Many people have argued back and forth as to whether or not the human being is a monogamous creature. The irritating answer of
“yes and no” is what I’m going to argue right here but I hope that it can be of some comfort for those who are wrestling with the idea.
There is one side of who we are which is most certainly not monogamous. The biological functioning meat machine we call our bodies is a mass of hormones and muscles, nerve signals and function-obeying procedures that can’t tell the love of your life from the person who works down at the ice-cream shop. The body does little more than react to signals from the outside, and it does so according to biological criteria.
Let’s say that you are a woman. Now we are talking, for the time being, at a purely biological level. Your body, sexual in nature, will have some kind of reaction when your biological buttons are pushed. Down at the deepest level, they are probably pushed by, deep voice, strong back, leadership attitudes and a protector instinct that is evident and non-threatening. You might not even like the guy in the slightest, let alone consider having sex with him. Yet at a totally primitive level, something within you is responding with sexual interest. The fact that you reject this guy is due to another part of your being, but at the most primal; your body is giving you a whole lot of signs.
As a man, you will be reacting to shining hair, a body with signs of fertility and youth and an attitude of softness and sexual openness even when you are absolutely loyal to your partner. All of these reactions happen down at a biological level quite apart from whether or not you chose to act upon them or not.
The thing is, humans are not just animals. We feel the animal desire start to well up within us and, unlike our animal friends with whom we share the planet; we can choose what we do and do not, based upon deeper criteria.
Humans have sex for a number of reasons. The “animal” or biological reasons are obvious. Nature plays a number of games with us to get us to have babies and to mix genes. Nature has created a bias towards certain genetic types in order to propagate the species and to produce children with high probabilities to survive and prosper. Beyond the animal is the desire for pleasure. We desire to give and receive sexual pleasure. When going through a phase in life in which we only desire to receive pleasure, we notice that our partners generally don’t last long and we pass into a shared pleasure dynamic. We start to learn that the other has a reality in which we are participating and as a result we start to develop an interest in their pleasure and satisfaction. In part, of course, the pleasure of the other is an affirmation of the “worth” that we hold as lovers, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as we recognize and value the pleasure and satisfaction of the other for the sake of the other. This is the start of sharing within the couple and the principle energy of give and take, to and fro and the round and round continuum of the yin-yang that can intensify almost indefinitely.
The true union of two people within this yin-yang dynamic creates a spiritual growth for both parties. Indeed, as they notice the barriers between them fade into nothing and pleasure becomes care and then becomes love, the responding to ones sexual impulses towards a third party seems trivial. More than trivial, it seems an interruption to the upward spiraling energy that is forming within the couple. It feels wrong. When the couple is returned to after such an episode, the energy is broken, interrupted and contaminated by the inclusion of the other.
It seems also, that in our society, men are steered almost exclusively towards sexual release. We (I’m a man) are shown images of actresses and models that appear to get hotter and hotter by the second and each year, we are presented with newer, younger and even more sexually open images of women. The woman is presented for her sexual value and her spiritual value is almost totally lost. Her spiritual value is pushed into the world of the feminine and isolated from men. How many men consider love, connection and spiritual connection to be wimpy and “girls stuff?” Women are pushed towards looking at men as asexual husbands despite the more modern focus of sexually powerful, handsome men that show their torsos on the covers of magazines and strut their stuff in movies. It’s clear that the vast majority of mass media is run by men. Perhaps I should say “boys” in fact. The images of men and women controlled by media shows an immature idea of what we are; the men are bred to be obedient slaves of their sexual impulses and the women are expected to push all that aside and be both the sexual slave of man and the virgin wife. To see the truth we must drop the popular fantasies of mass media and look within.
(Pretty picture of my pretty face)
Of course our biology is going to react when a beautiful body comes close and throws sexual signs at us. Our heart, however, in its infinite wisdom, knows that attraction… true attraction is a choice taken at the deepest level of our being. Do you value the deepest level of connection and the crescendo of passion that you can only have with your lover? If so then the random, flailing impulse of the sexual biology must be overcome. It isn’t a question of gritting your teeth and resisting, but a mere recognition of what truly has value for you. When you find this value, being faithful suddenly becomes easy. The hottest members of the opposite sex are still there but your circle of passion doesn’t include them. Oh they look nice, just as a painting by Picasso might look nice, but you have no reason to possess, to have and to take for yourself. Your sexual energy, is no longer the property of your biology.
It's from my blog
www.brendancclarke.com if you are interested
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