Also strength of love does not always mean the same as depth. You can fall passionately in love with the idea of a person, when they are actually quite different. Tricky.
Love can be expressed in words, but it is not about words. The human heart aches, it sings and it soars, but it doesn’t talk much! Loving actually causes alarm in some people because it is part of a domain that is unfamiliar – the domain of emotion. Don’t panic – feelings are simple!
With increasing honesty as you voice your feelings, a couple can begin to understand and clear up the obstacles to closeness one by one. Love grows through the vulnerability you show, as well as the strength of feelings you admit to. Your real self comes out more and more – and guess what? They still like you! You begin to feel that you can say anything, discuss anything, be completely yourself. It’s a great feeling. (Though there’s always something new, dark and murky arising from deep down, to make you start all over again.)
The good news is that love between two people may take decades to reach its fullest peak, so you have plenty to look forward to.
So in a growing relationship, men and women find attraction growing from head to head, and also from heart to heart. But there’s another level too, so let’s rock on down to the basement.
Lust: The fire down below
Sexual attraction is a lifelong, powerful tide which either adds energy and magnetism to relationships, or constantly blasts us apart, depending on our skill and awareness in navigating it. You will often hear sex denigrated as the ‘animal’ part of our make-up, a Stone Age leftover which disturbs our rational mind. In fact human beings are more dedicatedly and enduringly sexual than any other animal species. (With the possible exception of pygmy chimpanzees, who make us look positively inhibited. But this is a family book, so we won’t go into detail.)
In human beings, the original purpose of the sex drive – to motivate reproduction – has been partly diverted to serve an equally important role, that of social connection. Although sex often seems to be a disrupting influence on our social fabric, it is nonetheless the force that creates and holds families and therefore communities together. Obligation and duty wear thin very quickly; they are recent and advanced concepts in evolution: nature counts on much stronger glues to cement us. Our biology has ensured that we will not rely on abstract ideas of loyalty and love, but that commitment will be deeply felt, that these feelings will give us more pleasure and reward than any other path in the long run. Therefore sex, love, communication and long-term bonding are all deeply intertwined in human beings. We make love with our brains, which is why sex is so special and important – and difficult.
Sex and bonding
Let’s explore the subject of sexual bonding in more depth. Our sexuality is much more than a simple animal urge to procreate, it is connected to our emotions and our thoughts, and has a magnetic way of drawing people into relationships which can then develop far beyond simply lusty desire. In this way it builds between two people an accumulating reserve of pleasure, security, release and openness.
Lifelong pair-bonds are common in the animal world (and so is promiscuity, but few species combine the two). The unique nature of human sexuality – the intense female orgasm which only humans seem to experience and the absence of the distinct ‘on heat’ cycle experienced by other mammals – means that (for reasons we do not yet understand) sex is constantly present in our social lives. In evolutionary terms, pair-bonding meant that the whole fabric of family and clan was made more secure and trustworthy. People could spend time away hunting, children could be raised in relative safety, because the sexually forged bond between partner-parents meant that they would yearn for the specific company of that one person, above any other.
This carries a risk though. Put in simple terms, if you have sex with someone, you are very likely to fall in love with them. So clearly, it is not a good idea to get bonded to someone whom your heart and head have huge reservations about. This is why all human cultures are very careful about adolescent sexuality, and why young people themselves, in spite of what adults believe, are actually very conscious about relinquishing their virginity. Research has shown that a surprising 25 per cent of all young people are still virgins at twenty-one. Given the power of sexual attraction, young people have to be admired: most manage to hold out for a relationship with some closeness and mutual vulnerability. Those of us who don’t quite manage usually learn the lesson and quickly become more selective.
When ‘the fire down below’ connects with mental sparkle up top and the glow of emotion from the heart, then all three are charged and magnified. It’s worth waiting for.
Compatibility problems: why men and women sometimes miss
Julie Henderson, the bioenergetic therapist who taught us these levels of connection, says that men traditionally have ‘closed’ (shielded, unresponsive) hearts and ‘open’ (active, energised) genitals, while women traditionally have ‘closed’ genitals and ‘open’ hearts.
Men of the older, stiff-upper-lip generation, would often experience some alarm at the powerful and unsettling emotions that arise, whether it be through falling in love, being present at a birth of a child or saying goodbye to someone forever. In short, these men needed to gain the softening that comes from an open heart.
Older women usually experienced loving feelings as a matter of course, but were often stunned and delighted at the energetic glow and sense of satisfaction that accompanied their first really good sexual experiences. In short, these women needed to gain the power that comes from ‘owning’ your pelvis, considered in both ancient yoga and modern bioenergetics to be the energy source of assertiveness and will.
As men became more ‘feelingful’, and women more assured, healthy and strong contact between the genders became a possibility. Some great marriages emerged in the latter part of the twentieth century. In fact, you can be sure that some couples have always forged equal relationships through sheer strength of character – in biblical times, in Shakespeare’s time and in every epoch. The difference in the late twentieth century was that the culture began to support this as a general principle.
Things were looking great – except that the pendulum just kept on swinging!
The trouble with ‘New Women’ and ‘New Men’
The culture of the 1980s and 1990s has produced many tough-hearted women and many more soft-hearted men. This does create a new set of problems from those who gained experience in earlier times.
For years women complained about the pushiness of males, saying they were domineering, insensitive, and so on. Fair enough. But a different kind of complaint has arisen in recent years. Many of today’s men have been so filled with the need to be considerate and supportive that they back off from the really lustful pursuit and assertiveness that characterizes spirited sexuality.
We talk with many young women these days who are frustrated by the wimpishness of their men, in bed and out, even though this kind of softer man was what women for a time thought they wanted. Sensitive, yes, but uncertain and childlike, no!
You can be lustfully pleasure-seeking, and also considerate and aware. You can give pleasure fiercely, and take it fiercely. It’s a matter of communication, trust, and letting each other know what is wanted and not wanted, without offence. It takes time to develop this. Sometimes decades. When the conditions are right, most women, and most men, find unbridled passion extremely pleasing.
PRACTICAL STEP 3: CAN YOU HAVE SEX