Did you know there is a test you can take to see if you are ovulating. Apparently, it checks your hormone levels. People use them when they are trying to get pregnant. I really don’t get it. I don’t need a test to tell me when I’m ovulating. The urge to screw generally lets me know.
Only in the last few years has it become “acceptable” for women to admit to being horny, and to talk about this kind of stuff. I put that in quotation marks because it continues to have negative cultural connotations. Yeah, sure, women get horny, but they’re sluts. That’s the assumption anyway. Not everyone knows better yet. And even I approach with treppidation writing about this, but it helps get it out of my head.
When I’m horny almost anything gets me hot. Television is already raunchy. Suddenly classical music is an ode to the rhythmic thump bed against the wall. Every woman walking by below my window in strappy sandals, every guy jogging without his shirt on, every couple holding hands. Skin against skin. I mentally sort the novels on my shelves by which ones have good sex scenes. Men think women don’t like porn. We just don’t need to go to special shops to buy ours. It’s then that I almost feel sorry for men. If I think about sex this much and men supposedly think about it far more often than women, it’s a wonder they get anything done at all. I know I don’t sometimes.
But much as I would like to pull out my drop-dead red dress and go hunting in the dozens of bars and clubs which fill this college town, somehow I manage to restrain myself. I wander around my house, horny and listless and alone. I’m reminded of what athletic trainers say, just “power through.” I tell you, I would so love something powerfull right about now.
When I feel like this, I know I am not thinking clearly. It is a little like being tipsy or fatigued. I can see where I might make an unwise decision in the need to scratch this itch. If I’m making unwise decisions, you can bet I’ll be making unwise decisions about the how I interact with the person I’m with. I certainly won’t be as aware of that person as I might otherwise be when all I can think about is what they have to offer me.
Within the bonds of a relationship, the parties know one another. We have the opportunity to learn about each other’s desires, preferences, foibles, pet peeves, sore spots, hot buttons. There is a platform for conversation so when something is wrong the ground exists to discuss it. There is proof, one hopes, that each party cares for the other, so any wrongs can be addressed, rather than written off. There is room for laughter and teasing. Not to mention the fact that there is a better chance that he has already figured out just how you like it and you’ve learned how to give him the ride of his life. Or vice versa. Or both alternately.
Anyway, what was I talking about?
8 comments:
thank you for the admonition. i'm finding that my levels of horniness have changed a LOT over my adult years. When I was 18 i thought about sex a lot. now much much less often. but there isn't a cycle or specific reasoning i can find for when i'm into it or not into it. it's wild to me that you would have such a specific sense of when and why, i think that's fascinating as a guy.
one of the reasons i was so interested in practicing the vajrayogini sadhana - and kind of drove through my ngondro to get to is - is because it's supposed to help practitioners work with desire and craving, in particular. and i felt like my connection with people was awkward - sometimes clingy, sometimes overly sexy, sometimes stand offish, and usually out of my conscious control - and i've just started exploring the practice but i am finding that it really has changed how i relate to being horny. i'm not sure i have enough data yet to explain that, but i'm noticing a decided shift. and contradictory too. sometimes i'm more horny and hot. i keep having intense dreams, waking up in the middle of the night from them. and sometimes like, as you say, it's easier to just see it as an energy or an experience and not feel such a strong pull. but at the same time, i'm not sure what's changed.
Amen, sister.
You were talking about Mara the Evil One telling you to reproduce. The thing about evolution is that it doesn't care about your peace. It only cares about the proliferation of the species. So it wants you to roam the bars in a red dress looking for the next fix. But you already knew that, knew enough to restrain. More than I can say about myself when I was in college.
I don't like the metaphor of Mara, or any of the other diety/demon mythology that belongs to Buddhism's cultural baggage. I understand the symbolism, but naming it "Mara" and saying it is to blame is just a way of externalizing the problem. In my experience externalizing the problem only leeds to externalizing the sollution.
"Mara" is to blame..."Society" is to blame..."Bill" is to blame; he made me angry; if he had never said that; if he would only go away; it's all his fault I'm mad and he has to fix it, etc. etc. That is taking it to extremes, but its the same idea. Me being horny has nothing to do with Mara and everything to do with me, both my phsiology and psychology.
Thus, it's both my responsibility and within my ability to deal with it.
personifying the urge does cause it to have a teleological notion of intent, which i'm not sure is really there.
great point about externalizing the problem leads to externalizing the solution. i love that distillation. i've been thinking of this in terms of interdependence lately. so many causes and conditions at play nothing can ever be 100% to blame, because nothing exists outside of the interdependent relationships. yet sometimes things may have a lot to do with the situation. and we do have some free will according to canon theoretically. i'm not sure i ever exercise mine but i hear it's there.
so we could say that G.W.Bush is to blame for some things, but at the same time must acknowledge the gigantic web of interdependent relationships that makes Bush and his advisors who they are and where they are. But this idea of accountability within interdependence is such a complex topic.
I like your view of using Mara, to me it is the same as saying Satan came into my heart and made me do it, man I hear a lot of that around here. I am responsible for my own choices, I am aware of what is right and wrong. If I give into my desires and do something that goes against what my inter spirit is telling me then I pay for it by lossing inter peace which I really hate but still go there on occasion.
I am reading Tara Brach's "Radical Acceptance-Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha", in the book Tara does use the figure Mara as a means of acceptance, she tells the story of the Buddha saying "Hello Mira, I see you" and also about inviting Mira to tea. What Tara is suggesting is we face our fears and toubles by saying "Hello fear/desire/suffering etc, I see you, please come and have tea with me" for me this means working on facing the emotion in a friendly way and not running from it, which is what you did and can still do.
I have to really check my motives when it comes to sexual relationships. I have had opurtunities for intimacy but not taken advantage of them because I know the only thing I wanted was a quick fix for my horniness. If I am not attracted to a woman on a deeper level than just mild physical attraction then my behavoir isn't healthy for either of us. A lot of the women I meet are just coming to grip with who they are after years of addiction and compremises do to insurities. It would be wrong for me to have sex with someone knowing it was nothing more than just sex even if it please both of us, if there is a chance the other person might have emotional attachments to me that aren't going to materialize. It sucks having to think this way but I have a good imgination and know that somewhere along this path I will me someone I will to totally compassionate about.
Thanks being open, I appreciate what you had to say and it helps me understand how women think about intimacy it bit better.
Take Care
Scott
Oh, please don't think I'm a resonable representation for women as a whole. Truth is, I have a real hard time creating actual "relationships," in the romantic sense of the word. In fact, it hasn't happened yet. What I do see rather good at is "friends with benefits," the friends part being the prerequisite. No friends = no benefits. But that doesn't mean I feel the least inclination to be a couple or form a romantic relationship with this person.
Call it mutual itch-scratching if you will, with a sense of fun but no obligations. I think that is perfectly fine as long as both parties are eyes open and on the same page. However, I tink this is highly atypical for women as a whole, who tend to get much more emotionally attached to their lovers and want that full blown romantic relationshi.
I could be wrong.
You could be wrong, but from my view, you are not. I've never had friends with benefits, then again, I didn't know I was strong enough to do so then. Maybe now, but I've found so many other outlets I don't know anymore...
Okay, back to my point. I loved what you wrote here. Like so much of what you bring to the written word, it's simply brilliant.
I never thought about porn before. I thought I was never into it, and somehow had always associated it with DVDs and the stuff my brothers were so fond of that I never understood. But now I read you post, and after a fact saw my life through your eyes. Suddenly an epiphany! The light goes on, and something as seemingly innocent as "Timeswept Bride" has a whole new meaning to me. "Girl Porn!" And I'm not embarrassed to say, really GOOD girl porn. Looking back over some of the things I've read, and the kind of stuff I find myself drawn to now and again, well yeah.
As to the guy who was talking about not having cycles? Ha! That's so funny! Men have cycles, you just don't notice it, make room in your life for it, and it's not quite as obvious maybe... Nope wrong word... Maybe not as overt? Something... Anyway, trust me boys, you have them. Heck, you can even cycle us...
Uh, yeah, never mind. Most guys don't know what that means, let alone that it happens... So I won't get carried away here.
Anyway, I wanted to say THANK YOU, for something we all feel now and again. You mentioned the Red dress and I just had to laugh. I instantly started thinking about the cutch, shoes, hair, and of course the stuff underneath that only the right guy might get to see... Guys go hunting they sport jeeps, camo, big guns, deer stands and that aweful smell... We go hunting and it's all about moths to a flame in ways... The visual is so cracking me up right now.
Thanks Monica! Thanks for finding just the right words to say what we all think and feel quite often. For me, it's every 28 days. Thanks Girl!
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