We are aroused by what we have disowned. When we
are aroused by a person or a symbol that stirs our erotic response, our excitement is the body's way of recognizing
an opportunity to bring buried parts of ourselves "out to play." To heed
our arousal
and bravely follow where that might lead- is to move towards reclaiming
our
lost parts, without which we cannot be whole. Sexuality has a
pro-creative
function that goes well beyond engendering biological life: The
psychological
play involved in a human being’s fantasy-filled eroticism involves much
more than what
two animals copulating could ever produce! Yet we are embarrassed by-
and often
too automatically reject in ourselves- anything sexual that cannot be
readily
recognized as “pure love.” Unfortunately, we have a sadly limited
concept of love. Our
concept of love is extremely constraining: it is restricted to purity,
sweetness, generosity, supportiveness, self-sacrifice, yet ultimately
self-abandonment in order to adhere to someone else's standards or
expectations.
There
is room, in the range of human behavior, for the opposite traits from
this foregoing over-idealized list. So, what on earth could account for
our impulses to corruption, sourness, avarice, undermining, selfishness?
There are times when these attributes are within us and have need of
being lived out or somehow expressed, depending on the situation. We
can't say for certain that those things are always wrong, but we
certainly act as though they were. Until we learn to acknowledge their
usefulness, or at least the usefulness of the emotions stirred up by
these traits, we deny access to our deepest truth. It is only though
acceptance of our deepest emotional currents that we can ultimately
reach self-compassion - which is the only true love.
Perverse sexual eroticism is a natural part of our
arousal
mechanism. It is inherently designed to bring us face to face with what
we fear about ourselves. Whatever we reject about sexual perversion
exists primarily in our
minds. Our self-rejection is fast and furiously projected onto others…
where we
find it easier to judge and to condemn, rather than face what’s going on
inside of
us! When we reject our own or someone else’s sexual perversions, we are
merely horrified at what our mind produces, instead of courageously
engaging with the mind more fully, in
order to gain deeper understanding and self-acceptance. Surrendering to
our perverse
sexuality can bring us more swiftly than any other method to a fully
integrated ability to experience love.
Of course, the difference between surrender and
addiction must be clearly understood. Which is what I want to write about next.
