We Are Not The Same.

But we are.

Each of us has similarities and differences to the people we engage with.

Duh.

And we want to have the right kinds of similarities and the right kinds of differences.

Duh again.

But how did you figure out what the *right* similarities and differences were?

I want you to think about what importance you place on your similarities and differences when selecting anyone for anything.

Any relationship you can think of.

If you’re adept at selection, it’s not just about similarities and differences. It’s about the functionality of those similarities and differences.

Each observable thing in the universe has traits. And those traits are somewhat dependent on an observer’s capacity to engage with them or not.

Is this trait positive, neutral, negative? Is it supplementary, complementary? Compatible, incompatible? Collaborative, competitive?

When you think about two people and someone says, “opposites attract” what is actually in opposition? We are not magnets. Is one strategic while the other shoots from the hip? Is one aggressive while the other is passive? Is one honest and the other a liar?

These things aren’t really absolutes. In different contexts and environments, someone’s extreme is some society’s norm. Maybe there’s no word for a thing that you do in your language, and five to describe it in another one. There may be a feeling you have that does not translate.

So let’s give it context:

If someone is talkative, they may do well with someone else who likes to listen. Different.

But they also may get bored if they feel that person seems to have nothing to say, and find themself in search of a repeated meeting of the minds. Same.

Which is better?

If someone is goal oriented, they may need someone around who challenges them and keeps them sharp. Same, competitive. But they may do just as well if not better with someone who is extremely supportive of their goals, but doesn’t directly participate in their projects. Different, supplementary + compatible. Maybe they need an assistant or mentor whose direct engagement adds dynamism to the process that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Same, complementary + collaborative. Even still they may find that they truly need people who are disinterested in what they do. From this they draw fresh perspectives and get time away from their consuming interests. They have someone who makes them excited to step away and find balance. Different, complementary. The answer to which is better is found in the fulfillment of the engaged individuals and the consequences of the connection.

Sometimes we have negative compatibility. Like people who enable our self-destructive tendencies. If someone has an addictive personality and a drug dealer bestie, there might be consequences. If someone has low emotional intelligence but finds people who compensate for the damage they do with their lack of self awareness, when those people aren’t around to clean up for them, there will probably be consequences. In these ways, people are dissimilar, yet they function in ways that supplement or complement some aspect of the other’s existence. Negative compatibilities are some of the ways we get stuck in phases where we ought to be growing. How we lose our potential for actualization to entitlements. Entitlements breed ingratitude. Anger, resentment, disappointments. When we look back, and we have had time to heal, our gratitude is typically focused on the fact that it’s over, and the fact that we learned our lesson. Well, hopefully.

Sometimes we have negative similarities. We butt heads because we’re both aggressive. We let things fester because we are both passive. Frequently, we’re naturally repelled by these people until we mature. Some of us have to revisit this space when we see our flaws in our children. We don’t have as big of a problem with seeing negative similarities if we make peace with our own flaws. When we take the time to grow, we trust others to grow. If we don’t grow, we might feel punished when we see others succeeding, especially via means we see or have seen ourselves being punished for. We might fear that they’ll have to learn the same lessons we did, or feel vindicated when they do. We might suffer when we see them thriving via means that others have used to wound us, and that we have promised we would never embody. Judging and rejecting a part of ourselves because we project the pain that we suffered onto others that might witness us engaged in these behaviors or thought patterns. Or we shame ourselves for the pain we did and do cause in these ways. And we justify not forgiving them by not forgiving ourselves either. Or with hypocrisy.

On the other hand, when we witness negative differences, the ones that we don’t like, and that don’t help us, I’ve found one of the deepest signs of maturity is a capacity to extend ourselves compassionately for the possibility of another person’s growth. Not because we’re anyone’s savior and we’re attached to the idea of fixing or saving someone. But because within ourselves we have found the freedom to act against our own individual interest because it is possible for fulfillment to come in service of the collective. Sure, there are some of us who feel we genuinely want to be good people and end up hurting ourselves and others in the pursuit of nobility and martyrdom. But truly finding the capacity for care, altruism, and love primarily because you want to take that kind of action is beautiful. And doing it because you want those values to be expressed as its own reward, rather than for a reward, is to reflect the capacity to transcend mere survival. To thrive and to be a thing of awe that defies the expectations of those whose focus is self-centered because that’s the truth of the phase that they are in.

And only through accepting each other as we are and embracing each other’s truth can we embrace our own. It takes trusting your own truth to be able to trust another’s, and to truly be touched by it. And even as stark a contrast as altruistic hope and faithless desolation are, sometimes, those opposites are exactly what the other needs.

From some perspectives, our differences aren’t nearly as numerous as our similarities. And for some, certain differences or similarities are all that matter. But realistically, similarities and differences are so relative that they don’t matter nearly as much as the fulfillment an experience brings. And again, core to that is gratitude.

You must be able to trust your own perceptions, awareness, and intuition to be able to operate in this world confidently. Even if you are wrong. Because you also have to trust and develop your ability to learn and grow in relationship to your mistakes. You must be able to learn that what is a mistake in one context may not be a mistake in another. And what works perfectly in one aspect of life may not have a useful place in another, except perhaps to teach you about the errors of your choice of application.

There's an experience of process and an experience of outcome. What matters is that you can find people to engage with where you have a positive experience of process and a positive experience of outcome. In some cases, regardless of the realities of processes and outcomes.

We are not the same. But we are.

We just have to figure out how and when that matters.

This one I would like to dedicate to Mikey and Nella. Nella because she asks wonderful questions and in doing so, demonstrates a genuine desire to love others in a profound way that gives me hope. Mikey, because in some ways he is competence incarnate, and one of my oldest friends. And if it were not for him, there are certain things I would never bother to express, or really honor the value of.

Love Fantasy

Forgive me. This one is MUCH longer than usual. The last post I wrote was dedicated to Sydney. I like this practice. This one is dedicated to Nella, because without her I probably wouldn’t have felt so compelled to finish and publish. I’d also like to thank Tiffany and Farnaz, for listening to the first few drafts of this.

I’d like to introduce you to a concept I call the "Love Fantasy."

What is a love fantasy?

A love fantasy is an experience of love that we would enjoy but that is not happening in this current moment. Anything that is not present to the senses lives in our imagination. What is imagined is a fantasy. What is remembered is a fantasy. This is because it is an abstraction of the phenomenon as it occurred into human perception, which is then experienced as a recollection. Even discussing our interpretations of the present moment lives as an abstraction of that moment into speech.

According to our most modern understandings, time itself, and therefore the "present moment," are illusions.

Even as we comment on them, they are already slipping away or exist not as realities but predictions that may or may not come to fruition, no matter how seemingly inevitable.

We can only truly hold space for what is happening and what can happen when we detach from needing external realities to fit our personal perceptions. We can only get to know someone when we don’t project onto them. We can only discover how much healing and care someone is capable of bringing when we are not ruled by the fear of the pain our vulnerability might lead to.

And this openness is one of the greatest gifts we can give to others: true intimacy. To let them discover the beauty of honest connection with us. Of knowing us. But in other ways as well. To hear them not just as we experience them but as they would like to be experienced or need to be experienced. To hear not simply, “I want you to do what I want” when a lover makes a request of us, but to recognize that "you’re the person I want to share this with" is a message they may be failing to properly convey.

"I feel safe to share this part of me with you."

"I revel in our connection."

Sometimes they simply do not have the language, but the meaning could come alive in the actions they communicate to you with, when you learn the language they are speaking.

In mature relationships, it is not simply about getting what one wants but finding successful ways of communicating the beauty of what happens inside of ourselves when we witness the other.

Lovers hopefully create space for each other’s love fantasies to become rich lived experiences and a cultivation of mutual joy. Ideally, some might even have the ability to mutually create love fantasies together that blossom because of the connection they have with each other. Manifesting love fantasies that exist BECAUSE they choose to show up together, not just for the other.

How compatible our personal fantasies are with the reality of the other is important.

It determines the level of intention that must go into actualizing a fantasy. Whether that’s a massage after dinner while watching a film, time in the garden where one tends to flowers as the other paints, or an illicit, all-night, poolside lovemaking session staring at moonlight breaking on the surface of the water in Mykonos. The abilities and limitations of each individual and the environment determine what can and does happen when attempts to make the fantasies realities occur. Do I have working hands and a movie to watch after dinner? Do we have a garden to engage our hobbies in and the materials and time to do this together? Can I plot the course of the moon such that on vacation in Greece there is a sneaky spot to have sex while the moon is correctly positioned over water during the night?

—

"If they wanted to, they would."

I love this saying–... because it’s hilariously reductive. When you want to, do you? Do you wear your heart on your sleeve, or do you hide it in a box? Have you been conditioned to take appropriate actions at appropriate times? And what’s appropriate when you’re not sure what the rules are?

As an adult, the most mature answer is probably "discuss our boundaries and establish some agreements, making sure we have space to adapt as life changes." But based on the grievances of so many, this isn’t the case for them.

Not when it matters.

And certainly not frequently enough to make this a waste of time to write.

Beyond that, social media and pop culture tend to err on the side of avoiding vulnerability and "simping." But if you take the risk, vulnerability shows you what this person does when you give them an opportunity for intimacy. If you have the maturity to move as gradually as allows you confidence in your assessments, even if it doesn’t work out, you have so much more capacity for clarity.

And speaking of clarity:

It seems to be part of the current zeitgeist, but we’re starting to recognize and discuss how people often don’t mean the same thing when they use the word “love.”

Some people are saying, "I would do anything for you," and of course, they mean "within reason." Others are literally expressing that they might commit murder or plead guilty to protect you if you were the one to do it. They would literally do anything for you, regardless of the ethics. Perhaps misguided sometimes, but powerful in its own way. Some mean that they will do whatever they believe is right for you. Some of them mean that they couldn’t imagine what is right for you is not right for them. Perhaps codependently. Perhaps because they have faith that the only way to love you is to absolutely accept you as you are, even if that means letting you go.

Forget not meaning the same thing for a moment and consider: Some may not even really understand what they’re saying when they suggest that they love someone.

Do they love how that person makes them feel?

Do they find some heretofore unfelt peace that they did not know they could feel before they met the focus of their affections?

Or maybe it’s excitement and passion they haven’t felt in years or have never felt before?

Perhaps it’s something that can’t even be articulated.

Maybe for  now obvious reasons, I like to suggest that before people run around looking for others to fulfill our need and desire for love, it’s important to be open to realizing we don’t and maybe cannot know everything we need to know about love. And maybe that infinite potential for discovery of ourselves, our lovers, and our relationships as they grow and change is beautiful. That maybe this problem of not having or getting what we want is not a punishment for some failing… but an invitation to a new kind of greatness only courageously loving ourselves and others can bring.

I’m blessed to be at a point in my life where more often than not, I do not feel bereft of love or connection. I’m at a point where I truly know I have beautiful love in my life, for myself and from others, even if on rare occasions I do not feel it. When I have found myself feeling disconnected from that, I ask myself questions. I want to offer them to you if there’s even a remote chance that you experience deeper or more fulfilling love for even just their consideration:

What am I actually looking for, and can I confidently articulate it for another or recognize it in them? Do my actions contribute to preserving the relationships my needs are met in, or are my habits and actions self-destructive?

Am I looking to give love, or am I looking to receive love? Am I comfortable with the realities that come with actually getting what I think I want?

Do I know how to experience love in solitude or with distance? Am I at risk of acting/operating from a place of desperation?

Do I know what I want for myself (is it even a question of love)? Will I take steps to experience it, or am I resigned to helplessness?

Considering the love landscape of my life, am I ok with my realities and my limitations?

Do I trust and understand how my partner (if I have one) perceives themselves through these same questions?

Of course, one doesn’t need to have answers to any of those questions.

Life doesn’t force us to be considerate of ourselves or others. And some people will be rewarded or punished for that on communal or cosmic levels, and we have to be ok with that for them, or torment ourselves over the concept of fairness–... which is a topic for another time…

But what are we committing to, or asking others to commit to, if we don’t have the capacity to communicate clearly with the people we are intimate with, whether it’s physically, emotionally, or spiritually? Whether this is a friend, lover, or relative? Trying to get a father to be the dad one needed and not simply the provider they were obligated to be(some failing this as well) has led to many broken hearts.

It’s helpful to stop and evaluate the relationships we have and the way we are going about making sure that we are capable of experiencing mutual fulfillment, that we are engaging with affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and compassion. Do we understand our own internal experiences? Do we have unresolved trauma? Do we have mental or emotional conditions that cause us not to act in our own best interest? Are we reaping the fruits of spiritual or therapeutic practices and unsure how to embrace that change? Are we trying to protect our inner peace from others or to force them to have that experience? Are we willing to wait for the ones who share our values, or are we engaging in snobbery because we’re “better” than those people?

I know I ask a lot of questions. And I’m not sorry about it. The deep motivation of my inner child is curiosity. I refuse to disconnect from that, and it serves me well. I do it for every child whose parents, school, or community is in the process of dissuading them from cultivating it. We don’t have an obligation to “know” who we are. In many ways, we can’t. But it’s a beautiful gift to discover who we might be. And if you take time to sit with your own questions, you’ll probably live a life full of serendipitous discoveries. So if you’re out of practice, I offer you mine.

Some of mine are clearly not for you, but for some of them, I can’t help but believe life put me through something just so you might have the chance to see it or share it with the person who needs it.

So, quite unapologetically, here are still more questions.

This next set of questions helps me personally when I am trying to figure out if I’m loving "unconditionally," by which I mean I feel entitled to figure out what a loving action honestly looks like from my perspective, but I’m not unduly attached to the outcome. I am entitled to my actions, but not their fruits. I remind myself of this whenever I slip into being tempted to allow myself attachment to outcomes that might rob me of joy or peace if things don’t go how I’d hope:

Am I looking to give love, or to receive it?

Am I looking to give AS they wish to receive? Do I expect gratitude and why? Were their wishes/preferences/needs considered?

Am I looking to receive their truth? Is their truth capable of being received as a kind of gift (from them or life), or do I expect/demand deceptions that fulfill my desires/needs without respect to their own other’s truths or reality?

This is about to get a little woo... but bear with me.

Some of us think our love language is words of affirmation, but actually, it’s quality time with conversation. In a relationship fraught with struggles, we sometimes discover that honest communication becomes difficult... And then even the idea of trying to communicate becomes exhausting.

Communicating costs energy. Deception costs even more. And maintaining deceptions creates perpetual stress. It activates the sympathetic nervous system and causes us to produce more cortisol. We do not owe anyone communication, truthful or deceptive. We really don’t owe anyone anything. Not truly. But if we want to have healthful experiences of ourselves and others, we must choose truthfulness. People naturally do what makes sense to them, and lying and deception are what make sense when it’s believed the value of the lie is worth the cost and the risk. When we delude ourselves and buy into falsities, we don’t just erode our integrity, but our quality of life. And to make it less taxing, we likely subconsciously prime ourselves to create and maintain connections that contribute to making that easier.

The reason this is going to sound a little woo is that I don’t have irrefutable evidence for it. It’s intuitive. But in the way that I realized that if I want to be an honest person, I have to make sure I don’t deceive myself… I noticed that if I am honest with life, life is honest with me. When I tell myself that I want to be joyful, I become aware of the things in my life that don’t bring me joy... And then I have to take responsibility for dealing with them. And so when we are in relationships where we feel like we can’t tell the truth or are being deceived, not addressing it directly is corrosive to the foundation if that foundation has anything to do with trust.

If you have ever witnessed or been party to a codependent relationship, with a parent perhaps, you likely understand. Walking on eggshells can be exhausting because of how much extra processing one has to do. This can become incredibly toxic to our nervous system and bleed into other areas of life. The erosion of boundaries in one place can cause us subconsciously to prime ourselves to accept it in other places... or even to build elements of our existence around maintaining the connection at unreasonable costs... becoming what they want and need from you, to survive. We may, on a conscious level, not realize we’re doing this because fear is fear. And fear originated to keep living beings alive. It is primal and base. But it is necessary and beautiful. When shameful behavior could lead to exile, which could be a death sentence, it was of deathly importance to know the rules and be accepted. Now we might focus on acceptance at all costs as if our life depends on it, even when it most certainly doesn’t. This is the experience of having unconditional relationships with conditional love (where love might be care or provision). An example would be a thought like, “she’s always going to be my mother, so she has to be part of my life whether or not it’s healthy for either of us.”

But

Consider that love is unconditional.

That all “relationship” in and of itself is conditional. Even being strangers is a conditional relationship. Consider that if love could exist unconditionally for any one thing in your heart, then in order for that to be true, all things must be loved unconditionally.

If this isn’t immediately clear, or even something you can accept, that’s ok. It’s a thing that some people seem to have been born knowing, some believe after a visit to a shaman, and honestly– some find on drugs, which are sometimes bad, m’kay? Some find it between the sheets or in the eyes of a child. Some find it meditating or in a therapist’s chair.

And some never find it. And that’s ok. 

But it follows a logic that requires opting into certain beliefs about the nature of reality, namely those that support that all things are unified as part of a greater thing. As all-encompassing as you can fathom. And once you get there, you likely recognize, sometimes immediately, sometimes not... that if they are, all your hatred is on some level a form of self-rejection.

And this is why discernment is key:

Recognizing that sometimes love is closeness and intimacy... and sometimes love is space for the other to grow, make their own mistakes, and learn their own lessons...

Recognizing that sometimes love is even making peace with the need for violence. Embracing, appreciating, and honoring every single thing that dies so that you can persist. That suffered at your hands so that you could learn. And trying to do better on behalf of the sacrifices they may not have willingly made. To respect what you take by being generous to everything else. And perhaps in this way life has woven into us a need for humility and grace.

I know this started with the concept of the "love fantasy,"

But the gift I hope you’ve walked away with is a fuller connection to your capacity for love as a reality.

If this helped you at all, I’d be honored if you shared it. And if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. I hope the questions offered find you as a timeless gift. They have sweetened, deepened, and healed the love in my life, and I hope they will forever do that for you.

Beyond Objectification: Exploring the Complexity of Sex and Humanity

I met a circus performer who wanted to create a piece about what it is to be sexualized and it reminded me of something I wrote a couple years ago. I told myself I would go back to it, and never did. So, firstly I’d like to thank Sydney, because without her, you likely might not be seeing this:

I wanted to write about sexual objectification, but I feel like I can’t really do that without talking about what sex is.

What is sex? 

“Sex is where babies come from.” 

Birds do it, bees do it,

then the bees help the plants do it. 

Sex is the genesis of complex life. It turns a uterus into the portal through which new consciousness arises. It allows two cells, under the correct circumstances and consequence cascade, to become many millions of cells, unified into a series of singular experiences. 

Nurtured appropriately, they become many trillions of cells that will consume other life and generate new experiences that even more life may witness. And these trillions of cells with their specialized roles will form a body - a body working in unison to create an experience so complex that it is likely impossible to fully understand. And that body will reconstitute the matter of this earth into the forms and fuels that will allow an awareness to turn energies and frequencies into pleasure, pain, and concepts of beauty. These forms can turn light to art, chemicals to tastes and smells, and vibrations to heat, sound, and sensation. We may hear music, and maybe we will dance. It will turn our witnessing into fear, anger, and love. We will meet strangers one day, perhaps after thousands of days have passed, and we will decide we don’t want to face the days to come without them. Or perhaps we will be the reason that they do not see another.

Sex drives human existence. We persist because things procreate. Because they have fucked and they will continue to do so. And as time has passed, our awareness around sex has shifted. As our understanding of what it is to be human changes, so too do our attitudes towards sex.

If we believe that a god cares about marriage, we may feel extreme shame and guilt over acting on sexual desires... or even simply having them. Homosexuality occurs in nature but, because of religious law, is punishable by imprisonment or death in some places. Some might have social or political motivations for sexual activity. For one wave of feminism, promiscuity and sex positivity were a symbol of liberation and rebellion. For some, it’s an economic strategy to be selected, whether by one person or by many. Whether an unwed woman from certain societies or eras needs to make a good match or a sex worker needs clients. For some, it’s experienced as essential to bonding. For others, it’s seen as a necessary evil. Still, there are the abstinent and celibate who might find emotional desolation or spiritual connection without sex. There are nuances to the conscious and unconscious understandings of what sex is and can be, for at least as many people as there are to have them.

So where does objectification come in?

One version of objectification invokes how a person really understands anything.

Objectification used to mean concretizing the abstract. Now it also means degrading someone or something’s purpose to its utility. This is problematic in the sense that this word creates loaded language. Humans understand the world through constructs. Constructs are a form of objectification. We simplify things in order to know how to interact with them.

Human constructs are immensely complex as well as complicated. Complex in the sense that there are many interconnected parts. Complicated in the sense that how each part actually relates to the others requires not just information but intuition to grasp. The phenomena in question, the observers of it, their interpretations of it... arguments for or against its very existence and the consequences of interacting with the phenomenon all play a part. How valuable a construct is in helping us understand or engage with the actual reality we are witnessing usually determines its longevity.

(It’s one thing to recognize colors; it’s another to create art that speaks to others’ spirits like it’s your job. It’s one thing to love the art you make, and another entirely to have it critiqued by people whose opinions are respected that happen to hate your guts. It’s one thing to tell someone what a color is scientifically, it’s another to teach a course on how to use it to trick the eye into seeing wondrous things to people who did not think they could be artists.) Hopefully the metaphor is not too extended.

The reason objectification is so fraught and perilous when it comes to social interactions is that we take it for granted. Someone is paid to wait on you at the restaurant. Someone is paid to do your nails at the salon. Their worth is treated as the quality of their service, but we hopefully recognize it’s so much more. Their character, care, integrity, and patience make it so that our experiences can leave us feeling like a business is our friend, or that we are nothing but a paycheck. The objectification goes both ways… and frequently if not always, it’s harmful. No matter what, something is lost.

When we lived in tribes and villages, every human wore multiple hats. We couldn’t see someone as just a shitty plumber or a rude waitress. They hunted with someone we knew. They helped tend the children. They built a barn or made the best elk jerky. The service industry was not an industry. We as communities served each other. And as the spirit of this dies, we wound our humanity.

To objectify a person is to degrade them, from a whole human at best, and from a spiritual being whom the divine witnesses you through at worst. Even if you’re not spiritual, it still sucks.

And if you don’t have to think about it frequently, you might be the one doing it. To engage with others as though the experience doesn’t matter. To treat them as replaceable, usable. To treat them as property. To act as though they are allowed to or deserve to be used, abused, or violated. In the western world, this is most intensely done to women and people of color, and media and socialization can prime children for it to happen before they’re even grown. Objectification happens when you feel like you are excused from respecting their humanity.

When we talk about sexual objectification, we’re talking about engaging in this way to make their existence, identity, and value equal to their capacity to be consumed for sexual gratification.

We’re talking about language: “she’s for the streets” “you can’t turn a hoe into a housewife.”

 We’re talking about culture. Virginity and innocence. Statistics of sex crimes. 

We’re talking about the male gaze and the corresponding female vigilance.

It’s not enough that women are portrayed as consumable; they also have to construct their path through life in relation to how they are perceived sexually. To have a powerful sense of sexuality too early can be dangerous when young women are seen as a status symbol and predatory masculinity is celebrated. To be too attractive in the workplace can hinder your successes, and to be a mother or to have the potential can limit your opportunities.

Sexuality is a dimension of existence. Before in vitro fertilization, each individual only came into existence if sex happened. Sex is potentially beautiful. The desire someone can feel for another person is powerful. It can upend one’s entire existence. The potential for love and attraction to create literal life is magnificent. When the consequences of intimacy with another person are that bits of what make them, them, and you, you, come together to find their own potential for life and love and suffering and joy, that’s its own kind of magic. You do not know what you will get. You do not know what they will do. And until you’ve met the product of that connection, you do not know how profoundly it will affect you, if you let it.

To sexualize someone is to recognize them as a sexual being. To acknowledge sex as one of their attributes or to make them “sexy.” I apparently get sexualized frequently. I don’t always know how or why, but people frequently read my existence as sexual. It might be how I dance or my devotion to my body. It might be the freedom with which I can talk about sex. It might honestly just be my skin color. Even when I was doing youth theater (I was 18+ at the time), directors would talk to me about my sex appeal, and I would not understand what they meant or what they wanted from me on stage. For me, in the earlier parts of my life, overt sexuality was a power women had. Men were just attractive or not based on the murky preferences of the female psyche or how well they fit male power fantasies, which afforded them the confidence to approach and be approached. Black people are objectified constantly, and since rumor has it we have big dicks, it only occurred to me recently that there are a number of people who probably had that specific sexual curiosity about me based on this stereotype alone. I knew from growing up around white men that it wasn’t uncommon or even taboo for them to sexualize black women when women couldn’t hear, or even to casually joke about my body or Asian men and women’s bodies.

As a person who, for a long time, identified as demisexual, I’ve personally had an experience of discovering what it is to sexualize someone only after getting to know them. To see them as beautiful in a variety of ways that simply doesn’t include sexual attractiveness. For the things they’ve chosen. The loves they’ve cultivated. For the passions of their life that have come and gone. For their unique experience of common things. For their uncommon experiences that they don’t realize are unique. For the way that they laugh or dance. For how open their hearts are or how they guard what is vulnerable or what they love. For me to discover them as a sexual being is a celebration of all of that and more. And it is also a celebration of the body they’ve brought all of this to me with. It can genuinely become a holy experience to see someone as sexual. To be invited to intimacy with them. And to offer it back. And how congruent or disjointed that experience of their pleasure can be is also delightful. People who are dominant in one place and not the other. Playful in the bedroom but not in life. Good kissers. Bad kissers. The cautious and the confident. People who have one way of being in the bedroom and people who wear a million faces. And to recognize that the experience they can have with me is only one of the many they could have. That I can’t know the full potential of our own connection. And that I could never truly know them as anyone else, no matter how much I would love to step outside myself and meet them as someone else and explore them in different ways. Sexually or not. I will never be their sister or the mother of their child. I cannot be their grandfather or their childhood friend who has never given up on them. I can only be so many people’s friend in a truly intimate way.

And honestly for me, sexuality is only one dimension of existence. And it’s one I’m perfectly happy never to explore with someone no matter how magnificent they are. Being given sexual access is a thing to honor. Because even if the participants don’t consciously experience it this way, scientists have discovered that when a lover connects with us sexually, it tells us that things are ok. That we are accepted as we are. And if we fail to communicate in so many ways over so many topics, touch can say for us what words cannot.

Of course, that power is misused... but that’s a topic for another day.

For me, finding the nonsexual connection that says, “I unconditionally accept you, as you appear in each moment,” is the most important part of constructing any intimate relationship. It may be because I was celibate for a time and instinctively felt I must find some other way of holding the space and intimacy of sex if I wasn’t going to have romantic love as a part of my life, but still felt a deep desire to connect with others.

We frequently destroy the beauty of sexuality with objectification. In a western world where capital is king and relationships themselves can be reduced to another set of transactions, sexualization is frequently objectification. In a world spun by money, anyone who exists is likely going to be reduced to their monetary worth.

And for a woman, in a world where across the board they earn less for the same work a man does, what are we telling them about their worth?

When the only arenas where women are expected to earn more than men are fashion modeling and sex work, what are we telling women about their worth?

And when the rules of society rob a woman of her value for how sexually promiscuous she is perceived to be, while a man’s promiscuity in similar ways could be socially rewarded, what are we telling our children about equity? About what it means to respect themselves and each other? About who they are allowed to be?

And when we defend the status quo of sexual objectification, what are we telling our daughters and our sons? It’s clearly not that they are perfectly worthy of love the way that they are. And not that they all deserve to be respected equally for how they embody their truths, make their own mistakes, and grow into who it lights up their soul to be.

We are trauma bonded with society if we allow it to erode our sense of self-worth as a function of the system. If we say that it is ok for society to treat any person as an object, we teach ourselves and our children to accept this treatment if those circumstances ever come about in their lives. (This is actually a question of justice, but that’ll be for a different time).

So even with all the social complexity layered into our experiences of sexuality, we are still animals. Conditioned and instinctual.

For animals and plants out in nature, there can be clear seasonal and environmental triggers that dictate when reproduction happens. It’s an automatic process. And to be sexually successful is to be successful. 

That is what success is.

To be healthy enough to do it and to be attractive or seductive enough to mate. To have enough resources for the offspring to mature.

That’s what success is.

For some, it’s so cut and dry, sex is a death sentence. The male antechinus, some octopuses, some spiders, and many praying mantises die shortly after mating. For at least female ferrets, a lack of sex is a death sentence. For male lions, if they cannot find a pride, they live alone or die fighting to get or keep one.

We may think of ourselves as more evolved. We think our behaviors are less “automatic.” But experiencing your own humanity and allowing yourself to be programmed and conditioned not to think, and not to imbue others with the fullness of their humanity at every chance you get is an argument against that. To degrade another human to protect, improve, or maintain your social status is an argument against that idea. To treat other beings as objects, outside of the context of mutually consensual play is an argument against that. I can’t think of another species on this planet that can be developmentally traumatized by seeing its own kind naked or mating because it’s been conditioned to be so unnatural that the most natural things are aberrant. We do not just pay with money, but with time and experiences. With our psyches. We make endless exchanges. We pay not to see trash. We pay to hide death. We’ve made objectification business as usual and intimacy transactional. And we pay the prices for all these purchases with the fullness of our humanity.

And if you are dissatisfied with the experience, what you’re getting probably isn’t worth the cost.

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If this spoke to you, I’d love for you to leave a comment. If you think this would speak to someone else, share it. If this helps you say something you could not put words to, I am blessed to be of service.

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And if you are Sydney Billings, thank you for reminding me to take the time to say all of this.

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I wrote this for every woman I’ve ever known. For my sisters. For every daughter I haven’t had. For every woman whose hands have ever felt forced where love and sex is concerned. That sexism and objectification are the standards that they must accept. I’m sorry for all the men in your life that didn’t have the courage to stand up for you when you needed them. For the ones who simply don’t care. For the ones who believe this is the proper order of the world. The ones that the double standards are dogma for.

I am sorry for every time you have had to fear that what you are won’t matter in the face of your capacity to be objectified. For everyone who has ever been trafficked or abused. For everyone who lost their job or friends or family because of sex positivity or youthful exuberance a man would never be punished for.  I’m sorry that any of you have lived a life where the fullness of what each person is, ends up discarded for what can be used, or what is convenient. I am sorry that I can’t snap my fingers and fix the ills of society. You deserve to be seen not just as whole but divine. And I think the greatest sin I will ever commit is failing to honor that.

How Can I Trust You?

49 “She is good to people who are good. She is also good to people who aren’t good. This is true goodness. She trusts people who are trustworthy. She trusts people who aren’t trustworthy. This is true trust.”

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

How can I trust you?

Trust is a funny thing.

Trust is inextricably linked to personal truths.

Some of us don’t recognize that truths are personal. Even if we believe we know the "objective" truth with deep conviction, the reality is that this truth is a personal interpretation of a personal perspective on a concept or phenomenon.

And that perspective might change.

If you think you’re a relatively consistent person and that your views on things likely won’t change, consider this:

Have you ever met someone who used to be a devout believer but is now full of doubts? (Gnostic Theist - Pure Agnostic) Or who started as an atheist and then became a devout believer? (Gnostic Atheist - Gnostic Theist)

If we were to ask them at either point why they believe what they believe, they would have a distinctly different answer than they would have at the other point in their journey. You might even be that person if you ever believed in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

Somehow, more or different information changed their sense of what may have been an absolute truth and fundamental to their understanding of the structure of reality.

They are arguably the same person, but from moment to moment, their truth shifts.

They may not be tomorrow the person that made you that promise today. And perhaps their vow to harm you will go unfulfilled... Or the promise to help you. And you may or may not carry the effects of this broken promise with you. Whether it gave you grace or grief.

Instead of fooling myself into believing that I am not capable of anything another human is capable of, in terms of actions or belief, I made peace very early in life with the fact that I simply have not encountered the circumstances that would lead to me taking an action or adopting a belief. I discover what would make violence and dishonesty tempting. I make peace with the reality that the kind of patterns I cultivate are responsible for what I do or don’t do. I’m not a murderer or martyr today, but do I know what I would kill or die for?

When I tell myself what my convictions are, do I live into them? Appreciating the chance life has given me to honor the values I claim I wish to uphold. Or do I wither in the face of challenge, much less difficulty or inconvenience?

If I allow myself to perpetually make my choices based on convenience, who will I become when the immoral action is convenient? If I do not practice discipline, where will it come from when I need it?

If I am unwilling to answer these kinds of questions, what am I really telling myself? Is it that I don’t want or cannot handle the responsibility of self-actualization? That I don’t actually want to feel culpable, if I get caught up in the role of the abuser or oppressor? That I don’t want to take responsibility for my agency in avoiding/overcoming/accepting helplessness or victimhood? That I am somehow better than others, when I find myself in the circumstance of being the hero... not because I faced my weaknesses or ignorance, but because I am a noble soul destined for greatness?

If I reflect on who I’ve been, what does it say about who I’m taking responsibility for becoming?

So in light of that:

What does it mean to trust?

Where does my faith come from when I trust? The strength of my convictions? Hope? Fear? Whose integrity galvanizes mine? Corrodes it?

If you “trust” someone, have you considered what you’re actually saying about your relationship to them, your own perspectives, and reality?

• You might actually be expressing that you believe they are afraid of the consequences of breaking trust with you. (a punitive incentive)

• You might actually be expressing that you believe they want to honor whatever leads them to build trust with you. (an equanimous/reciprocal experience)

• You might also be actually expressing that you are fully accepting of whatever actions they take, regardless of if they are going to break trust with you, because you “trust the process.” (transcendent trust in reality itself)

People can flow through these experiences of trust and trustworthiness. Experiencing different versions in different aspects of relationships or even just different circumstances at different times of day. Are we cultivating transcendent trust, or do we stumble into it when high on divinity or drugs? Of course this is general and non-comprehensive, as anything that I write will be.

No model is ever the thing itself.

I started by asking how can I trust you? But I suppose we’ve arrived somewhere else:

How do I trust myself? Is my trust a shackle, a gift, or even divinity honored?

When I am afraid to trust, what am I really afraid of?

Love As a Fire

Loving people correctly is like tending a tiny fire in their heart. We all have these little fires to tend. However, if we tend them incorrectly, they can be smothered by too much fuel or put out by too much wind. Neglected, they can be choked by their own ashes or burn through all their fuel.

We can share our fires with others. By learning to tend our own fire, we can teach others how to tend it, too.

We can even help them with their own. For those of us who have had to restart the fire when it has been put out, we have the ability to share the methods of how we did that with those who are experiencing it for the first time. For those who have lived life primarily without this fire, even if we have as well, we can love them from the place of having that fire built. It may be tempting to put ours out to feel accepted or to dim its light to belong, but that temptation is worth resisting.

Then there are those who want to love us and tend to our fires. If someone wants to tend your fire, there is a risk that they will do it wrong. In order not to hurt their feelings, you might put in extra work to pretend that's not the case. However, each mistake is a potential teaching moment. Few people enjoy being shamed for doing something incorrectly or ineffectively, but many people love to learn to do something properly and even excel at it. Hiding the truth denies them the opportunity to grow as someone who loves you, and it denies you the opportunity to grow in the strength of vulnerability. Hiding the truth robs both parties of opportunities to witness each other's character.

Telling someone you love them in a love language they understand and accept tends the fire. Telling someone you love them in a way that truly resonates fuels that fire. Loving them through your actions, without feeling entitled to the fruits of those actions, allows love to become a prayer. Loving without entitlement to outcomes is a practice of unconditional love. If you can do this, the love you give becomes miraculous. It lives beyond transactional ways of meeting your needs through energy exchanges and exists as an expression of your own divinity. It is a sacred trust in being something and someone that life is happening for, not to. It is the capacity to take action because it feels right to you, not because you are compelling reality to produce a certain result for you.

It's not to say that any one way of loving is better than another or that one is right and the other is wrong. For those who cannot consciously feel safe with intimacy, love is anxiety-inducing and dangerous. It does not feel rewarding to share your light or your fire. And if you do not have the means to easily reignite it, or to tend to it when it is weak, or someone to turn to—people to safely and happily turn to—when you do not know what it needs, then why should you ever leave it in the care of someone who you cannot verify will care for it well? It is selfish of others to demand you do as they do when they have never experienced a similar precariousness.

To those who have lived a life where risks were worth taking because the community was full of people to tend their fire, and resources for feeding and starting it were plentiful—those who could even be a little careless with the fires of others because everyone would clearly be okay unless something catastrophic happened—how could they not be careless? Their privilege was to make mistakes repeatedly, without even having to learn from them. From their perspective, those mistakes are their birthright and not even mistakes at all, perhaps. If anyone has ever told you to “trust the process” you know that means that it’s ok to fail, and to make mistakes. To learn experientially.

When all of these different experiences meet, it is easy to reject that which is not like us due to the difficulty, discomfort, or pain proximity causes. Things that may seem like care to one could be an act of aggression or betrayal to another. Some incessantly tease out of love where others decidedly only have the ability to mock. And how we interpret or misinterpret intentions makes all the difference.

Let’s start with love as seeing the worthiness of a thing to experience beneficence, like a parent to a child. This, consciously or not, is the first love one is capable of succeeding or failing to experience personally. And whether it is experienced or not deeply affects one's capacity to develop healthy, life-affirming relationships with aspects of oneself, community, and environment. It becomes easier to see why one projects the worthiness of beneficence onto that which is like them if they have learned to believe they are worthy of love. It is also easier to see how many things can go awry when that belief in one's own foundational experience of worthiness of beneficence and grace is missing or conditional.