Salaam

Personally, I find such a practice to be needlessly extreme. Male sexual energy is like a pool of water... you don't want to drain it dry and stay in that state, but keeping it dammed up all the time isn't necessary either. You want it fresh and flowing, moving and responding with a depth that increases alongside the diversity of inlets that form as your sexuality and personality grow together. It's more about how and why you release, the energy, mix of emotion, and meaning behind it all. Also, there is a huge developmental process with sexuality that takes many years and has waaayyyy more involved with it then release or don't release. It's about the kind of connection you have with your sexuality, how you relate to it's pull, how you flow with it and travel through different trance states, how you relate to it's darker or more primal sides and those facets of your identity that are connected with it. How you relate, understand, and provide a complimentary contrast to your counterparts sexuality. Then also how all that desire or appetite balances and dances with connection and confidence and self-respect. There are layers to sex that only open and unfold as we handle the above things and enrich ourselves. When your sexuality is activated, what is it activating in relation too? Pixelated images or the full body sensation of a woman intertwined with your body and all the emotion and sexual tension that runs with it? When you fuck and cum is only your mind involved, whilst stuck in your head? Your primal instinct? Your spirit? Or all three in harmony, aligned to a shared meaning you and your partner have developed over many experiences together? Different contexts proved different levels and flavors of activation and only certain levels and flavors can be built upon, while other avenues are dead ends that are too limited or shallow to create expansion and growth.

I get the content of what he's saying, again I'm questioning the validity of it and his first hand experience of it. The fact that he's even using the words "conquering loneliness" shows an immature and needlessly extreme rapport with what loneliness actually is that is in opposition to the reality of how things harmonize as they fit in place. Loneliness is a signal to be addressed, that comes from our connective capacity and humanity. It is not an enemy, no more than hunger or sexuality is an enemy. Now there is a benefit to solitude or alone time. Developing a highly diverse and individuated world within yourself that include pursuits of meaning and expand our capacities are a very healthy thing to have and necessary to reach higher thresholds of growth. However, this does NOT mean that you become invulnerable or numb to the desire for human contact and intimacy. Development in this respect, instead means that you have the capacity to maintain and nurture the health of 3 different positions at the same time. I call it trinity worlds, but it basically means you have the ability to develop and nurture your own individual world, the individual world of others, and the shared world that is co-created when two or more people interact together. A high degree of self-intimacy is great, but it does not replace shared intimacy, no more than water can replace air, they both have different roles and functions when it comes to supporting and sustaining us as human beings. As a person who has touched both sides of how loneliness can express, who has found it's ceiling and become highly individuated in the process, while also gaining the ability to create deep intimate connections I know what loneliness addressed properly looks like (I also unfortunately know first-hand what it addressed improperly looks like). Nowadays, I enjoy missing people and I appreciate the brief moments when I do feel lonely. I do not suffer, the feeling of stress or pain that results is a minor component in the mixture, compared to the appreciation and meaning I find in caring about people and wanting to be connected. And it's a rare when the feeling arises, because I am highly individuated and deeply enjoy my own company, while also having deep and intimate connections with people who matter to me and contribute to the formation of who I am and add to the color and beauty of my life. That is the balance we should be aiming for. Not conquering our desire for connection and intimacy, but balancing it by developing who we are, while also developing the depth and breadth and meaning of how we connect and share space with others. You want the best of both worlds, rather than swinging to one extreme and ignoring the rest of what's out there, and what our humanity and health has an appetite for. Three worlds actually. Because what happens when you have a strong individual world with the capabilities to meet your needs, plus a strong shared world with connection and intimacy, is that you become abundant and realize that making your world better and the shared world better also includes being generous and caring for the individual worlds of those people you have a connection with. Expanding your circle of care beyond yourself, while still being able to get your needs and wants met is a signal of success at life and the achievement of a higher tier of development.

How long have you actually spent completely alone? Without any kind of intimacy with another human being or animal? With no sense of community or belonging to other humans, cultures, social groups etc.? Unless you've actually spent an appreciable amount of time in these situations (even a month long retreat is way too small of a sample size), the above is keyboard jockeying and not something you should be touting to others as an ideal or goal. I've actually spent large amounts of time, completely alone, in very many different settings from self-imposed to solitary confinement and I know first-hand what it's like to experience deep amounts of painful loneliness AND for that loneliness to die away and lose all compunction for wanting to connect with others, to miss people, etc. If you haven't deeply touched both sides of a topic, you might want to refrain from making statements like this before you do damage to people who may actually try to act on these as goals. It's needlessly extreme and the path to regaining those lost compunctions can be very long, painful, and permanently damaging if not done properly.

Martin, I mean no disrespect, but the above is an example of a corruption through reduction into simplicity and it makes you less likely to expand your intelligence. Why? Because awareness is only one facet of learning, it is far from the only thing we need to be involved with and it is dependent on other things for it's expansion. Things like sensitivity, differentiation, multi-dimensionality, depth, population of diversity, and traction. Then there is the actual application of intelligence, which involves action and different levels of internalization which affects the mind-body inter-connection and the eventual expression of whatever it is we've learned. Awareness alone is not enough and a binary statement of you are either aware or not, disregards all the different degrees of difference in our state of awareness about a thing and shrouds or corrupts further avenues of expansion. It creates a dead-end when a person internalizes or accepts the conclusion you put forth as an accurate representation of reality.

Well there's your problem, you're not supposed to look directly, but in parallel, because we are reflective in nature and learn, develop, change, and move through contrast (the difference in motion created by two or more things having an influence on each other). Like the influence a powder can have on human oils to make finger prints visible when police dust a crime scene. Through their interaction and connection, we are given the capability to see and make use of something that would otherwise be outside of our awareness. We have a lot of different parts as human beings and we have access to a wide array of emotional spaces that through experience and interaction and eventual internalization develop what we call our identity. Eventually we can hold multiple spaces in parallel. and reflectively regard ourselves and be self-aware to a greater degree than previously afforded. Personally my self-awareness is so deep that I have to restrain it's depth or else it will make me sick, because awareness has a weight and influence to it all it's own that can disrupt the integrity of very fragile things within our subconscious. With capability comes responsibility and the need to balance and harmonize. Too much depth can cause drag on things that need a certain degree of flow for their health and proper function.

I've personally developed intelligence across a wide array of spaces, including all 9 types of intelligence as outlined by Howard Gardner. I'm a polymath, but it might be said that I didn't start out as one. I was only average in all but linguistic and logic, but now I'm high level in all through focusing on and practicing the fundamental movements of human nature. Things like differentiation and population, inter-connection, flow, compression, multi-dimensionality, etc. while also developing my resiliency towards the forces of nature that limit mental capacity like tunnel-vision, "being blind to your own blindness", internal bias/delusion/unwarranted certainty, shut-down through stress, over-complexity, corruption through reduction into simplicity, and the effects of pressure and drag.

We have a mixture of free will and automation, that is layered and exponentiated over time and degree of development. Our bodies react to stimulus and then our brain responds to that reaction with balancing actions, data collection, etc. It is a two-step process that repeats and builds off of past processes as a nested function and has an effect on the different layers within our body and their level of synergy and harmony, which in turn has an influence on the over-all health of that two-step process. People miss that it is a two-step process, tunnel-vision upon the first step of bodily reaction and then jump to conclusions about the overall lack of free-will.

Well, I see authenticity as being in harmony with our body's reactions to the world. And the cool thing about authenticity is the more you are in tune with how you feel about things, the more in tune your body will be with feeling what you choose to think about. Authenticity increases your sensitivity towards your chemistry with things and the quality of that signal or it's fidelity increases because your response to those signals of chemistry aren't being distorted or twisted. This has a huge effect on things within our subconscious, which includes automated functions, because authenticity and trust are partial gate-keepers to deeper and deeper levels of internalization within our body and the consequent functions and emotional spaces that reside there and are "locked" for lack of a better word for our own protection (because humans are not all that developed and would destroy the fragility of those spaces if given free access).

Nice diagram man, I appreciate the work you did there. However, if you would allow me to share, I'd like to add that there are more options available in life than duality and oneness. There is multi-dimensionality, where you still have a self or a core, but it is not separate from everything else, it is inter-connected, with over-lap, mixing and merging with everything else, while still being distinct and holding contrast with the energy of connective tension. From the bounds of that core comes forth a field that expands and grows to encompass more and more within the bubble of that field, while still being reliant and attuned to the particular chemistry and foundational integrity of that core. So with that said, you're drawing would change and rather than merging into a single circle, you would instead add more and more over-lapping circles around the core so your diagram number 3 looks more like a flower petal. Then I would also add a larger dotted circle that expands and exudes from the flower petal which would symbolize the ephemeral field of influence which would itself interconnect and over-lap with other fields, which they themselves are grounded by and connected to more solid flower cores of other living things. When expanded out with multiple tiers, the flower petal diagram would kind of look like this, with the pinkish pollen representing the field of influence.

@Sevi Great post! I wish more people valued and invested in understanding balance and then applied it to their lives. It's the best way to grow and foster an environment of harmony and synergy. This is especially true when working on our minds and balancing who we are. The most honest and real thing in the world is movement, and even if you can't see it, you can feel it, track it, balance, and harmonize it. So what are the movements and actions of the mind that we need to balance and harmonize and what capabilities do we need to develop, harmonize, and synergize to carry out those ends? Well those capabilities are things like sensitivity, awareness, flow, form, pacing, pressure, differentiation, internalization, traction/restraint, dimensioniality, attraction and repulsion of inter-connection, resiliency/elasticity, fragility/limitation, and many others. All of the above things rely and depend on each other and balance each other out, and are in the mix at all times, having an influence within a person as we move/live. In order to expand our awareness we have to develop our sensitivity. In order to make sense of what we sense, we have to differentiate and develop contrast. In order to make use of those differentiations we have to understand how they connect. Understanding how they connect and move together creates flow. However in order to move about in flow and foster depth, you must have traction, however too much traction can create drag and must be balanced and harmonized with flow in each different situation. Then you have how all those things are influenced and modulated by what we connect with. Our attractive or repulsive chemistry with those things and how the intensity of it can either limit or expand things like awareness, population of detail, and ability to differentiate. It also has a huge effect on dimensionality and your perspective of dimensionality, which is the amount of layers and dimensions being considered in one-self contained awareness, not just the size of each person's bubble of awareness, but the amount of tiers within that bubble or the amount of bubbles within bubbles. Then once you have all those different things differentiated and developed to a certain threshold, you develop them more and as each one raises another also must be raised so it can counterbalance and mirror it's sibling, so we don't become one-dimensional. Without the development and balance of these things, you will not grow beyond a certain point. People can believe what they want about gods and voids and nirvana and enlightenment, but none of that is as real and integral to actual evolution as the things I've listed above and none of them negate the reality of having to take action and put in effort towards balance. Literally everything in the universe is influenced by these co-factors in some way, because everything that exists MOVES.

I seem to have a strong distrust of power and greatness. I feel the limitation and pitfalls behind them... behind my reactions to them... but, I feel my rejection is because I know there is another way, another version of those two things that comes instead from this core of who I am, deep inside me. It seems to be the case that uncovering those other versions will be the current focus of my next growth pattern... maybe. It's kind of fitting because, my soul has been grinding against so much loss and pain. It's been very hard for me, but I gain so many precious things when I make it out the other side. I liken it to opening up Pandora's box and enduring everything that comes out in order to find that precious wisp of hope underneath it all. Everyday, I've opened that box and endured. And now I have such an intimate connection with what is for me, the raw primal feeling of loss. I feel it personally with every death and disability, every flaw I come across, see, or read about. It's mixed into everything, every bit of pain, every time I look in the mirror and see my face, every time I look inside and see my soul, and every time I look outside and see this brutally beautiful world I've been born in. There is an ocean of loss that hurts so deeply, and as far as I can see it spans the breadth of the universe. We're almost friends now, me and loss, but I know better than to truly believe that. My scars and wounds are too fresh. I am only in this position, because of all that is inside me, that endured being buried over and over again, and somehow found a way to respond and adapt and get back on it's feet in the face of such a massive force of nature. Loss, scarcity, death, pain... the wasteland. I am blessed and incredibly thankful to have experienced that even in the depths of such things, my soul can adapt and respond and build who I am. I'm incredibly thankful for the way such pain matures me. Burning and flaying away shallow numbness, hollow allure, and false glories, while bringing me closer to the fires of reality. I hate it too of course, and how it can get so bad I want to die. But... not so much right now. I'm on the other side of this threshold's intensity of loss, so my heart and character can wrap around it and breathe without being consumed. I guess I get to do the same thing now with abundance, power, and greatness, which will have it's own unique pattern and Lazarus curve that will mature and change me as my soul flows in response. And then somewhere along the line I'll do it over again for a new threshold level of loss... coils of the pattern repeating and building on top of itself, over and over again till I get to insane level environments, that I refuse to let myself think about too deeply (for self-protection). Who knows? Either way, I'm thankful and more deeply connected to the substance of who I am, than I've ever been. I guess what I'm truly most grateful for, is having imprinted inside me from the force of all this pain, this deep abiding trust and inclination to endure and face these things with the core of my soul. To even know what that means, let alone actually do it, is something I never would have known if I didn't open those boxes and doors along this long hard road. I touch and am taught by both sides of this world. The light and the dark, the brutal and beautiful, the oasis and the wasteland.

Emotions by their very nature feel and manifest the way that they do, based on the contrast from 2 or more things with another and how it shifts you towards or away from optimal zones of health within a particular context. If your body is hot and your temperature is high, a cold towel will feel refreshing and pleasant as it brings you closer to the zone of optimal health regarding body temperature. In contrast, if your body heat is dangerously low, a cold towel will have a negative or repulsive connotation because it's shifting you in a direction away from optimal physical ranges and the inherent desire to occupy those spaces. It's the same thing with emotions and identity. If someone validates you and accepts you, the feeling you get in response is positive, due to the movement towards greater social health and self-image as well as how it contrasts with both your conscious and unconscious standards and desires. If they reject and castigate you, the contrast is negative. When you look in the mirror, how you feel about yourself will be based upon the contrast between how you see yourself and how it compares to both your conscious and unconscious standards and desires. Other things come into play of course that influence these contrasts on multiple levels, but the point of this post is to focus on how we handle this feeling of contrast, Using the looking in the mirror example, what normally happens is we look in the mirror and within a fraction of a second our body and emotions have associated how we're seeing ourselves with our conscious and unconscious standards of acceptable body image (plus level of self-prejudice, internalized history of self-image and how it relates to identity, emotional short-term memory stack, and many other things) which creates a contrast, which creates a feeling. We then get hit with this feeling, it immerses us, shift us, and creates a thought narrative, whether a single thought or chain of them, that expands and connects this feeling to other impressions and conclusions, that usually leads to a statement of identity status and reflection of self-rapport. I.E. you look in the mirror, see your body, feel negative towards it, because it does not match or meet the desire of how you really want to look and the unconscious standard you have for acceptance. So you repulse from that contrast and tend to think things like, "I hate the way that I look" or "I need to lose weight" or "why can't I ever look like xyz", which can quickly spiral into dwelling on what a person feels they lack, leading to depression, self-hate, and other self-destructive views and behaviors. These contrasts are happening all the time, within a split-second, whether positive or negative, because we are constantly shifting in status and health across multiple tiers and dimensions and multiple inter-relations. However, if a person works for many years evolving themselves, they can eventually balance and harmonize these contrasts. Since, I'm fast and sensitive enough to feel these split-second changes I can create an energetic shunt, that shifts the flow of energy that propels the motion of emotion in response to these contrasts in a very specific way. In a way, I've created and internalized an emotional circuit that initializes in the presence of negative contrasts, which shunts the majority of the energy from those negative contrasts towards protecting the inherent worth of whatever it is I'm focused on. So, if I look at myself in the mirror, I don't feel that emotional wash of negative contrast. Instead I feel a surge from the initialization of energy that would propel it, but it then gets diverted like train tracks back into seeing my inherent worth, which creates a feeling of peace and a much more stable foundation from which to improve upon myself, if I still so desire. Basically, I'm teaching my body how to balance and handle negative contrasts, by feeling two different emotional realities at once and bridging them together, from a single circuit, to a multidimensional circuit, which I'm able to hold together via my abilities with connective tension. This allows me to not just improve my moment to moment experience, but also improve and shift my over-all patterns created throughout the history of my life, because this circuit creates a new filter that validates conclusions that are congruent with inherent worth being recognized and invalidates old patterns of behavior and thought that ignored such a thing and held only the negative contrast as an influence. It's amazing actually, because the inherent worth of everything, from myself, to this moment, to pain, to other people, no longer gets superseded by the emotional cascade of change from one direction to another. It doesn't deny that change or ignore it, but it mediates and changes it, because it adds another base level contrast that precedes it and completely changes the reaction, feeling, and consequent mental narrative that would have occurred if I was still a normal human being who couldn't consciously direct and harmonize multiple deep level movements within his body. Plus, over time it internalizes and becomes an automatic thing that naturally happens, so I don't have to spend all my time managing it, but rather, instead move on to changing and adding on something else which will also again becomes automatic. That's the beauty of having a true understanding and connection with who you are, you become the one who shapes and molds, rather than being bound by the whims of nature. You gain more self-sovereignty through a gaining of skill and ability, making a person more capable... people talk about self-determination, but they don't realize that our degree of self-determination is influenced by our degree of capability. A person who can't feel with as much sensitivity, who can't shift things energetically, and doesn't have the populated view of internal dynamics and inter-relation gained from such experiences, will not have the same degree of self-determination as someone who can truly do all those things. This is probably too advanced and poorly described on my part for anyone to properly understand, but whatever. I wanted to share and writing about it will help me explain it better later when I address it in my book. People talk about no-self and non-attachment because they can't handle the up and down of contrasts and change, but rather than running away or discarding who you are, there is another way. Addition rather than subtraction. Rather than destroying and discarding who you are, to get rid of your unconscious standards and desires to meet them, we can grow and change so we choose what is the primary thing these changes are connecting and contrasting with, which determines the kinds of feelings we feel. Updating and adding on to our systems, balancing them, so they work with us and under our direction.

@Peace and Love Sorry, for taking so long to respond to your questions. But, with work and the forum outages, it's been hard to find the space. Please, let me know if you're still around and want me to answer these things and I'll take the time to do so.

No problem man, I hope it helps clear some things up for you. I also have a journal around here, that kind of shows some of those steps I was talking about and how they integrated and built up in my life. Maybe it might aid with perspective or something... hopefully it makes enough sense for you to get something out of it. And yea, if you have any questions just ask.

Thank you! She is so amazing. She is truly a person who has felt the force of life and rather then being twisted by it's fire, she softened and strengthened. Creating grace and beauty in her wake. Of course she's got her fire and claws too of course, she's a warrior, but that heart and courage and care. It's an amazing thing to feel like the person you married is not only your best friend, but also in a way your hero.

That fading of view or experience is normal by the way. It's your body doing it's homeostasis thing, 2 steps forward, 1 step back. You kept some bits and pieces and now you get to work with them till it's time to do the next "2 steps forward". That view you experienced kind of sucked anyways, no offense. I mean that, because it was still missing out on a lot of stuff. But, that's because the experience was partly new experience and partly building off your current level of development, health, self-expression, capability, etc. This stuff is NOT a linear process. Growth is staggeringly multi-dynamic and after enough steps in the process you begin to understand the pattern much better. Really because you get to experience deep level change everyday and start to understand your reactions to the change. The rise, the fading, the jumping to conclusions, real change versus stimulation/noise, etc. The pain, which creates impact that shakes loose stupid stuff, which creates a space for you to further refine and expand, till you hit another wall and do it again, but in slightly different ways every single time. Shits a trip... I can't even begin to explain the things I go through to average people after doing this for so many years.

Be careful with these conclusions you call insights. You are right that they are extremely incomplete (all insights are incomplete, for there is always potential for more) and if you let yourself treat them as a complete picture of reality, rather than a temporary conclusion, then it will cause you trouble and depression. You still don't see yet what causes the chain reactions from one direction to another, which is the connective tension. People, things, beings are NOT just gears. That's just what your limited view is expressing to you, until you uncover more nuanced and multi-dynamic insights. Keep in mind that there is more, understand that these things feel the way they do to you because the contrast between your old view and your new view is so wide, BUT that does not mean your new view is all that developed. Once you've been doing this for years, the shifts in view from new internalizations become normal and not that big of a deal, due to the distance of contrast being narrower. It's like the first and second step feels like there is a mile in between them, but the 2,900th and 2,901th step has just millimeters... however the difference between those two groupings is like the difference between controlling a tug boat and a fighter jet. With a tug boat you have to turn the steering wheel real wide to get the boat to move slowly in a direction, but with a fighter jet, just the smallest, subtle touch on the throttle can send you in any direction you want. Anyways, make sure you don't lose your touch with and respect for humanity, because it's an important counter-balance to the sheer expanse of the universe. By the way that feeling of depth comes because this was an identity level internalization of a new view, and identity level changes create cascades of reaction across a whole gamut of automated systems. I know people on here talk about no-self/no-identity, but structurally speaking there is a system that handles deep level internalizations of the way we see and respond to the world. It's very crucial to learning and the automation of physical movements and abilities as well as mediating our view and perspective of reality. For example there is a huge difference in ability between someone who has studied martial arts movements for so long that they've internalized it into who they feel themselves to be and a person whose reviewed some movements in a book and only has an intellectual level internalization of them. This holds true for any other pattern of movement, whether physical, emotional, etc. Like identity level internalizations of sexual dominance or self-authority.

Sounds like you're not using your voice with your parents and having boundaries with them that fosters an environment of mutual respect and warmth. You can tell yourself all day long that the criticism and negative talk from them are not a problem, but your body knows better and is way more honest about it. See, the emotional history we have with a person is internalized within our bodies and it creates the automated/natural reactions we have with people. People treat you like crap, your body will remember that and will gradually develop a recoil response. If people are warm and respectful, loving and generous, then your body will open and welcome being in their presence. Attraction and repulsion that develops from the flavor of the relationship or how people treat each other. Of course that's not the only thing determining those reactions though. You also have your own behavior and word view having an influence. But, that influence and the former inter-relate to manifest these responses. It's kind of ironic don't you think? You asked how to express love better, but in order to do that you'll need to express your hurt better. Clear the air for both yourself and your parents to create some empathy and warmth... and if they're incapable of meeting you halfway, like so many people seem to be now a days, well then you continue to work on your boundaries and foster as much of a respectful relationship as possible if you can't have the warm and close relationship you crave.

Ah, I get what you mean and those are completely reasonable lines of thought. I've thought about similar things myself, however allow me to share a couple different expansions along those lines and maybe some perspectives that at least for me, create different conclusions. First, lets focus on a love that is derived from recognition of who a person has chosen and built themselves to be rather than a love that is derived from biological similarity (or a love derived from entitlement). There is nothing wrong with the latter love as a base, BUT love is much more rich and abundant with meaning, satisfaction, and character if the former is also included. Neither of the two are mutually exclusive of course, but it is better across most commonly held standards to develop and devote ourselves to both. Second, how about we differentiate suffering from pain and stress? And how about we differentiate our fears and reactions to those three? Personally, I am not frozen by either three and actively embrace both pain and stress towards constructive directions. In my view stress, pain, and fear are not inherently bad things, they just seem "bad" in isolation, or when there are not other things in place to counter-balance them. With a counter-balance, they can be great things. Like, I love having a little bit of pain sprinkled across passionate sexual pleasure. A woman's nails across my skin, bite marks in the muscles around my neck... Then with stress, it can be positive or negative, often times pleasure can be intense and include stress, but we're too involved with the pleasure to even notice it, like when playing sports or practicing something we love. Then there is fear. Personally, I enjoy adding a little bit of fear to myself for important situations, because it makes me more sensitive to my surroundings. I find it quite useful. Building something and having it threatened does not need to have us draw conclusions that such an endeavor is useless, a waste of time, or an illusion. You say everything is going to die, so why place value on them? Well, first I say we should take a closer look at what death and loss really means and second, why focus on value, when we can focus on preference? Why look to some outside standard for what is valuable, when we can choose for ourselves what we prefer and what choices we make, that connect us and create experiences and understandings that are precious? We do not have to give up in the face of loss. And we don't have to give up on expanding our understandings of what loss really is. I have a lot of experience with loss. Every time I make a choice, I lose out on something else, but that loss does not invalidate the life and expression I have touched and experienced. And finally with regard to the "other person fulfilling them thing" I talk about in my show with my wife a core concept for relationship balance called "my world, her world, shared world" that basically means every relationship we have with a person has three worlds or zones and each one must be cared for and nurtured. The shared world cannot consume the two individual worlds and a relationship between two people with no shared world is not much of a relationship at all. All three have to be protected and all three have to BOTH counter-balance AND synergize with each other, for the most healthiest of relationships. When this relationship trinity is in place for both people, then behaviors that threaten the integrity of all three worlds get filtered out and instead a goldilocks zone of positive/constructive efforts become the lens of activity. Which basically means the kinds of things people in such a relationship will do, will fall in the zone that actively benefits all three, or at the least creates a balance between all three.

@Peace and Love I kind of have some experience with your dilemma to a lesser degree. I know what it's like to be with a woman who has a very strong sexuality and a "history" whose connotations make lesser man act in shitty ways when they can't handle their own reactions to it. First and foremost, the guy will have to be able to see you FIRST, before all that history, before his insecurities about how that history might reflect on him, and before his fears on what that history might mean for the stability and safety of your relationship. What I mean by that... well I'm married to a wonderful woman who used to be a stripper, but when I see her I don't see stripper. I see the woman whose smile shows all the warmth in her amazing heart, I see the little girl in her who likes to giggle and run across the grass barefoot, I see her courage in facing things important to her, I see the magic in her eyes and hips as they sway to the music that is the beat of her own drum. That's what I'm seeing and connecting with and responding to when I'm with this person... not stripper or porn-star and all the weird lines of thought when we might think of a person like that, when we have no personal history with them. You need a man whose heart and self-authority is strong enough so that he chooses to see you, rather than all that other bullshit. A man who can handle working on whatever stuff might spring up from dealing with those things, while at the same time not losing hold on the person he recognized in you that shines and moves him so. Navigating those waters and building a world between the two of you that is better and more fulfilling then the directions these other men have been taking things. Now, that also means becoming the kind of woman, where all those other sides do shine, but you seem to kind of understand that already and are working on them. Second, the guy also should have an open and confident view of his sexuality, that is constantly evolving. One that gets its satisfaction more from the inter-play and sexual expression between two people, rather than physical/mechanical release. If all a man cares about is release, then he is not sexual, he is horny. And horny guys are all appetite and not in control of their sexuality and if their not in control with it, they can't communicate and connect sexually. Like... most porn I've ever watched the sex is very disappointing. There is little communication, little building of emotions, shallow trance states, and rarely any where the two get deeper and deeper into their sexual heat, the animalistic passion rising... You want to be with a man where the sexuality continues to grow and evolve, along-side the intimacy. Changing and deepening how you and your partners body's respond to each other. So the sex compounds the meaning in your relationship and how much you both enjoy and revel in sharing each other. Anyways, I can talk more about that later, but you want a man who can build intimacy with you along side sexual passion, while also protecting the trust that is also building within the relationship. That way you can soften and allow that femininity to naturally express along-side that sexual intimacy... I wonder if you've gotten really good at kind of "sport" fucking, but real sexual intimacy is something you crave? A place where the other sides of you can come to the surface and express and join in with your other parts. I hope this helps in some way. I'm pressed for time, so I had to jot something down real quick for you. Let me know if I should expand on something or if you have any other questions. @Dodoster With all due respect, your response feels like there is a bit of bitterness or resentment stemming from limiting beliefs about sex and being sexually attractive that are kind of leaking out in your response to the OP. Sexual health, bonding, and expression are very important to intimate relationships and can carry with it way more substance than getting high (although yes, some people do use sex in that way, but it can be so much more). If I'm off, I apologize, but I thought it might be a helpful view to share with you.

Ah nice, cool man. See I view it in much the same way, but the difference is I don't let it all collapse into my mind as one thing (not saying/assuming you are, just speaking in general)... I protect the nuance of it all from being discarded in the name of simplicity. There is connection, but not as complete fusion or nothingness. Instead I see multiple tiers of ecosystems and sub-ecosystems, all connected, but distinct. SHARING sovereignty, as well as sharing in the ability to be moved and influenced by the confluence of other systems moving and inter-relating near each other. I've devoted myself for many years to studying and living and expanding my senses in regard to the actual "substance" that connects and chains all these micro and macro systems together. The push, pull, and balance of connective tension, which in other words could be labeled as attraction, repulsion, and harmony (a flavor of balance akin to what is known as the goldilocks zone). Working to harmonize greater and greater degrees of inter-connectivity, protecting them from collapse into polarities of extremes with their consequent extreme influences of attraction/repulsion, and expanding deeper from the understandings gained from the details in between these shifting tiers of connection. I don't let who I am be consumed by my connections to the rest of the universe. I am both an individual and a part of a larger system, with my own conatus (innate inclination of a thing to continue to exist and enhance itself), just like the cells and organs and bacteria in my body have their own conatus. But, also I have my own sense of satisfaction in devoting myself to something greater then I am, which I also depend on, much like my organs, cells, and bacteria also do. I balance both. Personally, I feel people who don't balance both and let their identity and individuality be consumed or discarded limit themselves from certain thresholds of development. For instance, internalization is the degree to which new information/patterns/connections embed themselves within our body and mind and is a required part of all learning. However, there are different degrees of internalization and one of the deepest tiers is identity level internalization, where information/skills/abilities become a part of who you are and can be accessed and expressed with as much ease as breathing, due to harnessing the automation of such skills that come when one's level reaches such a threshold of integration. What this means, is self-referencing, identity, and many other things are all system level functions with a purpose that is not to be discarded, because of some story of penultimate oneness people are chasing, but instead it is to be balanced and harmonized. Synergized, for continued expansion and evolution. I can see why a person might think that way, but if such a statement attempting to describe reality crossed my mental landscape, I'd be wary of attributing such a simple generalization to such a wide and deeply nuanced topic as connection/attachment. There are many different kinds of connection/attachment and there are many different kinds of ways to relate to different kinds of connection. Is it the attachment itself that causes suffering or the LOSS of connection that does? Is it really suffering we feel or does that label depend upon a multitude of other things, like abundance/diversity of other connections, individual levels of resiliency, chosen ways of relating to the connection and it's impact on our reality, and the meanings or stories we ascribe to it? How does the connection balance in contrast to other ones? Is it a connection that consumes and shrinks who we are or does it expand and nourish us? For me love isn't pure acceptance... acceptance is kind of meh, it's more comfort than love based when it comes to my personal feels. It helps with engendering ease and aiding flow, but that isn't always a constructive thing, because there are shitty patterns in the world that aren't worth accepting and internalizing, like depression patterns or forms of oppression and marginalization. Just like there are gasses and climates physically speaking that would kill me if I just passively accepted them and allowed them to connect and inter-mingle with my body's system. In my experience, intimate, deep-abiding love is a living thing nurtured and protected over time between people. With all due respect, I'd caution you to hold some space for your view of what unconditional love is until you've built that love over many years with another person in an intimate setting. I'm not trying to belittle you with that statement, but instead share with you the realizations I had that only came after I did experience such a thing myself after many years of devotion... I can feel connection and love with everyone, but it's nothing compared to the deep, intimate love that comes from my connection with my wife. They're both nice of course, but there is a difference and we can have both. @Raquel Our first show is up. I thought we did pretty good, it was a little rough and all over the place in some spots, but hopefully people liked it. If you give it a listen, please let me know what you think

What's the big deal? It's just your mind switching from one contrast to another. Contrast trumps awareness because awareness is both limited and expanded by the level, dimensionality, and flavor of contrast. There is difference between whether or not things are "real" and whether things are malleable or ephemeral depending upon the patterns of operation the different facets of our mind rely upon to translate the world as relayed from our senses... in other words don't make the mistake of labeling a product of mental limitation as some grand falsehood of reality.

Ah... personally, I disagree with the conclusions and interpretations you've expressed above, but that's okay. I prefer diversity, connection, chemistry, and nuance over beliefs of Oneness. I'm not trying to persuade you differently by saying that, just sharing my view.

That last line is a bold statement. Are you saying that as a view you hold or are you trying to state that as a universal truth? What kind of experience do you have with love and relationships? What level of intimacy have you built with another human being? The love I've experienced doesn't come from lack. It comes from recognition and enjoyment of seeing and discovering who this person is day in and day out. In both scarcity and abundance that love abides. It is not conditional upon her being with me, or abiding by any contracts or expectations. Be careful ascribing authenticity to things you might not have ever experienced before my friend. It's a wide and mysterious world out there and what we think today, may very well change tomorrow. I agree man. That's why it's so important that we stay both humble and open-minded about things we've yet to experience. All too often we can let the pain of today shroud the hidden beauty and joy, that lies as a potential reality waiting on the wings of tomorrow.

For real. It makes me sad when people are so hurt or disappointed by their relationships that they come to believe views like that.