Conclusion

Sex is far from the base or primitive instinct that we have been led to believe. It is our most complicated human need. Through it, we connect, communicate, negotiate power, give and receive pleasure, and, sometimes, heal our inner lives.

Our sexual fantasies and desires are windows into the deepest levels of our psyches. By understanding them, we also come to understand our basic personalities, as our minds take our most painful feelings and conflicts and convert them into something pleasurable: What a miraculous phenomenon! And sex is the transformer. Rather than becoming defeated by feelings of isolation, helplessness, invisibility, loneliness, or rejection, we become aroused by them.

Not all sex grows out of conflict, but for the vast majority of us, our sexual fantasies and desires represent the story we tell ourselves to solve deeper issues and satisfy unmet childhood needs. We need to understand and respect these stories if we are to make the best choices for our lives.

For most, fulfilling our fantasies and true desires will lead to greater authenticity and health. Others will be guided to choose mates with whom they will not only experience pleasure, but also create a lasting relationship. For those already in relationships, we will have the opportunity to achieve greater intimacy, honest communication, and a renewed sexual relationship with our partners that brings us to greater spiritual heights.

By completing the steps of intelligent lust, we have experienced the deeper nature of sex. Sex is no longer something one person does to another, nor is it a guessing game or mystery. We have acknowledged the truth about our fantasies and desires, and unearthed hidden conflicts and unmet needs by making important connections to our past. We have created new relationship experiences that foster trust, respect, and intimacy to counteract and repair old conflicted ones and the persistent claim of early unmet needs. We have dared to make sex a vital part of our lives, a rich fertile ground in which we cultivate self-knowledge and self-acceptance.

Embracing our fantasies is not a static experience; our desires slowly unfold over the course of our lifetimes. New desires or preferences will surface when we no longer require the old ones. Because intelligent lust fully engages our senses, minds, and souls, there is always more for us to understand, enjoy, and share. We sublimely discover many truths.

Some of us will follow our desires down entirely new paths, while others remain faithful to the original, even though we have repaired the conflicts from which they sprang. Like a veteran artist, our tastes and inventiveness grow more nuanced with time.

Perhaps it’s topsy-turvy, but in the process of forming a restorative relationship, love for a partner may develop. It’s likely not to be the blind head-over-heels volatile love as often happens in conventional or new romances. Nor is it built on obligation or responsibility. Instead, it grows gradually and intelligently from friendship as we openly explore our desires with a partner. What we achieve in sharing such an adventure is a special connection—profound, unsentimental, and solid, in which generosity is the central virtue.

Whether or not true love endures as a result, following the steps of intelligent lust is certain to lead us to self-love as we grow to accept, honor, and even celebrate the pain and the pleasure that lead us to a place of deep satisfaction. As Oscar Wilde so aptly put it, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

Sex lies at the core of our individual identities. We use it to transform pain into pleasure, loneliness into connection, and fear into joy in our indomitable drive to heal past suffering. We all yearn for reconciliation and catharsis.

My hope is that I will help transform our moralistic yet sex-obsessed society to one that appreciates the deeper meaning and value of sex, one person at a time. We can heal from the consequences of shame and guilt and release a new vitality which is based on trust, respect, honesty, and compassion rather than on the aggression which we have collectively eroticized as a nation.

The challenge is for all of us to embrace the deepest and highest levels of our being by giving sex a position in our private and public lives equal to the importance we give to religion. Sex should be at the center of our lives. We should celebrate it because it enlightens us about who we are and who we can become. It is a divining rod that leads to a powerful source of healing energy.

Reread the pages of this book periodically. Complete the exercises again to see how your experience differs a second time. It will help you consolidate what you’ve learned and perhaps give you new insights into what you have yet to understand.

ALYSSA’S THOUGHTS

The Next Wave

Smart sex is responsible sex. It involves self-knowledge, self-esteem, and respect for our partners. While a restorative experience with a partner has a lot of what are traditionally considered elements of genuine love, such as kindness and generosity, it lacks the irrational swoon that often accompanies the feeling of falling in love. What can be better than experiencing a relationship in which there is not only passion, but also honesty, openness, and trust? And while those qualities may be associated with love, love can also be jealous, possessive, and selfish. A restorative relationship, by definition, cannot be.

Personally, I like the feeling of being in love, that joyous sense of rapture, but at thirty-five, if I had to make a choice, I would seek out a restorative relationship. I believe that genuine and durable love can grow from a restorative relationship, and for myself, I prefer it to grow from such a solid foundation.

My hope is that we will use the ideas expressed in Your Brain on Sex to help young people, the future husbands, wives, and parents of our world, learn about sexuality earlier in their lives. We can help teach our children to live more sex-positive lives by our own example.

As we gradually learn to honor and accept who we are as individuals, we will slowly move toward a sex-friendly culture. We can hope for a future with a better balance between genders in which men will view sex and relationships from more of a female perspective and woman will feel, as men do now, more entitled to having and expressing sexual desires.

One final note: As we grow and evolve as people, so does our sexuality. Over time we find some things more attractive, some things less. Our experiences change our chemistry, both what we put out and what we are drawn to. There is always more to understand and experience. Most importantly, enjoy the process. Self-discovery is what keeps our lives meaningful and satisfying and our relationships from growing stale.