry involves plenty of responding to how someone feels about his or her existence, body included. This is the heart of the matter. I believe that in relationships we respond do our partner’s relationship to himself or herself. The relational diagram is not a straight line between party A and party B. It is: party A vibrates with a certain feeling tone, a certain level of self-acceptance or lack thereof (and other factors); same for party B; and then either there is attraction or there is not.
Many people who know they are attractive have the frustration of intimidating others and therefore their own apparent attractiveness works against them. Listen and you will hear a lot of these stories. Many women are horrified at being attractive (even as they work for hours a day to present themselves), hate the “unwanted attention,” or feel that their beauty is a curse.
There are many themes that have been identified (by therapists, for one) involved with being, or feeling, over-large. I know women who are thin who feel fat (and therefore ugly) and women who are pretty fat and feel hot hot hot and, by golly, they can get some or all of what they want (in the complex, sometimes painful game of human interplay).
Relationships are internally mediated. How you feel about yourself is the single most important determining factor. So if you feel your cellulite is what is insulating you from contact, from feeling attractive, that is true — and maybe that’s it’s job. But I don’t think you need to ‘get rid’ of it to change its job; and once you give it a new assignment, it may well begin to dissipate.
Remember that many of the people [in particular women] who you see and meet, who look, to the eyes, the most beautiful, are wracked with constant doubts about their attractiveness. That is in part why they put so much effort into making themselves look attractive. In truth, attractiveness is inwardly mediated.
That is good news — we can do something about it. It’s bad news — sometimes that is difficult. It’s good news — there is a journey involved, and self-acceptance does indeed reflect on the outside. In my experience working with many people it is THE thing to strive for.
We could continue this conversation with the methods people here have learned and also experiences on the journey of self-acceptance. It is deeply personal territory but we have only to gain by creating an environment that sustains self-acceptance. I suggest you start in a mirror, and spend as many hours there over as many months looking, not just judging, until you start to actually see your own beauty. If you cannot see it looking at your body as a whole, get really close and look into your eyes: until you actually see yourself looking back.
“Men…in my experience are far more forgiving of women’s supposed imperfections than most women are themselves.” I’ve read that sentiment in many places but never a place whose writers I trust in the way I trust PW writers. So, I’d like to hear more about what that forgiveness actually looks like. Is it that men notice imperfections but aren’t turned off by them? Or is it that men just don’t notice imperfections? Or something else? Are men sick of having this conversation? In virtually every other realm of my life I embrace and celebrate my many strengths, yet sexually I still fear that I am defined by my cellulite.
Happy Birthday, Len!
Conversation today in Art History about wet nurses and sex workers; their similarities and differences. I personally find it offensive that both are regarded with distrust and distaste (at best, I suppose.) Sad that “artistic” is not necessarily “enlightened”. But then, that inandofitself becomes a point of discussion, doesn’t it?
Thanks Eric, good to read you.
xo
Linda
This is the photo that made me a believer and a subscriber to your work. Thanks for pulling it up and out of the archives. ~kristel
Len:
Happy Sol day, my Aquaritus brother!!
Not sure that this will be of any use to you all but ….this whole process of travelling through ones soul agenda…..scouring the lining of your oceanic unconscious….. uncovering the uncomfortable truth that an abusive environment has led directly to a set of behaviour patterns….accepting the grief and skewed feedback that the world gives you……swearing to be a “better man” (thanks to Beyonce “If I were a Boy”)… reprogramming the CPU to produce new behaviourist activity..(yes it can be done)…. and then following through on the resolution to the point were you give 120 % of yourself to the new process…only to have the world feedback the same old shit….leaving you with a sense of “maybe it really is…me..ugghhh ooohhhh failure…!!!” ….. has ultimately and finally led me to a position where I said……fuck that……have achieved a great partnership with a woman who is completely clear about the here and now…..where I enjoy great great sex within the context of our preferred choices…. and where we simply live in the present….in an environment that has a love machine that is strong enough to withstand the assault of the 21st century local government community living plan……in order to bring about a greater sense of joy as to the meaning of our current existence……rather than re-living the film of a torrid and turgid past…..!!
To paraphrase the hippy 60s “Tune in …turn on ….and drop out…..””
Hows about…. “Travel within……turn it all out……and just get on with it……!!
Next time you blink….another 25 years will have gone by….!!!
Make it happen….!! It is an instinct….not a manual….!!
Nessus conjunct Sun in Aquarius is the time to acknowledge to your fellow human beings that you are exactly that….Humans Being…!!
Big Love…
PH
Happy Birthday Len! Time to lay out some resolutions for the new year, but just resolve to make it a year of enchanting encounters with divine food and sex, not things. Peace.
Len. Wishing you an extremely Happy Birthday. H.
Thank you, Eric. With today being my solar return and Nessus sitting squarely on my natal Sun i can say that i’m feeling you, brother.
“There are many reasons for sexual secrecy. Most of them involve the fear of being judged. But that simply would not be possible if we learned how to appreciate ourselves with something besides the same judgment we fear from others, and then created an environment that supported our nascent steps on the path of self-acceptance.”
i absolutely agree. and i personally know it is easier said than done (depending where you are on the continuum). in my experience, i’ve had both men and women be unforgiving of the real body. and for me, the fear of being judged is tied up in deep conditioning from early exposure to and experience with verbal, physical and sexual abuse. healing and forgiving those moments within myself, including friends, lovers and family, are layered and complex, no matter how easy it is to understand how the vicious cycle of continuing to abuse myself, is killing me. i do believe creating that simplicity on this side of complexity is possible, yet a working inside/out process, as forgiveness, release, trust, and loving (Self foremost) unconditionally, can be.