Men and Sex

Men And Sex

A female Los Angeles yoga guru says that when it comes to life, love and relationships, with men, it is all “pillow talk.” In other words, a relationship is all about sex. This pillow-talk statement generated some interesting conversations. As much as I like sex, that seems a little simplistic to me, and it certainly stereotypes the male gender.

As I write a new relationship book with Carol Morgan Ph.D., I have been reading countless books on all aspects of relationship, from John Gray, Ph.D. to Sigmund Freud. I have three high book stacks beside my desk.

Gray, in “Mars and Venus in the Bedroom,” might agree with the yoga guru. “It is through sex that a man’s heart opens, allowing him to experience both his loving feelings and his hunger for love as well. Ironically, it is sex that allows a man to feel his needs for love, while it is receiving love that helps a woman to feel her hunger for sex.” Gray goes on to say, “When sex gets better, suddenly the whole relationship automatically gets better.”

Ayn Rand places sex in another context: “To a rational man, sex is an expression of self-esteem -- a celebration of himself and his existence.” Also, “Romantic love, in the full sense of the term, is an emotion possible only to the man (or woman) of unbreached self-esteem: it is his response to his own highest values in the person of another -- an integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man (or woman) is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values.” (From “Of Living Death.”)

My favorite radical thinker, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), has written extensively on this subject, and he might tend to agree with the yoga guru up to the point of creativity. “Sex is such a significant phenomenon because it is the source of all life. It is so significant that if you repress it you will repress many other things. For example, the person who is sexually repressed will become uncreative, because creativity itself is a kind of sexual activity.

“In my observation, if a person is totally creative he will transcend sex without repressing it, because his own energy will become creative. He will not need to go into sex -- not that he will prevent himself -- the very need will disappear. He now has a far higher bliss happening to him; the lower is bound to disappear when you have higher in your hands.

“A real poet while producing, creating, composing, forgets all about sex. A real sculptor absorbed in his work, forgets all about sex. Even if a naked woman passes by he will not look at her, his concentration in his own creativity is so total. A real dancer disappears in his dance -- his ego, his sex, all are dissolved into his dance.” (From “The Wild Geese and the Water.”)

In “Falling In Love For All the Right Reasons,” Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of e-Harmony.com explains that he often tells single women, “The last thing you want is a man who has an extremely low level of sexual passion. If you’ve been with the same man for a while, and he never pressures you for sex and never wants to ‘take you out into the woods’ (my favorite euphemism for engaging in intimate sexual expressions), and if he never wants to play his radio in the car with the headlights off and no moon in the sky, and if he never really puts the pressure on you to make an important boundary decision in the area of sex, be careful of that man!”

I’ll end this column with a relationship repair excerpt from my co-writer Carol Morgan. She was writing this for both males and females: “Sex always mirrors other issues in your relationship. As Dr. Phil McGraw (aka ‘Dr. Phil’) says, if you have a fulfilling relationship, sex becomes about 10% of the focus (meaning there is no need to focus on its importance because it is flowing nicely). But if you don’t have a good relationship, then sex becomes about 90% of the focus. So if your sexual relationship isn’t working, you better start looking at the other areas of your relationship that are suffering.

“Your sex life isn’t separable from the rest of the relationship. It is an integral part. In fact, it is almost impossible to have a happy, successful romantic relationship without a healthy sex life. You may think you can compartmentalize these aspects of your relationship, but it can only be done for so long. Lack of sexual intimacy will only create distance. And the longer it goes on, the farther the distance between the partners.”

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