Over twenty years ago, I was living with my boyfriend in a fourth floor walk-up apartment in New York City. One flight above us lived a very unassuming couple. We crossed paths many times on the stairs, but they both appeared very quiet and rarely even said hello.
He was a college instructor, rather fey looking, pale and small-boned. She, also quite small, appeared as if she could fade into the woodwork. They were not, in terms most of us would relate to, a very exciting-looking couple.
And yet the noise that came through our ceiling, day in day out, from early in the morning until all hours of the night, was unbelievable. My boyfriend and I were young and in love, but our most athletic days and nights were as nothing compared to our upstairs neighbors. We would stare at each other in disbelief. “They’re doing it again!?!?!”
In addition to the normal sounds of rocking beds and excited lovers, there was one human cry coming from their apartment over and over and over again: While we never heard a sound from him, his girlfriend ecstatically cried, “NO!!!,” so many times, in so many ways, with such passion, that all we could do was laugh, trying to drown out their sounds by putting pillows over our ears.
It amazed me that no other word but “No” seemed to ever pass her lips. One night, having just heard another of her symphonies of “No,” I asked myself aloud, “I wonder why she never says Yes. . . .”
THE HISTORICAL CHANGE in consciousness that defines the meaning of our age is a shift in primary focus from the body to the soul. That does not mean that the body does not matter, and it certainly does not mean that the body is bad. It simply recognizes that inner levels are causal levels, and that all outer conditions but reflect an inner state.
As the mind transforms, the body transforms. In the age now passing, the body was a house. In the age now upon us, it becomes a temple. It has housed our energies of physical survival, and is now beginning to house the energies of enlightenment. Meditation effects this change. Prayer effects this change. And when done in a consciousness of true and tender love, sex itself effects this change.
Love heals the body. Look at any woman on the day after she was made love to by a man she adores, and who adores her too. A man’s body might register a difference, but a woman’s body literally transforms in ways a man’s does not seem to do. Our breasts, our skin, not to mention our faces, are filled with some voluptuous spirit. Both men and women walk a little bit above the sidewalk on days that follow our better nights. If there was enough happy sex in America, our crime level would be cut dramatically.
We resist joy on this planet more than we resist war. We constantly invalidate the call of our own souls, deny the song of freedom that is sung in every heart, and suppress the appreciation and adoration we truly feel for one another. Enchantment wafts over us like a wave of perfumed air, but we are afraid of its intoxicating contents. Still yet, whether we like it or not, something new is beginning to happen. We can fight it or we can breathe through it, but labor is here. The hormones of the earth are getting ready. The cervix of the astral human is starting to expand. The tears are beginning to fill our eyes. We are breaking free. We are breaking free. We are giving birth to something more than babies. Our true selves are being born at last.
IT IS A SAD COMMENTARY on our times that so many of us know more about sex than we know about love.
Magazines scream out at us constantly, “What’s Sexy!” “Be Sexy!” “He or She is So Sexy!” “Sex With an Alien!” “Sex Sex Sex!”
Whoever separated God from sex should be brought up for trial, charged with emotional crimes against humanity. They took the fun out of God, making Him appear both prudish and dour—and that was just the misdemeanor! The high crime, the true spiritual felony, was taking God out of sex. We have been damaged and broken ever since.
Even when we love the most, when we have the best intentions and the true desire to do right by ourselves and others, we often find that sex can be like a bomb going off in someone’s emotional life. What is it that we need to know about sex that isn’t obvious on the surface?
First of all, men and women are different. We see sex differently; different hormones run through our biological systems. Nature needed different things from us, and programmed us differently to get what it needed. For millions of years, nature needed men to go from one woman to another, impregnating us as they went along in order to propagate the species. And women needed to settle down with the children, to nurture them so that they would grow into adulthood. Those impulses running through our systems for at least a few hundred thousand years turned man’s instinctive response after sex into, “I gotta go,” while a woman’s still tends to be, “Let’s settle down.”
Therefore, it is incumbent upon wise men and women to take responsibility for the powerful impulses that sex brings up in all of us. Hormones are released into the body of a woman when she has had sex with a man, creating a chemical bond whether she wants that bond or not. So it is definitely not a good idea to be hooked on someone who did not consciously, benevolently, and with full responsibility ask that you be. A man’s excitement in bed is great. But only a cold or foolish woman still thinks that that smile on his face when he sees that smile on yours is worth months and years of painful nights to follow. And yet that pain is bound to come, if his smile reflected the yearning of his body but not the yearning of his heart.
Most men will be pretty honest about this subject, if a woman has the nerve to ask him to be. Did the man tell you, “Our having sex means I will continue to call you?” Did the man tell you, “Our having sex means I won’t be having sex with other women?” Did the man tell you, “Our having sex means I am entering a sacred place with you, where trying to get to know you will be a dominant factor in my life?”
Women often avoid that particular conversation. “I didn’t want to ruin the magic of the moment.” Great. Now where’s the magic? “I didn’t want to pressure him.” What, he can have sex with you, but he shouldn’t have to answer any questions? “He said this was only casual, but the heat was so intense that night, I thought he didn’t mean it.” Darling, grow up!
Women, and men too, often feel totally conflicted regarding the emotional responsibilities that go along with sexual encounters. Luckily, as we get older, the desperate edge which is the greatest blinder of all begins to subside and reality becomes a little clearer. Finally, conversation doesn’t seem like an outrageous sacrifice, the great destroyer of a passionate moment. I laugh when I remember the days when one could never quite make it from the front door to the living room, and could only hope that the floor was clean. Now one knows how to linger over phrases, and in truth, it makes for a sexier life.
When sex isn’t magical, then sex shouldn’t happen. And when it is magical, its power shouldn’t be underestimated. The energy exchange between two people making love is far more significant than rationalists think. That is why we can become so deeply vulnerable to someone once sex has taken place. The question is whether someone has the personality structure to contain the power of last night’s behavior, the morning after and the morning after that. Will she get clingy and needy? Will he withdraw? This is where women often start getting overactive and men start wimping out. All of this is why, without some kind of commitment to the larger relationship, making love can be so emotionally risky.
Sometimes, if we’re very lucky, a hand is laid upon us which has the power, by its very touch, to claim us for its own. And once we are claimed, there is nowhere else to go. There is no man or woman or child who has quite such a silver cord wrapped around us, pulling us always in the direction of their love. Someone has put a stake on our emotional ground. We can love another but not belong to another. Once we know to whom we belong, nothing changes what we know.
It is suddenly clear that what we can learn with this one, and achieve with this one, makes every other issue pale. The alchemy between you illumines your path, leading you straight into the chamber where who you are comes up for total review and where you’re going together becomes a mythical adventure. There is no blessing like being known by one who knows you this deeply. There is no mystery more alluring than this love.
We are then compelled to jump out of one orbit and into another, to make a quick run for freedom. We are compelled to use in one fell swoop the moves we have practiced for years. Every cell in our being cries out to us, “Act.” Sometimes it is a sign of mastery to change major life circumstances after thinking about it for only fifteen minutes, and a sign of weakness to do anything less.
And that is because we know what we know, and we are not willing to go foggy in our lives anymore and pretend that we do not. We are not willing to hide behind the illusions of the world, the bourgeois conventions of a society which honors rules before love. We intend to go forward. We intend to take the leap of faith. We intend to grasp our love to our chest and never, ever, ever let go.
So many of us have spent years discussing the things that went wrong in love, and we have only just begun the conversation of how to do it right. The most powerful way to transform a dysfunctional past is to embrace a functional present. The most powerful way to attract great love is to fill our minds with the thought of it. The most powerful way to ensure we will be loved is if we make ourselves truly lovable.
Sometimes people are so eager to be giving in bed, but have no interest in giving anything at all when outside of bed! A prevalent neurosis in intimate relationships is how loath many people are to give anything up. A narcissistic generation grew up with the attitude, “I have my wants, desires, needs, habits and predilections. I have no intention of giving any of them up to be with you.”
When love’s enchantment is of interest to us, then doing something, or not doing something, for no other reason than that it pleases our partner, is hardly seen as failure to be authentically oneself, but rather mastery at the art of love.
A couple came to one of my groups saying they had a problem. Melissa, said George, was a “touchy-feely” sort of woman, disposed toward light, affectionate physical contact with whomever she was speaking to. According to George, however, she displayed this affection with other men in a way that he felt went over the line, from platonic affection to sexual flirtatiousness. I asked Melissa for her take on this. She described a situation where she had touched a mutual friend of theirs, and George hadn’t liked it. “But I’m not even conscious of it when I’m doing it!” she exclaimed.
I asked George to describe that moment.
“She didn’t just touch him,” he said. “She stroked his neck and that kind of thing.”
I looked at Melissa. She didn’t argue.
“How would you be with it if she hugged people, even men, upon seeing them?” I asked him.
“That would be fine with me,” he said. “I don’t care about that. It’s when there’s this sexual edge to it that I mind.”
“Is that true?” I asked her. “Is there a sexual edge to it when you flirt with men in front of him?”
Once again, she said nothing.
“Melissa,” I said. “Do you want George to remain attracted to you?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Do you want him to feel good about himself in your presence? Do you want him to find being with you exciting and fun? Do you want him to keep wanting you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, Melissa,” I said. “Cut it out.”
They both laughed, and they both looked relieved.
What Melissa was just learning was a very important key to intimacy: Some things you do for no other reason than that it makes another person feel good. I grew up in a generation so clueless on these subjects as to think thoughts like, “It’s not my responsibility to make you happy.” Now I think, “No, it’s not my responsibility—but it sure is a good idea!”
If George had been asking Melissa to compromise her own integrity, standards, or goals in life, then that would be a completely different story, of course. But there is a very big difference between substantial issues—which should never be compromised—and surface issues, our flexibility with which can make all the difference to another person’s happiness.
It’s a matter of deciding what you want. Both George and Melissa had already agreed that Melissa did not like to see other women hitting on George in her presence. I told Melissa that if she would make this change—if George saw her consciously and willingly refraining from touching other men in his presence—that I bet he would more than make up for any sacrifice she thought she had made for him, later that night. She knew, of course, and he knew, that I was right.
ANOTHER COUPLE told a story with similar implications. His name is Brian, hers is Suzanne.
“I had a free airline ticket to anywhere in the country,” he said, “but only a thirty-day window to use it. My wife couldn’t get off from work during that time, and she agreed I should go somewhere.
“So where I wanted to go was to Hawaii. She said that was the one place she didn’t want me to go, because she thought it was so romantic and she had always wanted us to go there together.
“I couldn’t understand why I shouldn’t go there now, and then we’d go there again, together, at a later time. I promised her we would. But she kept saying that it really hurt her feelings that I would go there. I thought that made no sense, so I went there anyway. Now I’m back, but I can feel the energy between us isn’t the same.”
I asked Suzanne how she saw the situation. She said that Brian’s version of the story was correct. It really hurt her that he didn’t honor her feelings about this, however irrational they might have seemed to him.
I understood Suzanne’s point. I told Brian that a woman’s feelings aren’t necessarily rational; they’re just feelings. But there’s little more exciting energy in the universe than the energy of a woman when she is truly happy. This wasn’t about who is right—there is no right here. What there is, is a question: Is your partner just your friend, someone walking through life on a parallel track, or is your partner someone with whom you are connected in an ever more intricately woven tapestry of mutual giving, sharing, and delight? The only reason for Brian not to have gone to Hawaii on this trip would have been in order to reap the highest possible emotional advantages from his marriage. Hawaii has external blessings, to be sure, but he chose to risk some internal blessings by going there at this time. He missed an opportunity that he might, given another, more romantic perspective, have jumped at: the chance to make his wife happy.
A few moments passed. Then Brian looked at Suzanne and said, “I’m sorry.”
The whole room melted. I even saw a few tears.
BRIAN IS A MAN who is learning to cherish a woman’s feelings. Just as important is that a woman learn to respect a man’s thoughts.
“My problem is my husband,” Kate said.
That alone—the expression, “My problem is my husband”—said a lot.
“He’s a wonderful man, and a wonderful father to our three-year-old little boy. I love my husband very much. But he has become an agnostic. He used to be very religious and then he started reading all about other religions and metaphysics and all, and now he says he doesn’t know what he believes.”
She stopped speaking.
“Forgive me,” I said. “I don’t see the problem.”
“Well it’s about my little boy,” she continued. “I’m so worried what effect this will have on him, that his father doesn’t know whether he believes in God or not!”
I said to her, “If you’re interested in your son’s psychological and spiritual development, then the best thing you can do is teach him to respect his father. That very much includes his father’s intellectual journey. Your husband is undertaking a difficult but courageous task; he’s actually thinking for himself. You should be proud of that and respect it. It’s the journey of his mind, and this particular kind of questioning is part of the journey of his generation.
“To show respect for your husband’s thoughts, particularly when they’re so obviously serious, is the greatest gift you can give to yourself, your marriage, your husband and your son. You don’t have to agree with someone’s intellectual conclusion to respect the journey that led them to it. Notice the insidious ways that the ego mind will always tempt us to judge another person, particularly those we love the most, and try to use that love as justification for our judgment.
“The problem as you describe it is not about God. It’s about respecting a man, and teaching his children to respect him, too. And that, in fact, is about God.”
She got it. In fact, they both sent me flowers. . . .
SO THE ISSUE of intimacy is one issue only: Relationship means joining, and joining is not of the body—joining is of the spirit. Every problem in the world, from war to domestic violence, is a result of hearts being separate. Anytime, anywhere, when two hearts join, the world is brought a little closer to heaven. But hell is embedded in our thought system here. Even in our most intimate relationships, we’re invested in finding guilt, and often we use sex as a means of closing the emotional gap that the guilt produced. We are learning now that the only level of true healing is the level of the heart.
When sex is merely a substitute for communication, or even worse, an expression of anger, then of course it heals nothing. When it deepens conversation, because words alone cannot possibly express the feelings that maybe, just maybe, my hand caressing your face could express, then the body is being used to serve something higher than the body. Love itself, not the body itself, is the healer of all things.
It does bear noting, of course, that knowing this only makes sex better. The body then takes us beyond the body, and becomes a door to a realm that the body can’t even enter.