Relationship & Sex

I guess in the past several thousand years, we have been stumbling upon out human condition, and in the process, we have become beings reliant on pleasure that is external from ourselves. Given that we are, as a species, workaholics, it is hard to find time in our busy day to think and grow ourselves. I guess you could say sex is a quick n dirty way to achieve that, and a relationship is a tried and true way (if not a part of social norms) to get pleasure. We are also social beings (whether or not we are social by design is up for debate, seeing as we have evolved highly advanced speech cortexes and vocal cords), and being social has the propensity to lead to sexual encounters, and a method I listed above would be a relationship.

 

It cannot, and I am guessing for good reason (maybe 2).

1. There cannot be pleasure without displeasure
2. 100% pleasure causes demotivation and "slothness".

I refer you to the Risk-Reward center of the brain. Obviously, due to intelligent design, the body has to have some kind of motivation to keep living. We have to have some type of motivation to keep living, or after some time, we lose a sense of our purpose on earth. It is true that nearly all of our (maybe 100%) of our actions we presume will eventually lead to pleasure in some form. The actions that we think will beget us pleasure have some Risk to them of not obtaining pleasure. That is the risk we take. And if 100% of our life is pleasure, we lose sight of what pleasure is. And I don't know if monkeys have been on a 24/7 IV line of endorphins in some testing lab, but what might happen is that exact thing. We lose sight of what pleasure actually is.

I am tired and somewhat not able to provide a much coherent argument, but that's what I got from this tonight.

 

Dude, ever heard of pastor Murray?

He interprets the tree of knowledge, as an action. And the action is intercourse.

Keep doing this action, the more you gain from it, but the more you lose from it. But don't worry the line goes both ways. Where we fall, we can rise, and yes it is possible to know the light from making sense of the darkness. It's all about acceptance, and true genuine love. You will rise! Shit man, after thinking about all these things I feel happy, shit I love everybody! I had a dream, I genuinely loved a woman. We never fucked around or anything. We just existed together. I was her Adam, she was my Eve. But she made me happy, she helped me to understand myself. And whenever I came around to battling another demon, she was there to support me. Until I worked out all my kinks did I become perfect. But unfortunately for Adam and Eve, they partook of the tree of knowledge anyways. Same here. And the dream ended. Didn't know what happened afterward. But yes a true relationship is that, relation to each other. We have to understand each other to really love each other. It is lust that makes a relationship false. And makes it to end fast. Tell you the truth, I never knew a woman. The most I've learned about relationships is my dream, and what I've seen from other people. But yes, you can know light from darkness. And you can see the truth through making sense of confusion. Man life is so beautiful, I hope I never fall from this caffeine trip, haha...

 

this is really interesting to me, I feel like I was led into the exact trap you are describing recently, but it was actually one of the greatest relationships I've ever heard with anyone and I learned a lot about my self. I don't blame sex though, I think it can be beautiful and one of the most fulfilling acts we can experience.
Relationships decay like anything else will, but who would really suggest depriving yourself of love from another person just because there will be times when it doesn't live up to your expectations. As long as you care about the person you can take the time to renew it

I blame porn and pop culture more than anything, it gives us an attitude about sex that is depraved.

 

Some interesting points have been raised here.

I remember as a kid coming across a few magazines hidden in my dad's wardrobe. Girly mags that in my young mind would begin to create the idea of sexually objectifying women. This was all before video/dvd, computers, and now the internet makes the viewing of porn as easy as having an intention to do so. This has an effect on how we enter into relationships, and why they often become unfulfilling quite quickly.

By the time blokes enter into their first relationships (I don't mean to exclude women here but being male it is easier for me to see it from this perspective) they have, at least here in the West, on the whole, spent many years lusting over, fantasizing about, and masturbating to, images of women, so that in many ways, the forming of a relationship, while it may very well include feelings that feel like love, will often be about having sex. And as soon as that happens, which is usually pretty soon after, in a short time, those feelings that were thought to reveal love, may easily start to wane as the idea of having sex becomes something that no longer needs to be sought.

Sex is our means of survival as a species. It has to be a deep and powerful drive in order to ensure we do so. Clearly we've figured that out as the planet groans under more than 7 billion of us, but back in the day, it was really important to feel strongly about doing it.

Sex creates attachment. And if it's not simply something that happens between two people choosing to share their lives together, raise children, etc, then the drive just to have it for pleasure cannot sustain the reason for being together (on the whole) for too long.

There is something about the way seeking, wanting, and then having sex, affects us psychologically. Some never let it do so and keep an emotional distance so they won't 'fall in love', but this also stops them from feeling certain things. But for those open to all the feelings sex brings, they often attempt to fill the thing that is missing from within themselves (as vision mentioned) with what they can't help but become addicted to. The false love that is the orgasm.

This is why those who walk the spiritual path are often told to abstain from sex. I have done this many times in my life. But it isn't easy to keep it that way, especially if you are still amongst everyone, and what you put out, which can create the idea of forbidden fruit, only entices some women to want something they can't have (as it does with men) as they wonder why their feminine wiles aren't working. This is one of the reasons why many spiritual communities are single sex. Why Catholic priests are supposed to be celibate, etc.

 

I agree with alot of what you have to say OP. It seems like there are either different types of pleasure or different levels to which you can experience general pleasure. I believe the greatest form of pleasure is real love and that this real love can be found with in. IMO this real love is also a sort of divine never ending presence that is always there you just need to tap into it. I like how you compared love to a precious jewel that we must learn to mine from ourselves.

That being said i think experiencing this love 100% of the time is possible. Maybe through daily meditation to keep you connected to the source. You need to learn to experience this love on your own before you can begin to have real healthy loving relationships with others.

I believe if a relationship is built on other healthy factors besides sex and both partners are growing together spiritually than later when the time is right sexual intercourse can also be used as a tool to experience this real love in a different and beautiful way than if they were to just have lustful sex early on in a relationship.

 

Haha thanks for the advice... But I feel like shit without it...

 

First of let me just say how great this topic is, OP much kudos. The following is from a pure male point of view (no sexism intended,lol)

I find it extremely intriguing to hear other views on this, a topic which I have pondered over many a time. To OP, you see, I just like you believe one must be content with oneself before any notion of true happiness. But the question comes in, are you any less content with yourself if you share a connection on a spiritual level with another being? Could the connection of two souls not create an environment for your spirituality to heighten? I believe it definitely can. Just like finding alike minded people on similar frequencies are relationships, and I think this can help ones spiritual state immensely.

The question of sex... well, it depends in what context for me. I believe it is an act to be shared between two intertwined souls, where you can connect in a different way through a different feeling. To a certain extent, it is one of the many branches of the 'love' tree. Now the actuality is sex has become a pre-requisite on how some relationships are measured, sometimes more often than not, why a lot break down. That I believe is wrong.

This is why those who walk the spiritual path are often told to abstain from sex.
I can understand why casual sex is discouraged on the path of spirituality to control your 'kam' (desires) which will enable one to concentrate on the task before you (to achieve an heightened conciousness). For instance in many SE Asian spiritual practices (ie Sikhism), the idea of sex is only in conjuncture with the one whom your soul connects with, and is to be only for that person. This is something I truly believe in. Anything other than this seems to be false, never lasting and a short term fix, as some analogies have suggested a drop into a never ending ocean of want/lust. On the other hand with a life partner (and I don't necessarily mean in wedlock, but where full commitment and selflessness exists) it can be an extremely beautiful and spiritual experience, as will many things that you share with that special person be. An experience not to be longed or loathed for, but an experience to enjoy. It is wrong for someone to have quota on such a thing as seen in many of today's societies, the old cliché of having it this many times a week etc. Enjoy what you have with loved ones, it is hard and I too am in the process of change to not want/expect from others and to commit to true unconditional love.

Morale of the story is, keep your sperm for your lady and blame Rihanna for the next generation of messed up youth!

Peace and love to you all

 

[quote name='ddoublevision']I believe I have a rather unconventional opinion on this topic. In my experience, I have come to realize relationship are nothing but attachment. It is about possesion and not admiration.

I can identify with that but the meaning of a relationship is neutral until you apply your own expectations to it.

Most relationships don't revolve around love these days, but sex. And sex (to me) is grasping something that comes and goes. It has no ultimate goal except for momentary pleasure, but this desire arises again and again and can never be fulfilled.

Your making conclusions from a unhealthy perspective. "Once upon a time" the all of above was defined based on obviously shit relationships. So live and learn and be the healthy part of a better one.

 

well i agree with ur opinion for the majority of relationships today but i have to disagree that it goes for every relationship/marriage out there like my parents have what i believe have true love for one another together for 34 years through thick and thin and make a great team through this life thus far, I mean come on u really think its the sex holding them together for 34 years? no i do not think so at all.

The woman i been with now for 3 years is a beautiful person sex is the last thing holding us together in all seriousness usually happens most if we are bored out of our minds lol. Sex is not something to scrowl at sorry it is a beautiful thing there are times during sex were it is selfish but also times during sex were it is selfless.

 

its in response to the OP not your posts.

 

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and/or-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of informal fallacy that involves a situation in which limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be a position that is between two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be completely different alternatives. The opposite of this fallacy is argument to moderation.
False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice (such as, in some contexts, the assertion that "if you are not with us, you are against us"). But the fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception.
In the community of philosophers and scholars, many believe that "unless a distinction can be made rigorous and precise it isn't really a distinction."[1] An exception is analytic philosopher John Searle, who called it an incorrect assumption which produces false dichotomies.[2] Searle insists that "it is a condition of the adequacy of a precise theory of an indeterminate phenomenon that it should precisely characterize that phenomenon as indeterminate; and a distinction is no less a distinction for allowing for a family of related, marginal, diverging cases."[2] Similarly, when two options are presented, they are often, though not always, two extreme points on some spectrum of possibilities; this can lend credence to the larger argument by giving the impression that the options are mutually exclusive, even though they need not be.[citation needed] Furthermore, the options in false dichotomies are typically presented as being collectively exhaustive, in which case the fallacy can be overcome, or at least weakened, by considering other possibilities, or perhaps by considering a whole spectrum of possibilities, as in fuzzy logic

 

^ hey I like you lol .