I stopped by a book store yesterday, and wandered perilously close to the sex section. It was huge – huge! Actually it probably wasn’t all that big, compared to say, the computer section. Heck, it might not even have been as big as the gardening section, but I don’t know, because that’s as far as I got. I mean, how can you walk right by the sex section?

Maybe it was because I write about sex, and I wanted to get a little idea of what others were up to. Big mistake. Too much. There was just too fucking much.

Why on earth do we need all these? How did we manage to propagate our species all this time without these books? What are they actually about? How to have it get it find it attract it keep it spice it up spread it out open it up just plain do it. Make it more meaningful more fun more positional more tantric more healthy more cosmic more more.

What are we after? What is everyone so starved for? This is where I could launch my discussion of basic human needs like connection and affection and creativity and physiological pleasure stimulus and how we have so few permissible places to find any of those that we bring them all to sex, as if it’s the only strategy to meet any of them and that though sex is wonderful and fabulous and especially when it’s connected and affectionate and creative and pleasurable, it can not possibly carry all those different needs for the long term and in fact becomes burdened by all those things piled up on it and so we feel starved for sex because we are really starved for human connection and why we need other outlets for connection and affection and creativity and pleasure so that we can enjoy sex just for itself, just as one of many possible ways for humans to connect and be creative.

But I’m not going to do that.

Instead I’m going to admit that I, too, feel starved today. Starved not for touch, I have plenty of that. Not for creativity, have that too. Not even for affection and physiological pleasure stimuli, have those too. I am starved for surrender. Some one who can hold my surrender. Not demand it, not envy it, not worship it, just hold it with confidence.

It’s one of the perks of this business that we get to play with people we otherwise would not give a second look to. We get to see into people’s hearts and souls, not to mention orifices. But it’s also one of the challenges, to find playmates with whom we can let go. One of the things I do for my clients, that they often are not even aware of, is to ‘hold the container’ for them. I am responsible for not only tending to my own choices and boundaries, but to keep an eye out for their well-being. I notice when they stop breathing, or their body tenses, or their energy suddenly moves away from some part to another part, or they become quiet or agitated, or pensive. I watch the clock just enough to get them out the door when they need to. I listen to their dreams and questions, and when they feel sad or scared or challenged or surprised or vulnerable or shaky I stay with them right there where they are. And when they charge after their ‘doing’ and forget they even have any feelings, I bring them back to their bodies and help them notice what, exactly, is happening and what scared them away from themselves. When they venture into new territory, I stay with them. I meet them where they are. And then I hold the container by sending them back home to their wives without worrying about whether I will follow them and want something more.

This is one major skill that distinguishes me from a girlfriend. To do this, I choose not to go too deeply into my own zone of bliss. I can dabble at the edges, and I can certainly enjoy myself, but I don’t have the luxury, in these times, of letting my responsibilities go.

Of course, everybody, well, every man anyway, wants to, thinks he can offer this to me. But it is rare indeed the man with sufficient emotional fluency and maturity to follow a woman deeply into her own vulnerable territory of the unknown. Especially one like me, who has journeyed farther into this territory than most people have even heard of a map for. That’s why I can hold it for them, after all. When I collapse into tears, you have to be comfortable, confident, calm, generous. You have to set your own desires aside, your own fears. You have to run your roots deep into the earth and stand like a mighty oak. You have to give up your urge to fix anything. You have to know that your being there with full loving attention is all the power you need. And you have to hold the container so I don’t have to think about it.

That’s the kind of surrender that lets me fall in to my own depth. You hold on, I fall in. You can pretty much count on a river of tears. Just like we all have when we let go enough.

Then there’s another kind of surrender – both of us surrendering to the moment. That takes even more of a rooted base, and is more rare than the other kind even. Because to surrender to the moment with another person, you have to trust yourself, which can be harder than trusting the other. You have to surrender control without surrendering the empowerment of your own choice. You let go of your plan, not your right to choose. That means that you can simultaneously let go and be ready to hold on the moment it’s needed. Not many people can get this far.

This time, the container is shared. Each of us responds moment by moment, completely responsible for ourselves, and only ourselves.

The challenge here is that most of the time when we are in some kind of erotic space, we spend a good deal of effort, perhaps even most of it, not reaching for what we truly desire, but avoiding what we are afraid of. We are afraid of receiving, so we try to give. We are afraid of surrender, so we try to control. We are afraid of our desires so we try to please. We are afraid of quiet so we jump around. We are afraid of jumping around so we are quiet. We are afraid of depth so we avoid eye contact. We are afraid of autonomy so we cling. We are afraid of emotion so we stop breathing.

Please, give me a playmate who is not afraid of his desires. Or mine.

I didn’t buy any books. Maybe next time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Deep Thoughts, On Intimacy, Sacred Intimates, Sessions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.