Bridgh.

I think that some women regard their vaginas as dirty and smelly. But as a guy who has kicked around a lot, I can assure you that most if not all men spent the first 9 months of their life trying to get out of it and the rest of their life trying to get back in.

What about the vagina that is considered smelly to some women is perfume to most heterosexual men, moi included. Again, to most if not all heterosexual men, the taste is just as stimulating. Dining at the 'Y' is just another common sexual practice.

As for morality, well ... ... most of the psalm singing, whited sepulchres, who would have you eternally dammed just for being 'you', are often times found out abusing innocent little boys and girls who have been placed in their trust.

When it comes to adult, consenting sex, who has earnt the right to morally dictate to others who does what to whom?

Mafi.

Do you mean a story about my journey tippy toeing through the minefield of sexual vulnerability? About early on in romantic cavorts, when not knowing what is one woman's meat and another's poison?

One interesting experience, I had in London. I was in London in the middle of winter. Straight of the aircraft from OZ, no walm clothes, the only friend that I had was my wallet in my hip pocket.

Desperately lonely, I sought the comfort of a 'massage parlour' wherein I had a beautiful hot sauna, a great massage, and then with the 'massuesse' had a delightful 'horizontal mambo'.

Back at my Tavistock Hotel, I had another hot bath to thor out from the trip from the massage parlour to my Hotel. Amazingly, I found myself 'flogging the log'. I went to bed and still felt a terrible sexual craving. This staggered me. I had just had great sex, come to my hotel room, wanked and still wanted more. So I began doing some hard reflection - no pun intended. My body certainly didn't and couldn't want more sex. What was this sexual craving about? So I imagined what I wanted. I wanted a naked woman's body against mine. But why? I certainly didn't need another session of lovemaking. Then I had flash memory recall similar to those repressed memory recalls. I was trying to recapture that intimate, warm, loving, totally secure feeling that I had once experienced as a baby on my mother's breast.Was all this about insecurity and fear? I recalled reading about Jewish men in a Nazi concentration camp, who were being subjected to medical experiments concerning how much cold a human being could withstand before dying. These men would be 'thawed out' by naked Jewish women prisoners and then the freezing process repeated at a lower temperature until the men finally died. The thorough German note taking showed that almost invariably the men attempted sexual intercourse with the naked women pressed hard against them upon regaining consciousness. At the time of reading this, I thought that sex would be the last thing on a man's mind when so close to death. Much later, in the London hotel, recalling this true story, I realized that I, like these concentration camp victims, was desiring sex for the same self-preservation reasons, not for procreation or simply hedonistic pleasure.

Many years later, in a terrible state of suffering over a breaking up of the one and only totally co-dependent relationship that I have ever had, I had another equally important realization that extended the London experience. I was lying in my bed visualizing what the ecstacy was about when I had been engaged in sex and totally coupled to my 'soul mate'. It was then that I saw that she was my doorway to the universe. I was no longer constrained to being 'me' but was at one with all. How could this be? After many futile sessions in pyschotherapy with different therapists, reading many books, doing a psych major at Uni. and many, many hours of meditation, reflection, contemplation, you name it, I finally came the full circle and realized that my 'soul mate' was the best fit match for the psychological, physiological and emotional 'template' that I carried about in my head; a template that was formed all those years ago when totally at one with my mother - the source of all things for me. This mother 'template' was a left-over, a tenuous and dangerous legacy, the basis for re-experiencing the ecstacy of reunification experienced after much real or imagined rejection so long ago. This push-pull game, this double-sided coin, when re-enacted with my 'soul mate', was nothing more than my emotional self seeking the regaining of the ecstacy of an infant's paradise lost.

I saw that drugs, sex and anything else, when used as a substitute for the ecstacy of 'real enlightenment', was bound to fail and lead to misery. I realized that much of men's preoccupation with sex, far from being testosterone based, was fear based. I suspect that women, being much more intimacy inclined, suffer far less than men from the separation from mom brought about by individuation and other circumstances in childhood.

I further suspect that the mystic, that the vagina holds for men, is very deeply tied to these childhood experiences. Perhaps the 'birthing canal' is an archetype planted deep in our psyche and representative of the tunnel joining our tiny world contained in our head to the universe and dimensions beyond. Perhaps this is why men spend the rest of their lives trying to get 'back in'.

Is this a good enough story, Mafi?

Guest_guest.

You said:

"which man doesnt want a women's naked body pressed against *him*?"

I guess that I failed to get my point across here. The point, that I was trying to make, was that my desire was not based on a sexual need but another well disguised need. At that time I was full of fear with good reason. But my fear of admitting my fear to myself, dictated that I seek relief in another way.

My point was that my need for security underpinning my heightened sexual drive - not my need for sex -that had been by that stage well and truly satiated.

Further and even more relevant to my above point, you said:
"Evolution makes us want sex and think of vaginas and sex all the time."

I suspect that whilst evolution has ensured our drive to procreate, it is my belief that as males our incessant desire for sex is largely underpinned by our need to feel validated and secure. After all wanting to be loved is often just this need in disguise. Women are, it seems to me, more free to openly express this need than men. That's why a lot of women want 'caring men' not just sex toys. I suspect that a lot of men are unwilling to admit to themselves their fears.

Guest_guest.

Yes, of course men have sex for fun as well. What I am saying is that what drives men to want sex is not simply to get their 'rocks off'. If it were then 'Mrs Palm and her five daughters' would suffice.

The number of female partners in heterosexual relationships far outnumber prostitutes. Why? I can assure you that procuring the services of one prostitute a week is cheaper than maintaining a wife and family. Thus the reason cannot be pecunary or a matter of convenience.

Men want to be cared for by that 'special' woman. The question is: 'What makes her special for him?'

My answer is that she meets his unconscious criteria for meeting his security needs amongst others. I doubt that most men are really conscious of this aspect of their relationship. Yet I believe that men are strongly driven to seek emotional security through their women amongst other means. Would a man admit this to himself? I doubt it - its not macho.

Women are - or so I believe. It is not uncommon to hear women say: "He is not meeting my emotional needs". I've never heard a guy say that about his female partner. No moving in those circles by preference, I cannot speak about homosexual relationships.

However, there are always exceptions - guys who flit from woman to woman avoiding intimacy at any cost. I believe that these men are the ones who have had an emotionally abusive infancy and have never formed any kind of strong bonding with their mothers.

Ladeska.

No I was not aware of her nationality. Thanks for pointing that out.

Guest_guest.

" ... so i dont see any reason for any ill-airs. forgive and forget and move on.. everyone's put in situations they cannot control.. so the blame is not theirs. "

No worries, matey. Mafi seems to have attributed intentions and dispositions to me that were based upon the state of her psyche not mine. I understand that. Therefore, I take no offense whatsoever at her venting her spleen.

Cause + conditions = effect.

Mafi's psyche + my statement = Mafi's highly painful emotional arousal.

My psyche + Mafi's response to my statement = pensive reflection on the human condition.

Thus:

(Emotional memories + beliefs + cognitions) + Stimuli = emotional state.

From my perspective, there is nothing to either forgive or to forget.

Should Mafi persist in her attributions of malicious intent on my behalf then that is her choice. There is little that I can do about that. If this is indeed her choice, then the emotional price will be hers to pay - no one elses. This is indeed the sad thing about the effects of the 'Fundamental Attribution Error'.

Om shanti.