The laws of arousal: can sexuality be tamed?

When it comes to sex, I think of a Scandinavian legend about a man who thought he tamed the wind. And he stayed in this pleasant illusion until the wind wanted to turn in a direction where the person was not going to.

With sex, everything is exactly the same. First, we compose and justify the rules – for example, that lace panties or some abdominal muscles are sexy, but abs without muscles and unshaven legs are disgusting, that a man should take the initiative, but a woman should be active, that there is some kind of “correct foreplay” and the right caresses, without which sex is not sex and the pleasure of it is like washing windows. It seems that the rules are in force, they should be in force, but the wind does not know about it. Therefore, suddenly we are carried upside down, and we have sex with absolutely the wrong and not the way we planned.

We know that human sexuality is formed early, in the first two or three years of life, and the paths along which sexual arousal flows are determined by early experience, genes, relationships between parents, and a thousand other variables.

It is possible to analyze in hindsight why someone who, as common sense suggests, would be good to stay away from – a junkie-musician, an aggressive rapist, a married colleague, a “shimmering” lover, turns on. You can figure it out, and it can be exciting and unexpected. It is often possible to find under our “I want him” and “I don’t want him” huge layers of what we lack in life – warmth, creativity, healthy anger, the ability to connect something with something inside.

Redirect flows

But it is almost impossible to turn the wind on and off at will.

This is known to everyone who has ever lusted for someone or been deeply in love. Completely without warning, we find ourselves in a flurry of hormones and arousal, where consciousness – the part of us known to us, pardon the tautology – does not decide anything, but all this chemistry in the blood and the “Marleson ballet” in the unconscious rule the show. It is bright, unforgettable – but also very scary.

Usually, the psyche then humanely retouches the memories, so that spiritual uplift, readiness for exploits and slight madness remain in the mind, and the “scary” disappears.

But somewhere deep memories are stored that sexual arousal is a dangerous thing! So there is always a struggle going on inside, invisible to the world, and even to us, an imperceptible struggle between the desire to release it into the wild – or try to “clear mines” in order to protect ourselves. What techniques does the psyche have for this?

You can talk a lot about sex. Write, draw, in a word, creatively transform. Then part of the excitement and fear will be realized and will find life in words, another part will be discharged, and in the end there will be a pleasant excitement, something like a light flirtation. It can be shared with interlocutors, it can be with a partner, or you can not share it with anyone at all.

But this is not easy – not only because in our society it is difficult to talk about sex, it is difficult to find interlocutors, but also because the ability to creatively transform reality is a separate skill. He is rarely taught.

Protect yourself from sex

You can build a stronger wall between yourself and sexuality, convincing yourself that only some “they” are engaged in and interested in sex – teenagers, or happy singles, or thin bitches in lacy thongs, or only men, or “horny psychopaths” – and all the rest seem to be free from this obsession. For reliability, this wall can still be strengthened with props about “moral” and “immoral”, placing them in arbitrary places. Then sex and those who supposedly can have it become the object of anxious close observation.

This is how parents behave, suspecting children of all sexual sins, checking their correspondence, saying: “No, I’m not interested in sex at all, but I need to know how to protect my 13-year-old daughter from all this.” Or women who complain: “I don’t even want to think about sex, but I have to keep an eye on my husband in both eyes so that he doesn’t have anyone.”

You can still defend yourself with some so-called “parental figure” – any god, for example, or morality. And to be like children whom “mother does not order to kiss.” These are always very interesting stories – because out loud a person can talk about the desire to have sex and the desire to have children, but on the bodily level – either inexplicable problems with conception, or endless, minor, debilitating gynecological sores in women, so that the body turns out to be inviolable, like a child’s, and “doctor forbade” having sex.

There are other ways in which sexual arousal inside can be paralyzed, frozen – and for some time neutralized. Further, how lucky – someone will never defrost it. For someone, an internal hormonal hurricane will fly in and sweep away all defenses. And then – some random lover, breathtaking passion.

But the less we know this element in ourselves, the more likely it is that after such an inexplicable and sudden sexual breakdown, we will find ourselves on a pile of smoking debris. What was it, who is this person? Where is everything that I used to consider my life, my family?

Stamp as a shield

The element of sex is scary. In our world, where everything is a reason to evaluate another or yourself, sexuality also often turns into an evaluation category. Many are familiar with the feeling of inferiority and even guilt for allegedly having sex in the wrong way, not often enough or varied enough. And the partner is not sensitive and attentive enough, and you yourself do not demonstrate the temperament of the Singer sewing machine. Here, in most cases, the feeling is glued that everything is fatally wrong with the body, with this shameful imperfect body – either cellulite, then the tummy, then the chest sagged, then the penis is short.

However, guilt and shame are feelings, albeit nasty, albeit greatly poisoning life, but not terrible. And they also protect well from sexual arousal. What excitement when you are so ashamed of yourself, when you do not correspond to anything and are not good for anything?

Although it is not so rare that our “flaws” excite a partner, that we like unwashed, unshaven and in slippers. Sometimes it is difficult to realize and even more so to call it words, but the body – the body speaks convincingly.

In general, I doubt that the most replicated sexual clichés – all this lace underwear, black latex, muscular male torso, big penis – would seriously interest someone, let alone arouse, if not for the advertising industry. I even doubt that they now excite many.

Excite messages that are encrypted in these symbols: “I try for you”, “You are protected”, and many more hints of aggression, because sexual penetration, of course, includes aggression. This was written by a psychoanalyst, a specialist in borderline personality disorders Otto Kernberg. But the aggression is peaceful, tamed.

And the symbols in which these messages can be encoded – “I want to please you”, “I want to penetrate you”, “I want to obey you” – are unique for each couple. Limiting yourself to advertising cliches in your sexual language is the same as talking at home with quotes from some series or aphorisms of Lieutenant Rzhevsky.

To tame sexuality to the end is impossible, how to tame the wind. You can watch it inside yourself, and then use it for joy and pleasure. Experiment if you have the strength and courage. And there, you see, a personal plane will be invented.