FROM HAVING TO BEING IN THE SEXUAL EXPERIENCE

by Anubhav Yadav Digital Marketing

A man sits up in bed next to a woman. “Was it good for you?” he asks apprehensively. “It was marvelous,” she replies. Satisfied with her response. He rolls over and tries to sleep. She, to, tries to sleep.

Instead of sleeping, however, they each lie awake, wondering in silence. In spite of the minutes of exciting exploration of each body, and moments of thrilling abandonment, something has not been fully satisfying. The woman may decide that perhaps “sex” has been overrated and the man may decide that perhaps he has overrated the woman.

As a couples counselor and sexual consultant, I'm convinced that this scenario is played out all too often in people's lives. People are feeling empty at the very time when they thought they would feel fulfilled. For many people, sex has become a substitute for the kind of fulfillment that works or religious conviction might be expected to offer. But, like most substitutes, it fails to nourish.

The key to the emptiness experienced by this couple lies in their use of the word “it”. “It” could be marvelous, or “it” could be a failure, but the living truth of the matter is that between persons there can be no “it” when “it” refers to sexual encounter. Sex has become a thing to “have” and like most things we have, it does not offer the gratification that is imagined. Things that we “have” may be temporarily, but not ultimately, satisfying. What has happened in this reference to “it,” is that the part has been taken for the whole, the genitals for the human being.

The freedom to experience release through genital excitement – a dubious reward for our so-called “Sexual Revolution” - has not liberated the whole person. For that, something else is needed. For that, the “I” needs to be present in the “it'. This “I” cannot be an “it.”

The “I” is rooted in the vast mystery in which birth and death takes place. Whatever view we take of what the “I” is or is not; in the final analysis the “I” is a mystery. And it is this mystery that is ignored when persons behave as if their intimate meeting could be reduced to an “it.”

This awareness of the mystery of ourselves as persons, as “I”s involves a total commitment to our sexuality that is far more meaningful than our practical commitment to “having” sex. “Having sex” is one of the most tragic and symptomatic phrases in common usage today. We believe that we can “have sex” as we have a meal, good or bad, but whereas a good meal can be satisfying, no one would claim that it is liberating. And yet, liberation is precisely the burden that we place on “having sex,” a burden that such an attitude toward sex cannot bear. We have the freedom to “have” sex when and where we want it, but we still feel imprisoned. What is missing?

When an experience is unfulfilling, it is because we are out of contact with the experience. The experience is not complete; thus we don't feel completed by it. Something is missing in the contact. Genuine contact, which means “with touch”, helps us to grow and realize ourselves. Incomplete contact diminishes us because it leaves something untouched. All living organisms need contact. Plants need to contact the sun, air, and water; animals need to contact food; human beings need what plants and animals need, and much more. Human beings are fed by much more than food and drink. But just like the plants and animals, they grow only by contact with that which is truly nourishing to their total being.

It may seem odd to suggest that contact is what is missing in certain kinds of sexual encounters. On the surface, it would seem that contact is all there is. In fact, the genital contact may be so powerful that it overwhelms the feeling of self and each other, and draws the participants into a momentary fusion; a blissful feeling of mutual partaking in each other's being that promises a deeper transformation of separateness into oneness. However, as in the case of the couple described above, this transformation does not always occur. In fact, just the opposite occurs. We can ask, therefore, has contact failed its purpose?

The point here is not that contact is not made, but who makes it. If part of me is left out of the contact, then contact is not complete, and I am not a complete beneficiary of that contact, nor am I a complete benefactor. It is important to understand that a person is something more than any, or all, of the parts that make up that person. You are a mysterious presence who inhabits and is, all those parts without being defined by any of them. You are not a simple sum total of parts, of “its,” you are an “I” who is someone, not a something.

A great mystery in the universe is the mystery of the person. If hydrogen were to imagine that it could be water, by itself, it would be not only foolish, but useless. Yes this is exactly the kind of foolish fantasy we indulge in when we imagine we can “have” sex without a whole person being involved. A person is a totality of mind, body and spirit. To imagine that a person can function partially is an illusion, and this is the illusion we suffer when we engage in sexual encounters that leave out the totality of our being.

Today there is very little evidence of this reverence for the person when we speak of “having sex” with someone. Instead, the reverence is for the idol of sex itself, as if we had ordained sex on its own with no regard for its sacramental nature, which is its power to connect persons to the very ground of their being. This connection of being to being is grounded in the mystery of being itself, and it is this connection that transforms us. Enjoyment does not transform us. Pleasure does not transform us. Orgasms do not transform us. Only ecstasy transforms us.

Ecstasy occurs when the being of one person touches the being of another person. This ecstasy occurs when the “I” stands outside of it and meets the other in the Ground of Being itself. If “I”, as a person, does not enter into a sexual encounter as a total presence, then I do not receive you as a total presence, and we have not met. To imagine that I can remove my wholeness, my presence as a manifestation of being, from a sexual encounter is to imagine that you can shake my hand without touching me.

It is commonplace today to remark that these splits between mind and body, body and spirit, individual and community, account for many of the problems that human beings are encountering of this planet. Many of us look to marriage counseling New York (In this city best couples counselor) to overcome these splits, and in this search I feel we are on the right track. While there is nothing as disappointing as the emptiness we can feel after “having sex,” there is nothing quite so fulfilling as the ecstasy we experience in truly meeting and joining with another person in the spirit of reverence for the total being of that person. It is in such encounters that we can know love. This love has nothing to do with possessions or obsessions. It has to do with freedom, with spirit. It has to do with giving, not owning, or “having”. When we give ourselves to each other as the mysterious presence we are as persons, we find ourselves not only in each other's embrace, but in the embrace of God himself.

It is my suggestion that we consider our sexual encounters as mystic encounters, that we take thought as we embark on them, and that we enter into them as we enter a temple, with awe and reverence.

For getting more information about Couples Counseling NY and Sex Therapist New York City. Dorothy C. Hayden, LCSW, is a couples counselor and sexual consultant in private practice in Manhattan, N.Y. She can be reached at 212-673-5717.