Eric,
I’ve deeply enjoyed reading the book of blue posts and found your take on the male/female psyche split to be perfectly articulated within the context and spot on. Men are desperate to integrate the male and female sides of their personalities, and the tension this creates both in a man’s feelings about himself (mostly shame) and the projection of this shame onto his female partners and the world is the source of much of the violence we witness on a daily basis. Women have benefited from increasing opportunities to integrate, leaving a power differential between men and women that makes it difficult to cultivate relationships based on mutual respect, integrity and honesty.
From a relationship perspective, women experience this as “If you don’t do what I want, I’m going to fuck someone else behind your back.” While I have no problem with anyone fucking anyone else (even within a committed relationship as long as both agree and are honest and respectful), its the deception and hostility imparted in the act (as an attempt to even the power imbalance and dissipate the pain tension created by shame) that degrades both men and women and keeps everyone from being whole. Women experience emotional rejection by men as standard operating procedure in relationships, but as you highlight, this is really the rejection of the inner feminine projected externally. The more he dislikes himself, the more hostile this rejection is likely to be.
I appreciate your continued exploration of these deep issues and willingness to frankly share your personal experiences. I don’t know what the immediate solutions are, but I do feel awareness is evolving, and you are actively contributing to that evolution. Your commitment has not gone unrecognized.
Cathy
Yeti Wandering writes, “The urge to splurge is subsumed and you receive yourself into yourself and the qi, the life force courses through your body instead of being wasted in a towel. With practice and patience you get the orgasm, but you keep the vital essence. Whole body orgasms, multiple non ejaculatory orgasms eclipse the pathetic squirt gasm once you get the knack.”
Without commenting on the merits of this idea, I have noticed that so far as I can tell many men do not orgasm. They can have the basic physiological experience of the contractions and the ejaculation, but not only are orgasm and ejaculation separate for a lot of guys, they are so separate that one never actually happens. However, ejaculation feels good; and you don’t know what you’re missing if you’ve never had it; i.e., orgasm…
I think this speaks to the idea of the split: orgasm is a ‘feminine’ response: you surrender to it, let it pass through your energy field, will up from inside, and so on; it’s nothing like swinging a sledgehammer. Of course to really ejaculate well you also need to let go of all control of your body – totally relax – though this facilitates orgasm.
Vis a vis holding in semen: “holding in” is precisely what men are supposed to do in our society and plenty of others. I am not sure that a teaching of holding something back will help men integrate their feminine side.
Eventually, if you believe physiology, all that held in semen backs up into the bladder sooner or later (like, within a few days). You can’t really “keep” the stuff. I recognize that the best non-ejaculatory orgasm techniques for men do not actually have us “holding it in” but rather flowing with the energy; however, many of the techniques in contemporary western tantra are about holding back, and are infused with that psychology.
There are many women who, despite not losing any vital essence in the process of orgasm, and allegedly being bestowed with infinite yin energy, have the same kind of let-down feeling that many men do after they cum – an experience sometimes called libido drop. You can’t blame losing semen for that; but women, like men, can learn the art of rolling multiples.
In men I think that libido drop is what reveals, and gives us a map, to the split. I’m suggesting that we bring it to awareness and work with it.
I’m not saying struggle isn’t part of it, but struggle to see another as Alive when they don’t quite taste it yet, is — in my humble– worth a little wilderness in the garden.
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Agreed, mystes! Decisiveness has its place but the ‘little wilderness in the garden’ concession is perhaps where patience really does come into its own as a virtue.. with limits, if kindness is not to become folly.
And I think, to make this workable in relationship practice, this needs to be accompanied with a vigilant *command* repertoire that includes the necessary phrase “nurture me”
ddW… “Close intimacy with those who are not *evolving*, feels akin to welcoming another’s weeds into one’s own soil, after having diligently given time to root out one’s own!!”
Hmmm… I have a kind of keplerian love-style, having been deeply loved by one person over a three-decade era while also in love with my husbands, lovers, friends etc. I think it might be a fairly unusual stack of exchanges. It has allowed me to see that we phase in and out of being able to live in conscious relationship with the shadow – while in each others company.
As you and I have discussed (briefly) on this blog, I do hold that to be in love is a certain kind of therapy (cf my stigmata remark a few days ago), and that this is not a source of embarrassment or lack. (But hey, I have a second-house Aquarian Moon in the same degree as Chiron, whaddya gonna do?)
The love tie only becomes ‘inappropriate lusts and delapidated atttachments” to the extent that I could no longer feel the cyclical nature of love and absence. Or as the buddhists say, bliss and emptiness. When the will-to-love is fully turned on, it teaches that alterity in a weird, over-there-staring-back-at-you way.
I’m not saying struggle isn’t part of it, but struggle to see another as Alive when they don’t quite taste it yet, is — in my humble– worth a little wilderness in the garden.
Or is it hat relationships stand or fall on this irreducible question of trust.
I’m pretty sure that the �gadget’ (drug, therapeutic tool, etc) is in absolutely embracing *all* of it, without exception, even when an injury seems “imposed” by injustice or stupidity. Not as a theoretical stance, but as a daily, hourly, instantaneous freemittment.
I’m starting to realize that what I once called �love’ is just the willingness to help hold that thought steady in my loved ones body/mind.
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mystes, I’ve been thinking on this. I can relate and what you mention catalyses something..
My feeling is that all relationships stand or fall on this irreducible question of values. Thinking on this, it was clear that all people have values, whether they realise it or not. And all people *live* from them.
What many people do not do is live in a conscious relationship to their values. For me, this is inscribed along gender lines only in so much as gendered values have been socio-culturally inscribed into the collective psyche.
We get hung up by focus upon the behaviour/motivation/conditioning and our first principle of awareness around making space for the history-reality of where the person has come from and now is. We often may agonise around their unawareness in the minutiae of detail when, actually, the key should likely involve discerning as quickly as possible whether or not the person is in conscious relationship to their values – I might qualify this as their values around self/other and space as well as creativity/community and purpose.
If one is not in conscious relationship to one’s pain, for example, then a *lock* into ego states should be predicted. It seems to me that there are any of a number of reasons why folk are not on an evolutionary path, but mapping this is less the point than getting centred. And that is always a choice and perhaps, more often than we would desire, a decisive act of leaving another behind.
Close intimacy with those who are not *evolving*, feels akin to welcoming another’s weeds into one’s own soil, after having diligently given time to root out one’s own!!
I like how Mike gets at the wholeness issue. I think both genders have the split you speak of, and it manifests in different ways for all of us. We are raised to identify with our gender, and it is clearly easier to know masculinity deeply if you are male, and likewise femininity if you are female. It also is difficult to express a wholeness of masculine/feminine in our culture – where assertive women are labeled bitches and receptive men are labeled wimps.
I pay attention to the men I am attracted/drawn to, they are usually expressing an aspect of masculinity that I need to integrate.
I had a dream where I met with Eric Francis. A bit later he wrote about integrating Mars and I ‘got it’. EF in my dream was my subconscious reminding me to integrate aspects of the masculine that he expresses.
When I am whole, I have less expectation that my partner will complete me somehow. When he and I meet in wholeness, we can celebrate each other, instead of trying to get something.
WY… This question of ejaculate and retention is a yogic one – and is very precisely lined up with a long, oh-so-very-very-long, history of deep misogyny. Eric and I will eventually write something about the innovation of his cum-eating episodes, but he is very deliberately working with that deep sexual mistrust in these practices.
I know that my tone is not as conciliatory as it should be in making this observation, but I began to contemplate this issue in 1993 when I was mapping the yogic aspects of certain violent images of the body. I have talked with men who have done the vajroli for years, have had sex with enough of them to know the energetic diffs. I’m not saying you aren’t right, I’m saying the *reason* you’re right is problematic.
Okay, is that murky enough?
Hello Eric:
Chris and I were talking about your recent posts on male/female split,
and integration, and a few thoughts occurred to me that I wanted to
share. Hope you don’t mind. I feel compelled to address what I see as a
bit of bias on the part of elements of not only your female readers, but
occasionally yourself. That bias is the assumption that “the male” is
either wrong or un-integrated, or subject to shame because of some
perceived emotional lack. The perspective given is entirely focused on
the “feminine” as the “correct” or better balanced state of being. I
would like to convey the idea that there are two sexes for a reason.
Just as it is never good for “the male” to be too dominant, allowing the
female full sway creates its own sort of imbalance. I have known many
women who denied their own inner masculinity, resulting in some cases to
self loathing, or at the very least a lack of self understanding. I am
married to an amazing lady who has through her own trials and
tribulations come to understand what role masculinity plays in her own
relationship to those around her. I’m also proud to say she has helped
me gain a greater appreciation for what is feminine in my own psyche.
But then, despite the occasional road bump and disagreement, Chris and
I have been growing into a kind of symbiosis for several years now that
puts us in an atypical status compared to other ostensibly monogamous
couples.
I will admit that there are males out in the world who are deeply
afraid of admitting they have a female side. This fear often translates
as violence against women, or gay bashing, or even an over active
machismo. However, I think that there is a cultural evolution taking
place. I don’t mean a change in culture. Rather what I mean is that
culture is causing an evolutionary change within our species.
Biologically males are designed to react to cues females send. One of
the reasons the color pink appeals to most men when women wear it is
because “pink” harkens back to that very primate mating ritual in which
the female in heat flashes the male her swollen pink vagina lips. Most
men, and women for that matter, don’t even understand this simple cue.
“Culturally” we’ve lost the meaning.
Once humans began to collect in groups larger then tribes, and began to
bind those groups together with the trappings of ceremony, collective
ideas, and language we began replacing biological evolution with cultural
evolution. Many of the issues that arise between the sexes are the result
of culture banging up against biology.
The male primate wants to fuck…as often as possible, with as many
mates as possible, and preferably behind the back of some poor
unsuspecting slob so as not to have responsibility for any ensuing
offspring. The modern human male can’t do that without being the subject
of severe cultural pressures. Shame, litigation, negative press,
et…The same is true for the female, though. I once suggested to a
devout Evangelical that perhaps the reason there are so many “gays and
lesbians” as he was complaining was because God was trying to realign
our out of whack society. (but that’s a whole ‘nother topic…)
So, what’s my point and how does this pertain to the idea of the
male/female split? I think that somewhere in the discussion there should
be an acknowledgment of the biological roadblocks, and also a voice
offered to the oft bashed, hapless “male” side of the equation. As
someone who has gone on his own journey to explore what being “feminine”
means, I’ve come to a place where I find the fact that I am “male”
wonderful and thrilling. It excites me when Chris’ maleness makes an
appearance, and I find that what it means to “be male” is as lost on
most people as is what it means to “be female.” BTW, I get just as
excited when my own “female” side makes an appearance. I would not be
whole without both. I could go on, but this is already a long email as
it is:)
Best wishes, love and peace, and happy journey
Mike Marsh
I’m starting to realize that what I once called �love’ is just the willingness to help hold that thought steady in my loved ones body/mind.
And (duh!) my own.
Wandering Yeti writes:
Powerlessness projected backwards? What are you feeling powerless about right now? Spreading yourself out through space time like that tends to diminish power in the here and now. Squirt your vital fluids all over mirrors and women and you’re sacrificing power you could use to heal yourself and maintain even tempered bliss.
have you ever discovered that ejaculation and orgasm are not the same thing? Instead of satisfying your inner feminine by eating your cum, receive your orgasm into yourself, holding your own semen in the seminal vesicle behind the bladder above the prostate gland which is a sex organ in and of itself. The urge to splurge is subsumed and you receive yourself into yourself and the qi, the life force courses through your body instead of being wasted in a towel. With practice and patience you get the orgasm, but you keep the vital essence. Whole body orgasms, multiple non ejaculatory orgasms eclipse the pathetic squirt gasm once you get the knack.
Dearest deWitte…” In practical terms, it feels very challenging holding down any kind of relationship when either or both parties are dramatising ancient material. Life force gets simply sucked away fighting other battles – I’m near done with that.”
God I hope so, for your sake and so many others. I’m starting to think ‘Spotless Sunshine Mind drops” might be just the ticket. Ha. Ha. . . . Ha. Okay, maybe not.
I’m pretty sure that the ‘gadget’ (drug, therapeutic tool, etc) is in absolutely embracing *all* of it, without exception, even when an injury seems “imposed” by injustice or stupidity. Not as a theoretical stance, but as a daily, hourly, instantaneous freemittment.
I’m starting to realize that what I once called ‘love’ is just the willingness to help hold that thought steady in my loved ones body/mind.
Hi vicvega,
You may wish to find a little distance from your own posting and read it again in a little while. There is a difference between a reaction and a response.
Each person, writes in cyberspace, somewhat disabled for want of being able to bring the whole person into the 3 dimensional piece. We all present with particular idiom and stylistic preference.
You read me as argumentative. I am sorry for that, since this was not the intention, nor is it now. There was no faint intention in me to undermine Cathy in any way. We should all be careful to scrutinise what we put out into the public arena. We can’t *unsay* things.
Just to say here, I DID make a real point and mythology comes when either women tell each other stories about men which they come collectively to believe without reservation OR when men tell each other stories about women which they come collectively to believe without reservation – in both cases prejudicing the possibilities of self-awareness.
My concern was merely to add that situated people have situated experiences that they need to speak candidly about. Categorical language we are all capable of. It is worth adding caveats at times so that we don’t forget our own projections onto others, whilst noticing the ones that affect/endanger ourselves.
Half De Witte,
I found it hard to even read your response because it seemed totally argumentative, like you were searching for “an argument” and you even implied that there was indeed, hostility or defensiveness in your response. It’s exhausting.
Can we please just accept that big patterns exist and that just because someone generalizes their experience, this is not a reason to pick their commentary apart bit by bit like a lawyer wasting everyone’s time?
RE: “I should add here that I am emphasising the man’s perspective in this dynamic because I am a man and this response is my situated response to how I feel women often mythologise their own position.” Uh, okay. Where does mythology come into Cathy’s letter? She was simply writing in her thoughts and thanks to Eric for covering a difficult subject and you cut it apart without really making a point. I didn’t hear her calling Women to Battle against Men, but she simply was making a point about it possibly being easier and more benefitial at this point in history for Women to integrate their Masculine energy towards balance, than for Men to integrate more Feminine energy. We still live in a Patriarchy, in case you haven’t noticed.
“Women experience emotional rejection by men as standard operating procedure in relationships, but as you highlight, this is really the rejection of the inner feminine projected externally. The more he dislikes himself, the more hostile this rejection is likely to be.”
Of course, sometimes this is true. I think it might be helpful to qualify this statement, however, since the ‘reality’ of it is NOT categorical!
Projection is, indeed, rife and is an act which emanates from faulty perceptics – perceptics which are often grounded in language and/or its usage.
So “Women experience a sense of emotional rejection”. True. And this may or may not be based on any particular experience, of any particular male.
So, to continue “which may be their own self-rejection projected onto the man”. Strictly speaking, any sense of rejection here is the woman’s and she should seek to own it if she wishes to be healthy and transact healthily.
And, indeed, the man may withhold emotional acceptance if he feels the woman seeks it in a merely patterned way, one which has nothing to do with real exchange (carrying therefore, the seeds of manipulation) but rather procurement of a feeling – possibly one calculated to assuage the woman’s historic feelings of emotional rejection, bequeathed from her previous relationships.
I should add here that I am emphasising the man’s perspective in this dynamic because I am a man and this response is my situated response to how I feel women often mythologise their own position. In other words, here is a man responding to a woman (nice and raw that, eh..)
In other words, if we are analysing we are analysing and if we are describing our experience we should describe our experience. Problems come when we confuse the two. In practical terms, it feels very challenging holding down any kind of relationship when either or both parties are dramatising ancient material. Life force gets simply sucked away fighting other battles – I’m near done with that.