Relationships

ADDITIONS AND EXCERPTS AND PARAPHRASING FROM THE BOOK CHAPTER THREE –  ENHANCING THE DEPTHS OF INTIMACY

 Near the beginning of the book, there’s a list of  26 Behaviors of Those Living a Mature Well-Integrated Life. The first one sort of sums it up: They live with few and mild self-imposed problems. Towards the end of the list, there are these three specifically related to couples:

22. If coupled: have found that the spontaneous mutual receiving and giving of embodied love is a profound physical, emotional, and spiritual experience.

23. Experience ever more loving, sensual relationships and sexual pleasure, finding that love and sexual pleasure are open-ended and that there is no limit to how refined and exquisite these can become.

24. Know that in love and pleasure, it’s the depth of the receiver that determines the strength and quality of what can be given; it’s the potency of the negative pole that determines the strength of the energy flow.                                                                             \

NOTE: An early reader questioned me about this one. It’s basic physics. As Bucky Fuller pointed out: THE WIND DOES NOT BLOW. There is nothing pushing air. The process is driven by low-pressure areas suckng. This is what creates hurricanes and tornados. The strength of the current between the two poles of a battery is determined by the receptivity of the negative pole, not what is stored in the positive one.                 And so it is in the transmission of sexual pleasure in mature coupling. The more one can feel pleasure, the more one can feel ever more deeply into physical pleasure, the more can be sent. With increased intimacy and skill,  both partners can simultaneously be fully giving and receiving.                                                                                                              If one is not getting what one wants in a given moment, one strategy is to let go of those thoughts and tune more deeply into what is actually happening. Do this, and something will change. There is also communication between partners that can help. One can ask for more or less pressure, etc, and see what happens. And as always it is good to maintain a sex humor around and in sexual activity.

Life-Enhancing Substances and Making Love

One characteristic of all life-enhancing substances, like psychedelics, MDMA, cannabis, and some others is that they increase sensitivity. (The MMCs are a lovely new favorite.) Increased sensitivity is a double-edged sword as it makes good things better and bad things worse. And what better time to be more sensitive than when making love.? The different substances have their unique effects, which will change dramatically with dosage. These changes happen in the interacting complex of our physical, emotional, mental, and perhaps spiritual realms.

As humans we are heir to experience profound sexual pleasure for far more than reproduction. This is a function of our anatomy, in which human males disproportionally huge penises compared to other mammals and our females’ luscious clitorises and vulvas are not necessary for reproduction.

Given the powerful underlying neurological, hormonal, cultural, and psychological drivers, mature loving couples’ sexual experiences can be the most pleasurable known to humans. In healthy mature relationships, using life-enhancing substances wisely will increase the intensity and novelty of lovemaking across a continuum from mild out into unimaginably evermore exquisitely shared stunning heart-healing, mind-blowing, intensely energetic spiritual space journeying adventures.

What might be helpful here is to think beyond the substances, into more about the personal contexts that affect the intrinsic qualities of these experiences. When a couple makes love, their internal and shared presence merge into a physio-telepathic harmonious dance of power and subtlety. This can be so beautiful, so gratifying, so deeply bonding. When these are most positive, the process is working as designed.

All this said, having great experiences requires a lot more than finding a compatible body and getting more or less stoned. Since we’re psychologically complex creatures in an often confusing and consternating world, we all have had many difficulties, many affronts to our very sense of Self that have left scars in our psyches. Our old neurotic patterns around issues of control, abandonment, vulnerability, betrayal, etc, have survival mechanisms. They don’t go away simply because we’ve seen them for what they are. Until these have been mostly dealt with, the higher stages of love can’t be experienced. If a couple with major unresolved issues do psychedelics together, the experience may become difficult. I imagine most of us know stories like this. I had my own when I was younger.

One cannot open fully to another human in profound physical and emotional loving if they have a stash of secrets, unresolved resentments, disappointments, unexplored wounds, and traumas.  Mutual trust and respect are necessary to open in highly vulnerable states.

It is quite new in the human evolutionary experience for people to be conscious that they carry these burdens. My WW II era parents couldn’t conceive of it. In past eras, few humans have even tried to see themselves honestly and attempt deep healing work. The blatant pathologies we are now seeing on both the Right and Left are currently clear evidence of this. I discuss the ones that have proved most helpful to me in my Radiant Aging book.

The Egalitarian Worldview that came in strongly 50-60 years ago brought new possibilities for human self-awareness. Along with interest in contemplative spirituality, personal growth, social justice, healthier lifestyles, the use of the life-enhancing substances is helping catalyze this socio-cultural development. Now we are seeing the beginning of an even newer Integral one which will bring its own gifts to the mind of humanity. (These Stages of Development are a topic for another time.)

The wise use of life-enhancing substances can facilitate significant permanent healing in these kinds of neurotic issues. They accomplish this by expanding people’s consciousness into the layer of their psyches underlying what’s in their usual daily mode of thinking and reacting. When these emotional issues are seen at this root level, the very seeing of them dissolves them. This process embraces fear and anguish and alchemically turns it towards more peace and joy.

If you doubt this, all I can say is that if you had been inside my bodymind when I was on one of these healing journeys, you would know for certain it is true. This is not to say that the more conventional therapies, age-related personal growth processes, healthy lifestyle choices, and some good fortune aren’t necessary in their place.

With recognition, dedication, commonsense, life experience, wise friends and partners, good fortune, and perhaps Acts of Grace, plus the new ideas and tools we have, more of us may come to lead a mature, healthier later life than previous generations could. Suppose you look at your extended family and the last generation or two. Do you or did you see any of them living a flourishing life with mild and few self-imposed problems, abundant joy, fulfillment, humor, ecstatic sex, and more? If the answer is ‘yes’, congratulations.

We were born with the potential to bring more beauty, goodness, and truth into the world. This is the gift of conscious embodiment. Given that while difficulties and crises will inevitably come, with true maturity we will be able to deal with these with intelligence and compassion. Given that everything we care about, including ourselves, will disappear, may we find the grace to leave this life with a full rich sense of gratitude, and satisfaction for what we’ve accomplished, and perhaps with the assurance that even more extraordinary beauty, goodness, and truth are our soul’s true destiny.

 

241103 This is fun. Susan Campbell, author of Truth In Dating, etc. sent me these lists that she gathered sometime back: Top 10 Reasons Why He May Not Want to Practice Truth in Dating

10. He has never used a condom, but he’s had over 100 lovers.
11. It’s true that he’s CEO of his company, but it’s under federal investigation.
12. He has wives in six other states.
13. He really does live in a million-dollar home, but his part of the house is the laundry room, which he rents on a month-to-month lease.
14. His last three girlfriends filed restraining orders against him.
15. He knows you want to get married, and he just wants to get laid.
16. He drives a Lexus, but it belongs to his brother.
17. His mother still does his laundry.
18. Well, it’s really been a long time since his last outbreak of herpes.
19. He’s dating your best friend.

 Top 10 Reason Why She May Not Want to Practice Truth in Dating

10. She doesn’t like herself but wants you to fall madly in love with her.
11. She was born the same year as your mother.
12. She gets certified letters from the IRS every week.
13. As soon as her last boyfriend paid off her credit card debt, she broke up with him.
14. She wears a mouth guard and anti-snoring device to bed.
15. She really is a former Miss New Jersey, but that was back in 2010.
16. She makes her living as a massage therapist, but don’t ask her what she massages.
17. Her children call her “the general.”
18. Her last husband died mysteriously, and she’s living off the insurance money.

 

Top 10 Reasons Why He May Not Want to Practice Truth in Dating

10. He has never used a condom, but he’s had over 100 lovers.
11. It’s true that he’s CEO of his company, but it’s under federal investigation.
12. He has wives in six other states.
13. He really does live in a million-dollar home, but his part of the house is the laundry room, which he rents on a month-to-month lease.
14. His last three girlfriends filed restraining orders against him.
15. He knows you want to get married, and he just wants to get laid.
16. He drives a Lexus, but it belongs to his brother.
17. His mother still does his laundry.
18. Well, it’s really been a long time since his last outbreak of herpes.
19. He’s dating your best friend.

 

Top 10 Reason Why She May Not Want to Practice Truth in Dating

10. She doesn’t like herself but wants you to fall madly in love with her.
11. She was born the same year as your mother.
12. She gets certified letters from the IRS every week.
13. As soon as her last boyfriend paid off her credit card debt, she broke up with him.
14. She wears a mouth guard and anti-snoring device to bed.
15. She really is a former Miss New Jersey, but that was back in 2010.
16. She makes her living as a massage therapist, but don’t ask her what she massages.
17. Her children call her “the general.”
18. Her last husband died mysteriously, and she’s living off the insurance money.

250301 A recent NYT article: Why Gen X Women are Having the Best Sex. Although, I think the author is wrong and that the boomers, or some of them anyway, just like it’s only some of the Gen Xers too.  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/magazine/sex-gen-x-women.html?smid=em-share