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Others ~ Selected Correspondence Sex
ALAN: Something you quoted on another mailing list got to me: RICHARD: He and/or she that looketh upon a woman and/or man with lust in their heart has already committed adultery (obviously not a direct quote). ALAN: This is so obvious – and they have also committed rape. And the person who looks at another with anger in their heart has equally committed murder and child abuse. It is all exactly the same thing, only some are better than others at covering it up – the ‘good’ people. Those not so skilled at the cover up are the ‘bad’ people. So, until one eliminates the root cause of these feelings, one is equally guilty of all the rapes and tortures and child abuse and murders. As you have said, ‘I’ am rotten to ‘my’ very core. I finally ‘got it’ and also, I guess, the reason for giving up ‘my’ precious existence! Up until now, I wanted to live in actual freedom because I had seen, in the PCE, the purity and perfection that is possible – and ‘I’ wanted that more than anything. At the same time I knew that living that purity and perfection was not possible, so long as ‘I’ was in existence. But, why should ‘I’ give it up – and now ‘I’ have great reason for noble self-sacrifice and martyrdom – and ‘my’ extinction. Until ‘I’ expire, ‘I’ will continue to be responsible for all of the murders and rapes which are happening and that is far, far too much to have on ‘my’ ‘conscience’. 2.6.1999
GARY: In a recent post, you wrote the following – PETER: Ultimately each sex is locked into an instinctual battle for domination over the other – with mutually-agreed ceasefires, for the sake of the offspring, the norm for most relationships. The marvellous thing about becoming free of the animal sexual instinctual drive is that the male breaks free of power women have over him and women are freed of the humiliating and debilitating games they have been taught and programmed to play. Then sexual play is freed of inane societal moral and ethical taboos, freed of being a battleground between the sexes in which neither side wins and freed of the instinctual sexual imperative. The sex act then becomes innocent sensuous scrumptious and sumptuous play simply because it is freed of guilt, shame, evil and the blind senseless drive to impregnate, or be impregnated. GARY: Funny you should mention sex and the sexual instinctual drive, as I feel I have barely scratched the surface of examining sex and sexuality. Sex has been especially troublesome for me, as I am sure it is for many people. My partner and I are still living an essentially celibate lifestyle, which, although it is not very satisfying emotionally, seems to obviate the painful consequences of bedroom politics. We seem to be stuck in a place where it is very difficult to talk not only about sex but about other significant aspects of our relationship, i.e. dependency, ‘love’, family, etc. As a male, I have always felt a great deal of pressure to perform sexually, and feelings of shame and guilt when I could not, whatever the reason. Consequently, it has seemed to be the safest thing to back off entirely. I’m afraid I am still playing safe with my head stuck in the sand where it comes to sexual matters. If playing it safe is not very satisfying emotionally, at least the boat doesn’t get rocked and one settles for a comfortable complacency. I see this pattern in my parent’s marriage, looking back at it now. It really is second rate. In order to break out of this thing, one needs to rock the boat of complacency, risk losing the established identity, and risk losing the relationship itself with its’ wearying round of frustrated longings. This is where the going again gets rough – it is somewhat easier and certainly ‘safer’ for me to explore aggression (odd to say so) and other instincts, than explore nurture and desire. The taboo against talking openly about sex and sexual matters is very strong, one we have not apparently overcome. It is strange that I write in this way. I had started to compose a similar reply and then deleted it all, it seemed too personal to send out over cyber space. It helps to have read portions of your book, particularly the chapter on sex, and I related to much that you spoke of. I am afraid I have not broken through yet to the sheer sensual enjoyment of sex and I blush like a schoolboy to say so. 14.8.2000
PETER: When you say you started to write a reply that seemed too personal, I wondered why? It would seem to me that the value of this list is in sharing and talking about these common-to-all experiences rather than too-personal accounts that may well involve others who are, for whatever reason, best left out of the discussions. Does this make sense to you? GARY: There are a few reasons why. One is that it had been my experience on another list that I participated on that ‘getting personal’ sometimes left one open to rather unfriendly attacks by others who would pick what you had exposed apart. It was an uncomfortable experience of being under a microscope. As a result, perhaps, I got in the unfortunate habit of being rather impersonal with details of my life. There seems to be a friendlier atmosphere here on this list from what I can discern right now, and so that spurs perhaps more risk taking, but I am still testing the waters. Perhaps there are others testing the waters a bit too. Another reason relates to the difficulty of admitting sexual problems in an open forum, relating to the socially inculcated taboo against talking about these matters. That is a rather insignificant factor for me at this point, though. PETER: I remember when I did a number of emotional sharing type groups in my spiritual years, what I eventually found most fascinating was the remarkable similarity in the emotional problems and life predicament expressed. I was eventually able to relate to all the issues that emerged – a sort of ‘Oh yeah, I know that one ... yep, and that one too’. What this did was make me realize that ‘I’ was not special or unique at all – for I was as equally socially conditioned as everyone else, I was as equally affected by emotional issues and I was equally blindly driven as everyone else. I would suspect you have had similar experiences with traditional therapy type approaches and that this has served you well to give you the incentive to dig below the more personal surface layers and get into the common-to-all deeper layers. My experience is that if one makes the investigation into one’s own psyche purely personal it can too soon run aground on pride, guilt and shame, rights and wrongs, goods and bads of one’s social identity. One way to move through this minefield is by widening one’s viewpoint from being purely self-centred and this is where an overview of the common-to-all affections that constitute the Human Condition is an essential perspective. The other trap is to make the investigation too impersonal and the end result of this would be an intellectual-only approach, which would elicit no change. What I am proposing is neither a too impersonal nor a too personal investigation and this is where pure intent, altruism, a good sense of humour and this list will stand you in good stead. GARY: That makes sense. I am OK with talking about issues of sex and sexuality and I am checking my motives as well in revealing certain details of my life. I tend to be a pretty bounded person anyway. But I want to mention something else that occurred to me just yesterday. Here in the USA we are in the midst of a political campaign. Because of the sexual misconduct of the incumbent, it has become fashionable to adopt a ‘True Confessions’ approach to talking about sex, and I want to avoid that. Of course, I am not running for political office. But one can nonetheless get swept up in the fashion of the times. Too much personal disclosure may result from an egotistic grab for attention and sympathy, the kind of thing aspirants to political office know well and manipulate to milk a gullible electorate. Too little personal disclosure results in a dry, academic discussion of the human condition, leading to (as you say) intellectual discussions. It seems the sensible thing to do to steer a middle course between too much detail and not enough. PETER: I am back involved in my business a bit more lately and I am having fun writing on another mailing list, both of which keep me fairly occupied. As such, I don’t seem to be writing on the AF list much lately but it great to see it bopping along extremely well. Good to have you on board the good ship ‘actualism’. GARY: There is one other thing, Peter, that I would like to explore with you and others. There is a sexual instinctive drive in humans. Of that, we are all quite aware. This is the same drive (desire) that causes the male to want to impregnate females (of course I have not considered what the drive is in homosexual individuals, perhaps it is similar or the same but the object is different). In your book, in the chapter on sex, you commented on the pervasiveness of the sexual instinctual drive, the power of this drive, and the central importance of the drive in human affairs. It is indeed a powerful drive, and there are many social mores and customs in place in human society to curb the sexual instinctual drive and regulate it, the institution of marriage and monogamous relationships being one notable example. It is also known that, as far as the physiology of sex, that in human beings sex is subject to considerable cortical control. For instance, castration does not obliterate the sexual drive in humans but does in animals. Apparently there is a lot about sex that goes on in the higher brain centres. My question is this: if the sexual instinctual drive is eliminated, with the other instincts, what is left? Is there enjoyment of sex? Is one rather indifferent about sex? I doubt then that there would be a ‘drive’ underlying sexual behaviour, the ‘drive’ having been eliminated. One would not fantasize about sex, as one often does many times, because the intuitive/imaginal faculty would have been eliminated. With the sexual instinctual drive gone, eliminated, I would think that one would be rather indifferent to sex. What do you think? So, it has been a pleasure to speak to you again. 28.8.2000
GARY: There is one other thing, Peter, that I would like to explore with you and others. There is a sexual instinctive drive in humans. Of that, we are all quite aware. This is the same drive (desire) that causes the male to want to impregnate females (of course I have not considered what the drive is in homosexual individuals, perhaps it is similar or the same but the object is different). In your book, in the chapter on sex, you commented on the pervasiveness of the sexual instinctual drive, the power of this drive, and the central importance of the drive in human affairs. It is indeed a powerful drive, and there are many social mores and customs in place in human society to curb the sexual instinctual drive and regulate it, the institution of marriage and monogamous relationships being one notable example. It is also known that, as far as the physiology of sex, that in human beings sex is subject to considerable cortical control. PETER: By control, are you relating to the types of experiments whereby a mouse when wired up with electrodes to its sexual pleasure centre in the brain will continually press a button such that it overdoses on sexual pleasure to the point of ignoring the other button that gives it food. I would suggest that human beings may stop short of killing themselves in an experimental situation like this because human beings, unlike the mouse, have the ability to think and reason, but I would not be sure in some cases. If a similar experiment was conducted on human beings, it would be considered unethical, but I am reminded of Milgram’s experiment that I related to in my journal, which is why I say I could not be sure of human reactions in a sex vs. food test. GARY: By cortical control, I meant control of sex by the higher brain centres, such as the cerebral cortex. On the one hand, I am thinking of how humans are able to discern and think about the consequences of engaging in sex, and hence the rise of morality and ethics as a means of controlling the sex act and procreation. But also I am thinking about the sheer amount of imaginative foreplay involved in sex for human beings. In animals, sex is run by hormones, for the most part. It is classic driven instinctual behaviour. While sexual behaviour is similarly driven in human beings, leading to such sexual problems as sexual addictions, there is much more thinking and fantasy activity involved. Sexuality, on the other hand, as opposed to sex per se is a matter of one’s identity, and this is clearly something that is inculcated in one by one’s parents, family, society, etc. * GARY: For instance, castration does not obliterate the sexual drive in humans but does in animals. Apparently there is a lot about sex that goes on in the higher brain centres. I have no knowledge at all about sexual physiology in animals, but given they have an instinctual-only brain, if one obliterated the sex drive, end of story. Presumably, by what you are saying, castration can completely remove the sex-drive in animals. The question would then be, does castration remove the instinctual sex-drive in humans? I have heard that castratos remain interested in sex, but I don’t know if their sexual interest is instinctive or cerebral-only. I guess the only way to determine this would be to wire someone up who had been castrated so as to see whereabouts in the brain the lights lit up. GARY: I don’t know if you are familiar with this or not, but castration has been recommended as a means of controlling dangerous sexual predators (I mean the human kind), like serial rapists. I have read somewhere certain experts opine that it will not work because you can castrate a male human being and they will still have sex and want to have sex. So, this leads me to believe that humans, unlike animals, have a much higher investment of their sexual functioning in the brain and nervous system, and not so much in the hormonal regulatory areas. * PETER: My experience when ‘I’ was normal was that it was impossible to distinguish between feelings arising from the instinctual passions and what was sensate pleasure and clear thinking, for they were all one muddled intertwined mess. The whole point of the actualism method when investigating the sexual instinct is to unravel this mess and eliminate the brutish senseless passion such that sensuous sexual pleasure is free to be what it is – innocent frivolous play. Sex certainly is one of the most interesting investigations for it is one of the most physical, and if you are having sex regularly, the investigation can be intense with no time-off, so to speak. It also directly involves another person, which means there is no place to hide, no avoidance possible. I encountered very intense periods particularly when tackling the morals and taboos that have enshrouded human sexuality in shame and guilt, fear and trepidation, imagination and fantasy. It was as though I had literally stirred up the whole of the church and faced its awesome psychic powers of condemnation, and then it was as though I stirred up the Devil and encountered hellish realms of perversion and damnation. Beneath this again was a level of brutal animal aggression and bestiality. Once I had discovered the raw instinctive level the only thing remaining was investigating imagination and fantasy and then daring to be let my guard down and be intimate during the most direct one to one activity two human beings can do. Skin on skin and sharing and mixing bodily fluids is as intimate as it gets and the transition from raw and naked to free mutual playfulness took a while. I have written of this before, whereby there is an initial exciting breakthrough with investigations and then there is a remaining ghost-like weirdness that prevails that could be described metaphorically as deleting the substance of a computer program but a few files float around for a while causing trouble and confusion. There is a strangeness that is not only disconcerting but disorienting, as familiar program after program falls to pieces to be replaced by nothing – no new psychological or psychic program at all. The only orientation one has is what is actual and that can only be experienced in this moment. GARY: Personally speaking, I am not having sex regularly. In fact, I am not having sex at all. My partner and I have agreed that it is not very important to us as a couple (believe it or not!) and we are have not been having sex for quite a long period of time. I have noticed lately that there doesn’t seem to be much of a sexual ‘drive’ for me – which causes me some concern on the one hand, as I feel I am becoming a bit of a castrato myself although my male anatomy is certainly intact. I am not really sure what is happening. Perhaps the ‘sexual drive’ has just become ‘sublimated’ as they say. By this I mean that if one is not having sex, eventually one finds other outlets for the sexual drive. The drive itself has been redirected into other avenues, as it were. But I also wonder if my forays into Actual Freedom, well, Virtual Freedom are resulting in a situation where I am freeing myself from a certain amount of the sex drive. I can relate to what you say about the difficulty of distinguishing between the feelings arising from the sexual instinctual drive and ordinary sensate pleasure in the past. It is a terrible intertwined muddled mess to me as well. It sounds like it is much clearer to you now. For me, I have always found sex a bit disturbing, in the sense that it has been occasioned by a great deal of guilt (as a result of conditioning and upbringing) and even shame, and I find that to be the case even as an adult. The fact that I was sexually abused as a boy did not help matters any either, although that is not the only factor. I seem to have swung back and forth between the extremes of under-indulgence and over-indulgence in sexual matters. Now I am finding that I have little interest in sex – and I must say that it seems much neater and cleaner to me and a good deal less disturbing in general. I still feel some sense of arousal when stimulated by the sight or touch of something erotic, but there is no ‘drive’ to consummate the sexual act or go further with it. I also do not experience the urge to resort to having sex as a means of controlling or getting away from undesirable feeling states, such as anger, loneliness, etc., such as I have in the past. On the whole, then, this is a desirable change for me as I would just as well not be bothered by intense sexual urges and get on to other things in my life. This is, however, only a recent development and probably the result of rather intensive questioning of myself and my desires. * GARY: My question is this: if the sexual instinctual drive is eliminated, with the other instincts, what is left? Is there enjoyment of sex? Is one rather indifferent about sex? I doubt then that there would be a ‘drive’ underlying sexual behaviour, the ‘drive’ having been eliminated. One would not fantasize about sex, as one often does many times, because the intuitive/ imaginal faculty would have been eliminated. With the sexual instinctual drive gone, eliminated, I would think that one would be rather indifferent to sex. What do you think? PETER: What I have discovered is when the sexual imperative disappears it becomes utterly clear that sex is not an essential need such as food or sleep. When it is not an essential need and there is no blind drive to have or want it, then it becomes an optional pleasure in a literal cornucopia of sensate pleasures. The particularly delicious thing about sex freed of the instinctual drive is that it is not a necessity for then it becomes what it is – one on one intimate innocent play. It is body pleasuring body, mutually agreed, freely given and taken, sensuous pleasure, never the same, always fresh. And the sheer sensual overload results in a post-sex looseness and limpness of the body, with the brain awash in serotonin or dopamine or whatever chemical it is. GARY: Yes, that’s a good way of putting it. There is not the ‘blind drive’ to have or want sex now. Time will tell whether this is mere suppression or sublimation (sorry to resort to Freudian terms on you but I think they are apt here), in which case the sexual instinctive drive will out in renewed fury and intensity, or a natural kind of withering away of the sex drive as a result of practicing attentiveness and sensuousness leading to apperception. Please note that I am not saying that I want to eliminate sex. Far from it. I want to get to the bottom of my sexual hang-ups and free myself from the need to control sexual feelings as well as either resort to over-indulging or under-indulging in sex. In other words, I want to enjoy sex but don’t want to be blindly driven to have it or want it, as you have nicely stated. To me, it seems like a crucial difference. I think it is going to take a long time for me to get to that point. I always wanted to get to the core of my inevitable frustration and failure with sex, and now I get to reap the rewards of my efforts every time we play. GARY: I feel like there are some rewards at this point but I also feel I am missing out on the sheer delight of having a free sexual relationship with a woman and I am back to being somewhat confused about the whole mess. But I want to tell you that I genuinely appreciate having this forum to discuss these matters and, as you have pointed out in the past, these issues are of universal importance to all human beings, not just a particular and private concern of people participating on this list. Sexuality is such a central part of the social identity and sexual matters have, in spite of the openness about sex since the 1970s, been shrouded in so much secrecy and shame, and I feel such is still the case. Part of it is that I naturally inherited all my ancestors’ fears and shame regarding sexuality but picked up a few new bugaboos myself as I grew into adulthood. The sexual abuse part of it was a big revelation to me when I discovered this early in my recovery from chemical addiction but I have since passed on to other matters. But to get back to talking about these matters in this forum, I am relieved to be able to communicate again this way through a cyber forum such as this. I missed having my computer after it crashed. But now I am back and I am looking forward to more conversations like this in the future. So please, ask me any questions or point out any discrepancies you see in my dialogue as I am eager to learn about myself and others here. Good talking with you. 13.9.2000
PETER: In the human animal, sex is equally and identically run by hormones. In other animals once the act is done, it is most usually end of story. In human beings, once one’s instinctual reproductive duty has been done – find woman, impregnate woman ... or find man, get impregnated – the sexual imperative for both sexes begins to keep an eye out for gratification elsewhere. Both sexes usually resort to playing their societal role as partners and parents and usually have to indulge in fantasy or dreams to maintain interest in staying with the same sexual partner, or sex simply wilts and is shelved as a mutual pleasure. GARY: That has certainly been true for me. Fantasy and dreams prevent actual intimacy. Sex, in our case, has wilted, but there are stirrings of mutual sensual delight and innocent experimentation. I have been recently been thinking about and mulling over the whole business of the nature of imaginative psychic activity – how such activity removes one from the actual, maintaining and supporting the real world. I have become more aware of the flights of fancy and imagination that fuel ‘me’, with some of the strong affective states that accompany them. PETER: In human beings instinctual sex is made bewildering and confusing by our social/spiritual conditioning and our knowledge that it can result in pregnancy and parenthood. However, no matter how much control we may exert or how sublimated the instinctual drive is, it is always lurks beneath the surface inhibiting or preventing the free sensual enjoyment of sex. So in order to gain free sensual enjoyment of sex the first thing is to investigate the social morals and ethics and then dig into the instinctual drive itself. GARY: Sex is certainly a raw instinctual energy. After digging into the social morals and ethics that control the wayward self, one can more easily see the primacy of the sex drive in humans. I think there is a basic urge to physically be close, as expressed through sexual contact, between people, both males and females. It is ever present when people get together. There are also, of course, strong taboos against homosexuality in both males and females, yet the fact remains that homosexual behaviour occurs. Large scale sexual surveys, like Kinsey’s, have shown that homosexual behaviour is remarkably common in many people. I remember myself having homosexual experiences when younger. Mostly they were innocent gropings and explorings with male friends. I have never been a homosexual, but the urge was there nevertheless to indulge in sexual play with another male. Due to the strong taboos and forbidden nature of such gropings, I felt a keen sense of shame about these encounters and was greatly confused about my own sexuality when I was a young person. Level-headed and sensible discussion with a reasonable, more knowledgeable person might have dispelled these doubts and confusions, but none was forthcoming and I was too ashamed to divulge my internal turmoil. PETER: If castration in fact does eliminate the instinctual sexual drive and its accompanying chemical rush, it would seem that the human ability to think and reflect would mean that the castrato would still think and reflect on the physical pleasure that comes from sex. Just as an aside, I was recently watching a program on male impotency. Up until the last decade the failure to have an erection was thought to be mainly due to cerebral psychological problems but now practical medical reasons have been found to be the major causes. It does seem the popular psychological-problems-only approach to sexual difficulties is being questioned, as it will further dented as more people eliminate their social conditioning and their instinctual sexual drive. GARY: Yes, and there was an article in a recent edition of Scientific American about the causes of impotency. PETER: Just a comment, based on my experiences in this business of getting to the roots of instinctual passions. Actualism is both practical and down to earth and, as such, one needs test out one’s realizations and understandings to see if they can be put into practice – if they are factual, if they work, and if they work in the world as-it-is with people as they are. In the case of sex, my investigations were serendipitously easy – I had a willing and eager partner who proved equally interested in investigating, discovering and unveiling the social and instinctual taboos that inhibit the free enjoyment of sexual play. However, even in a pre-established normal relationship I see no reason why one partner cannot initiate an investigation by themselves, for themselves, if they are willing to take the risk. GARY: My partner is a lot more willing to explore these things than I probably give her credit for. I am finding more and more that it is getting easier to talk matter-of-factly about sexual hang-ups and problems. Humour about these matters is also good medicine. I think talking about these things in this forum, with others, is making it easier to talk to her about it. I think we are gradually beginning to tease this thing apart and, though it will probably take considerable time to investigate all this, I am confident that better things are possible for both of us. 20.9.2000
GARY: I thought of someone’s advice to apply the method to interactions with various types of people and find out what you are aware of (I think it was Vineeto). For instance, how do I feel when I am in the presence of women ... how does that differ from my feelings when with a man, or a particular type of man. How do I feel about religious people? Do I have sexual feelings and towards whom? All these types of questions are extremely interesting to look into and it is very different to be aware of one’s experience instead of just taking it for granted or leaving it unexamined. PETER: My whole exploration into the instinctual sexual drive has brought immense rewards for I no longer am driven by the sexual imperative to blindly spread my semen. This means that I no longer look at women as sexual objects to be given the ‘once-over’ – to be feared, foxed or lusted for. I am now equally comfortable and intimate with all humans regardless of their appendages and appearances. I am now also free of the sexual power that women have had over me in the past, a freedom that was a precursor to becoming autonomous and being able to have an actual intimacy with my sexual companion rather than a fickle emotional relationship based on sexual desire, mutual dependency, need and security. Just the other day I had a conversation with a woman about sex and intimacy that I could have equally had with Vineeto or with a man if he were willing and able to broach such subjects. In the past I had often found women much more down to earth than men, much more interested in what is really going on in life. Talking to men was another story but sometimes they let their competitive guard down long enough to allow a little sensible talk. Having explored and eliminated the social mores and instinctual programming that divide the human species into two warring gender camps, there is now no thought or feeling of a man-woman divide from my side to inhibit any communication or interaction with a fellow human being of either sex. For me there are no male topics, no female topics, no men’s business, no women’s business, no taboos, no secrets, no differences. I am very well pleased with the efforts and results of my investigations into the sexual imperative. GARY: Sound like you are reaping great rewards from your investigations into the sex drive. I am still a bit hung up sexually. One of the things I have really needed to look into was the guilt that was always associated with sex. As I said, the emotional-memory part of my psyche appears to be undergoing somewhat of a progressive shrinkage, and with it is disappearing the guilt feelings associated with the sex act. These guilt feelings are extremely deeply ingrained and a major hurdle to experiencing the pure delight of enjoyable sex. I still am quite inhibited sexually. I think, however, that the feelings of guilt are gradually diminishing as I have been examining these feelings when they do pop up. As I continue with this examination, I am less and less ‘driven’ sexually, and I am freer to examine what you call the sexual imperative. 3.8.2001
RESPONDENT No. 27: You recently wrote to No 16... RESPONDENT No. 49: One of my excuses for not attempting
AF was because I believed the instinctual sex drive was deeply rooted in the identity after reading somewhere in Richard’s
experiential accounts that he lost interest in physical contact with his mate. I believe it was RESPONDENT No. 27: It might be interesting for you to dig up the text you have in mind in order to have a closer look, but I don’t think you’ll find Richard saying that ‘he lost interest in physical contact with his mate.’ It is probably a good idea to point out that Richard does state that the sexual ‘drive’ or sexual ‘desire’ is no longer present – but make no mistake about it – he claims to have an ‘active sex life.’ RESPONDENT No. 49: Peace or not, I asked myself how can this be good for our species? I assumed that all who were willing to experiment with AF were already satisfied with their sex life before reaching an age that was likely to allow a satisfactory departure from the normal and then chose to make peace actual. But if this is not a con to AF, then what is? RESPONDENT No. 27: Losing your sex drive would actually be a PRO. As far as I can tell, following the process of actualism is supposed to have the ability to actually ENHANCE your sex life precisely by dropping your sex ‘drive.’ RESPONDENT No. 49: Is there no con because AF is the natural state that humans were intended to be in? RESPONDENT No. 27: Nowhere will you find the claim by an actualist that AF is the ‘natural state’ of humans rather, it is quite unnatural. Human beings are already in their natural state. 30.7.2003 * RESPONDENT No. 27: Your posted section of text is a good way of determining Richard’s meaning. I’d like to highlight a few sections here as to be clear about what Richard is saying. It seems to me the text is clear enough in itself, but as you say below that you find what he is saying to be an ‘oxymoron’ – then maybe this will help. RESPONDENT No. 49: I was asked to find the reference of where I got the impression that Richard ‘lost interest in physical contact’ but I could not find that. I do remember reading in it that one of his prior companions did not feel ‘warmth’ and affection from him and he was left to raise 4 kids. However I found another reference that I think says just as much but I still find it a bit of an oxymoron since I have not experienced AF in the whole.
 Richard, The Actual Freedom Trust mailing list, No 7, 24.1.1999
RESPONDENT No. 27: OK, here he has clearly stated that he has ‘an active sexual life.’
I presume this is the difficult part to understand – that one may not be ‘sexually amorous,’ yet is still able to engage in an ‘active sexual life?’ About the best way I know to explain it would be to take the ‘sex drive’ and take out the ‘drive.’ It’s really quite simple, according to Richard – he is no longer driven to have sex, but he still can and does. Another way to think about it is a ‘drive’ is like an ‘addiction.’ You can be addicted to something, say caffeine for example. Well, if you get rid of your addiction, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a caffeinated drink every now and then – you’re just no longer ‘addicted.’ With no passions driving behaviour one is able to treat the other as a fellow human being ... and not a sex-object.
Respondent: Also could you make sex with a 80 years old and 150 kilos? Richard: Pardon, your prejudices are showing. Do you still find this all an ‘a bit of an oxymoron?’ 31.7.2003
RESPONDENT No. 27: I couldn’t help noticing what you wrote to Peter: RESPONDENT No. 25: The sexual act is the most direct form of intimacy that I experience and I usually experience it not with my partner as social conditioning somehow gets in the way (I’m working on that) but with (new) partners that are interested only in sex with no subsequent expectations. RESPONDENT No. 27: I thought this was interesting because most males, that I’ve spoken to anyway, would say that intimacy is often lacking in sex outside of a relationship. You also state that ‘social conditioning somehow gets in the way’ [with your current partner]. I find this interesting because I have also dealt with such issues with my partner who is not a practicing actualist. At the root of it I found resentment of my need to live up to my partner’s expectations regarding love, emotional bonding, etc. I have since gotten rid of most of that resentment – at least where it comes to sex – and can say from experience that the intimacy I now experience in sex is based on the body and the activity of sex, rather than any sort of emotional bonding. If I felt the need to conform and perform, then I’m sure my enjoyment of sex with my partner would be greatly diminished – since I’ve been there and done that. 29.9.2004
RESPONDENT No. 30: The raw male sex instinct is greedy, insatiable and aggressive. It is a rapist by nature – if not for the social identity checking from within and the legal institutions from without, it could be worse. It is by denial and control of the black nature one is ‘good’. As it is said somewhere: there are two reasons for any action – one is the reason that is believed and stated; other is the real reason. Raw male sex instinct treats women as objects of pleasure to be exploited. I wonder how a female sex instinct is like – is it different in some details at least? It is interesting to see why the human reality has to be the way it is given that such instincts are the driving forces of the individual. One who has seen the extent of the ‘bad’ inside doesn’t blame the ‘bad’ outside. There is no place for moral superiority here – it is when the source of all the ills has not been seen. We all have to go through similar evolution to freedom. There is so much needless suffering in me. I experience a deep rooted sorrow from time to time for no reason wishing I were dead. I suspect that this is instinctually rooted and that it is exactly the same route trodden by all the peoples that have committed suicides. I am reading the ‘Audio-taped dialogues’... it is superb. It is more fluent and less formal than the writings. Everything seems to have been addressed in the web-site but still it is my own journey and my own discovery (following the general map plus the engine provided by Richard, with the travelogues by Peter and Vineeto and other actualists). Great work... just have no words to praise you all. 24.3.2005 Design ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997-. All Rights Reserved. |
