Again and again, couples come to my office whose request is to oppose love and sex. Yes, and my anonymous research confirms that this issue is relevant for a very wide audience. The thing is that we experience either a supernatural attraction to a person, or an elevated feeling of love, in which attraction may be present, but suddenly there are taboos in sex.
Prokhor, my old patient, a source of examples and clinical cases on a variety of therapeutic issues, one day came to the appointment excited. By that moment, we had long ago pushed off from his initial request, we worked both in depth and in breadth of his personal history.
Prokhor did not give me a word to say: “I have a brilliant idea! I decided on my personal experience to explore how to harmonize the issue of love and vibrant sexuality in a couple. It’s always like this with me: the more dear a girl is to me, the more tender our relationship is. You know, all those movie kisses, winces from her messages. And at the same time – the more calm and insipid sex life. And if a girl annoys me, pisses me off, sex is absolutely incredible. But with this you won’t start a family and children – there won’t be enough nerves. You say that this is a difficult task. So, I’m ready. Let’s study. I’ll be the guinea pig!”
The task is really interesting! Prokhor’s motivation is high, his willingness to headlong into new adventures would seem dangerous to any other person, but for him this is a familiar scenario. There is no point in arguing, especially since my colleague very opportunely conducted a seminar on the topic of relationships in a couple and, as always, there were not enough men there.
Our feelings seem to be divided into different “ministries”: love is from God, sexuality is from the devil
Before the seminar, Prokhor and I identified several important points. First, his perception of sexuality did not fit with the concept of normal partnerships: one of his obsessive scenarios was the theme of punishment. In individual work, we aimed at studying the topic of punishments in Prokhor’s childhood and searching for other platforms for strong erotic experiences.
Secondly, we found out that in the imagination of Prokhor, like many other men, two opposite images of a woman coexist: Eve and Lilith.
Legend of Lilith
In some interpretations of the Old Testament, the first woman is mentioned, which was not Eve at all. God created the woman-creator in his own image, just like Adam. This woman was not subject to Adam, she was a rebel. Even during sex, Lilith did not agree to submit: she wanted to reveal herself, to receive pleasure. Lilith made the decision to leave Adam and leave paradise. She uttered the unpronounceable name of the god, her wings grew, and she flew away. Versions of her future fate vary.
Instead of the rebellious Lilith, God gave Adam the obedient Eve. She turned out to be an excellent hostess, revered Adam as the main one, but with the onset of night, Adam yearned for the passionate and incomprehensible Lilith.
So, our feelings seem to be divided into different “ministries”: love is from God, sexuality is from the devil. And it seems impossible to find harmony: we either give up sex and turn to God, or indulge in passions, burning with devilish desires.
The devilish part in Prokhor’s sexuality manifested itself in the form of a desire to punish, tame Lilith. Eva, on the other hand, has nothing to reproach for, so sex with her became less and less desirable from time to time, more and more like a mortgage than erotica.
But it was not by chance that I began to talk about Prokhor. He strikes with purposefulness, always achieves his goals. So this time: he still met a suitable companion. It happened at the very seminar that my colleague conducted. The purpose of the event was to form a new vision of a partner and a feeling of sexual attraction with the whole body: heart, brain, fingers, eyes, sense of smell … Prokhor learned to see in front of him a different personality, an ancient soul, a partner, a subject, and not a new performer of an understandable role in his usual love scenario .
Finding a movable, changing, attention-demanding balance is the secret of harmonious relationships.
“It was an amazing opportunity to experience a new world. You feel a merger with another person, sexuality seems to flow on a different level – where it doesn’t matter who I am, how much I earn. It doesn’t even matter which of us is a man and which is a woman.”
Their story was not long, but there were enough positive experiences and intense sexual experiences in it to show Prokhor the reality of such a relationship. The difficulty is that they require their own spiritual nakedness, vulnerability, vulnerability … And the question is in ourselves, in the level of intimacy and trust in a couple. It is not always sufficient for life to be filled with both spiritual and sexual connection, from which there is a new sense of the meaning of everything that happens in our relationship.
The dual nature of everything that happens to us creates a constant fluctuation, an imbalance. Sex or love? Creativity or income? Freedom or security?
It seems to me that these fluctuations are necessary in order to develop and move forward. No hesitation is death. Finding a movable, changing, requiring constant attention balance is the secret of harmonious, living relationships. In which there is a place for sex, and spiritual connection, and new stages in which you can grow and evolve together.