Intimacy; How Do We Move From Lust to Love?
Do you know the difference between lust and love? I’ll go with the hard one first; Love. Love is when you want to take time to really know someone, to care about how they feel, what they need and what makes them tick. You want to be their friend. Friendship is the basis of all lasting, lusty, good relationships. It takes time and maturity to grow. Lust is everything else. Anything that’s not love is lust. Lust is the emotion behind most human interactions and has the face of greed, trolling on Facebook, offloading on strangers and the like. If you have no foundation of care and face-to-face friendship with someone you are indulging in instant gratification lust and there is nothing loving about it.
This issue has been challenging for me. I’m a very passionate, physical woman and have no problem lusting after men who are very attractive to me. I don’t act on it; it’s just fun. My personality and values are all about love. There isn’t really any other material thing I lust after; unless I’m really hungry. then I lust after food.
That’s a good segue because food hunger is almost exactly like sex hunger in the brain. And notice how many people overeat when they just need some love, affection, and sex. We’re looking for a serotonin spike and some other juicy brain chemicals that make us happy. I know I am. Food doesn’t come close to making me happy the way intimacy and love does. I don’t even like bothering to stop and fix food because I’m busy with my projects, writing, chores, things I love to do! Why do I have to stop and eat? I’ve always been like that. I’m not terribly fond of slowing down.
Now we see a problem here; denial of human need when you know it’s not likely to be easily fulfilled! I’ve been married three times to great men and had several great boyfriends. I’m still not satisfied. They weren’t perfect or didn’t satisfy me the way I really want to be. They didn’t make my brain and body explode with orgasmic happiness, although my last mate Michael came close. He loved me…really, really loved me and I loved him. Love is the sexiest thing going. Then he died suddenly. That’s not helping the situation. Love is definitely tragic.
It makes me wonder about eating disorders. If you take that denial of the need for love, warmth, and affection far enough it would make your brain or specifically, the hypothalamus gland stop craving food. So the emotion of lust would be good at this point versus the emotions around deprivation.
I’m not into deprivation at all but I am sorely afraid of loving a man, pulling him to me, and pushing him away because I need to be alone with my ideas, my mind, my life, my work, and my writing. I don’t want to hurt him. There has to be some intimacy and some time shared with your loved one or they will go away. I hate that.
I think I’ve stayed in lust mode in my brain because I’ve lost too many people I’ve loved. It’s like a car idling. My life isn’t idling but my feelings about bonding in a relationship are definitely idling. Maybe I’m stuck in lust gear because it’s emotionally safer. There is no risk of having your heart ripped out and stomped on the floor by death and life itself if you don’t go into love gear and really start driving.
Men are Dramatic in Action and Women are Dramatic in their Speech
How many bazillion times have you heard a guy say “No drama!”? They act like they give women no drama. Men are over the top!!! Men get emotional physically and sometimes verbally. Their actions are too dramatic. That’s the testosterone and they put WOMEN through the wringer not being able to calm down their testosterone or my favorite, being so confused about how to relate what they want to us that they send dual-minded, conflicting signals. A lot of women think they’re lying but half of the time I think they just don’t know what to say…literally.
Women are more dramatic in expressing themselves verbally. Women are actually brilliant at expressing themselves verbally and men are FOREVER telling us to be quiet and stop being so dramatic. I fucking hate it nor will I obey. I find men and women to be equally expressive emotionally but in these two different modes.
Next time a man says to you, “Cut the drama” when you’re speaking and expressing your feelings, bring down the curtain on his ass regarding how his actions are overdramatic expressing HIS feelings. He can “cut the drama” too. Sheesh!
Heartset; Wounded Men and the Women Who Take Control of Them Instead of Empowering Them
I guess I thought I might be getting into a rut, defining myself by my work and my private practice but I’m now thinking it’s FAR more important that I focus on that than finding a new mate. I’m not lonely. I love sleeping alone and don’t wax nostalgic over a man stomping up and down my stairs and making noise and a mess in my home. I do like men as lovers (if they know what they’re doing) and friends though so that’s what I was using dating for. The purpose of dating is not for sex and hookups. Sex is no big deal and can be part of it but in no way does it define it, despite the man’s priorities.
But it’s a mess out there. Men are beaten down and have no self-confidence or knowledge to actually date a fine woman. They do hook-ups, sluttily, with women who will let them, risk STDs, decide which woman turns them on the most or reminds him of his ex the most, lets her chain him to a whipping post and hang out in her dog house and call it a relationship. If she looks good hanging on his arm that’s all he needs for his ego. If she gives good head he can tell his buddies at work about it and it’s even better. That’s the state of affairs out there. He doesn’t know what else to do and then she gets to own him at least for a while. It’s truly pitiful.
The princely men, or who I thought were princely men, are slipping through my fingers one by one because they feel they are toads and then act like toads picking up the trollop women. What do I mean? A negative attitude, negative posts on social media, foolish behavior like drinking and driving and driving in a car with someone who has open liquor, smoking, lying, stalking, name-calling, selfishness, promiscuity, and blame. Three of them now. Didn’t I see the red flags? Yes! And thus didn’t go very far with it. I didn’t fall in love. God no. But they all have good traits as well.
Other women who tolerate these men either take advantage of them and use them for sex and a distraction from their own lack of self-determination and intelligence or become their friends. Some of this could be the Pygmalion complex in reverse. Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” was taken in as a cockney trollop and turned into a princess by Professor Henry Higgins. These days, the beaten-down trollop could be Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle would take him in and help him out. Women are far more empowered now. Many men have lost everything, just like many women but the women have people skills so we bounce back better. We also tend to get custody of our children more due to the natural mother-child bond that fathers and their children do not have. Fathers can have a bond to their children but in no way does it compare to the mother and it never will. I know that’s controversial. The tables are becoming even though.
Many men are very threatened by women who make more money than them, are smart, beautiful and successful. They may then find a woman similar to that who is kinder and more vulnerable and caring and take out his rage and usage on her. He’s a victim, by his own admission and the big, bad powerful woman did it to him. Someone has to pay the price and usually the nice women who are compassionate fall in the trap. She’s the scapegoat. There could be layers of dysfunction and pain on the part of the adult wallowing in said pain. They haven’t gotten help or therapy or taken care of themselves. Maybe there is a good reason that their ex doesn’t want them to have any custody of their children. This could be either the father or the mother. Many women have no business being parents either. There is no way for a civilian to know the situation. The courts and social workers scope it out.
What is the lesson here? Compassion for someone wallowing in physical pain and self-pity can bite you in the ass. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man feeling compassion for a woman who is down and out or a woman feeling compassion for a man who is down and out. They need to save themselves and pay whatever price they need to pay to get back on their feet. And most of all, if they call you a friend, friends don’t lie. Lying is the worst. That’s life.
Heartset; Men Blame Women for Giving in to Sex if the Man Really Wants Connection
The men almost always start it up and expect the woman to control the situation so that a deeper relationship might be possible because the men need bonding more than we do! Women rarely get lonely; men do. Then the man needs to control his sexual compulsion and not blame the woman for the direction it goes.
The way nature works; once you start something with a woman we’re going to finish it! Men need to control and FOCUS their sexual fire, like the Sun.
“If a man adores one special flower, he must FOCUS his light in that corner of the garden and breathe. Otherwise, once the sun comes out, all the flowers are going to open. Don’t blame the flower for opening to the Sun. The Sun started it! You can always go behind a cloud or turn to rain! The flower is rooted in the earth and can’t change or move. The Sun can!”
Heartset; Three Types of Heterosexual Relationships
The only one of these that is a real relationship is #3. The first two are sexual objectification. But by most people’s standards, #1 is a real relationship and is considered prison by many men but socially increases his status. Really, any man who prefers #2 will say he doesn’t want a relationship with a woman and will slut himself out to a woman handily. I’ve had male friends tell me that if a man is good looking enough, every man prefers #2 and that a loving relationship is absolutely off the table with the likes of any woman. These men are true immature narcissistic misogynists but ever so common. I guess it’s better then that they don’t mate.
I will admit that much of what I’ve observed about female behavior is societal programming for survival. Nevertheless, I’ve watched this for over fifty years and I believe it’s time for us to make a real leap in gender equity and get past the first two objectifying roles I describe.
- TERRITORY; A married woman, the mother of his children, a wife. They feign love but it rarely lasts as we all know. They are using each other for security and to raise children. There is no real love, the male mostly behaves as one of the children and the wife functions in the role of mother for everyone. This is typically pretty bad for women and good for men. Women get less healthy and men get healthier is what stats show. The reward is the woman has her children. The woman is still objectified and their sex life can easily become either boring or emotionally abusive and neglectful. This one is the outgrowth of religion.
- Hookup; A woman, especially these days, is sanctioned and appreciated by a man as a hook-up, a mistress, a lover, or a prostitute. She then gets roses or money. There is no relationship, no friendship, no respect, no real love at all. There is no emotional or spiritual maturity on the part of either the man or the woman. They’re just using each other for sex. This is defecation sex. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go. They both function at the teenager level emotionally, indulging in their lust and not valuing self-control or bonding at all. This one is the outgrowth of the abuses of patriarchy and materialist society.
- LOVE; Two emotionally and spiritually mature adults function as equals in all respects and truly love one another. This one is rare but is now possible with the shift in the energies on the planet of late. It also underlies the Twin Flame 11:11 phenom and some soul mates. They shoot for living from their core self, have dignity, take care of themselves on every level and are monogamous. It’s not a possession, territory or defecation sex. It’s a true love bond chosen freely by both parties. He is a grown man and she is a grown woman, emotionally mature, loving themselves, no longer living in the subconscious family mind but the CONSCIOUS adult mind that is no longer dependent on the immediate family. This one is the outgrowth of Spirituality.
Women who don’t objectify themselves in a monogamous heteronormative domestic servitude relationship or a promiscuous sexual life feeding men’s sex hunger and apparently their own, with no emotional or spiritual involvement from them as an adult male, are punished or ignored. Her only reward for her dignified choice is self-esteem and sitting in her own soul. Likely, her exemplary work paves the way for exponential competition and jealousy from more timid women beaten down by the system. She will somehow be roundly punished socially by the endless followers who think themselves good people but are really skating by instead of doing the right thing and empowering themselves.
#3 is the only real option for people who value love and still believe in it and want to do it. The challenge is that you have to work on yourself and stop expecting your mate or children to make you happy on an emotional/spiritual level. Sexually, yes, it is the adult’s role to satisfy you sexually and vice versa or there isn’t much point unless you’re both asexual. Some people are and have a different motivation for a relationship other than sex. To each his own!
Heartset; “I care about you too but…”
I’ve heard this line from the last five men I’ve dated. I think it’s a MINIMUM expression of emotional involvement, fake or not to try to get sex. Meaning, he’s not going to have any feelings for you UNLESS he has sex with you. I’m not judging that. It’s very male. That’s how feelings come about for a guy…sex. They are a wall when it comes to relational feelings. Women shouldn’t even want relational feelings from a man at the beginning. It’s a black hole. As far as I can tell, they need feelings of lust for a woman or there is literally nothing happening. They may be into you on ALL other levels but if they don’t lust for you they don’t want you. From my observation, they need to lust specifically for your breasts, crotch, or ass. The rest is negotiable. That gets their feelings going.
The problem here for men is, they think if they have major feelings of lust for a woman there could be a relationship. That is the doggone damndest, dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. That’s what gets men in trouble and highly used and thrown by manipulative women.
That’s the compromise for women. We’re relational and intuitive and can know our feelings super easily without sex. That said, sex can ruin our feelings for a guy too if he’s too sexually selfish or just doesn’t “get” us or our body. My feelings evaporate for any man, no matter how princely he is if he doesn’t care whether or not I come. That’s just a freaking abomination to everything alive on the planet. Don’t ever do that, guys!
In addition, don’t insult the life I’ve made for myself by assuming that just because I like you, care about you as a friend and want to have sex with you that I want a relationship prison; either boyfriend/girlfriend or even possible marriage. Just slow down! There has to be some in-between space with a guy. There are lots of gray areas between, “I care about you as a friend” and “I’m very attracted to you let’s have sex.” Don’t assume meanings to any of that and run the other way. It’s up to two people to decide how things play out. You have to discuss it. Again, discussion is not a strong point for men but they have to mature in this aspect.
I think many men are most emotionally comfortable having sex with a woman they don’t really love or care about but just lust for; keeping in mind that they call that a feeling. Like, “I feel like I have to take a dump” feeling. I call it defecation sex. It feels great and means nothing. Generally, they don’t want to have sex with a woman they do care about because that complicates emotions for him that he doesn’t understand and can’t control as well as a woman can. It’s too possible the woman could lasso him without his seeing it coming.
Are his actions loving? Because he can say all kinds of bs just to get laid. I’ve had one good friend admit to me that it is SO easy to lie to women. Just tell them what they want to hear! It’s very easy for them to lie to women because we’re hungry for affection, even desperate and love flattery. We get NO LOVING TOUCH from a man. They are usually takers, not loving givers and that makes many women feel desperate. Women need to reign that in and get more realistic about men and figure out how to take care of themselves.
If a man says he doesn’t want a relationship but lets you know he sometimes does hook-ups, his values are wrongminded or he has low self-esteem. Either that or he’s lying because he doesn’t even do that! It’s no different than a woman who is all too eager and willing to do hook-ups. It’s very common. He’s ambitious then and trying to get something back that he lost; part of his ego, part of his psyche where he thought he understood what real love was. He has conditions on himself. He didn’t think he was good enough. He got hammered by love and commitment and maybe financially as well. Then he has unresolved insecurities from his ex that he hasn’t let go of. In no way is he ready to love a new woman and I’d stay clear. I would say move on then. He’s probably still in love with her if not based on facts or actions on her part, then to kid himself that no matter how horrible she treated him, she still wants him back. Women do it too with men but women find it much easier to move on from breakups than men do because we understand emotions.
It’s all a conundrum isn’t it, this bonding. But we keep trying.
Mindset; The Black Widow Woman MYTH
I’ve been accused three times, with men I’ve dated, liked or known, of being a black widow and it’s ridiculous and offensive. I am literally a widow (twice) and a single woman but I’m not analogous to a black widow spider! Black Widow refers to the arachnid female spider called the Black Widow. It refers to the action of many INSECTS, not mammals who inject a male, with whom they have just mated, with poison and eat him for nutrition. Apparently, calories are hard to come by in the arachnid world and in order to grow their eggs/offspring, they need food. There are a few scientific theories about why this behavior occurs but none of it crosses over to mammalian behavior.
Spiders are not the only ones who do it. Praying mantis and many other insects do it as well to their male mating partners; biting off their heads after mating. I wasn’t there when the arachnids had their meeting on how to deal with evolution but the propagation of the species does tend to come first in the entire animal and plant kingdom. Sometimes a sacrifice has to be made. lol. The exception among spiders is the male Wolf Spider who eats his female mate, so that does occur.
Getting to my point. humans are warm-blooded MAMMALS meaning the females have highly nutritious food-producing mammary glands for our offspring and very horny male mates who just can’t get enough of our breasts. As a female who has had a baby and several mates, I can vouch for the fact that we love giving it to them as well as the rest of our bodies. It’s an instinct! In addition, female mammals are known for continuing to be nurturing and affectionate to children and mates even after they are weaned! GEE! That’s pretty nice. Feminism and having our own money has not completely ruined our loving mammalian instincts. I don’t see women spinning webs and growing eight legs yet even if they do become more aggressive and smarter.
Interesting isn’t it? The fact is, female mammals have a huge instinct to feed and nurture the males not cannibalize them. The male mammals are very aggressive with one another, however. Of course, this is very hard wired in female mammalian brains to nurture their own family and even perfect strangers or their children! It’s a beautiful thing, so men need to beg off calling us black widows or being scared of great, loving women.
It’s all the more offensive to me as a very generous, nurturing, female mammal to be made analogous to a cold-blooded, arachnid spider who eats her mate in cannibalistic sex after mating. The men I’ve known have “jokingly,” said, “I better be careful of you!” when they find out two of my mates died. The truth is, all three men have been married to overly aggressive women or women who eventually decided they were lesbian. Again, I wasn’t there at the meeting but I’m as straight and as nurturing as can be; not a lesbian.
The fact is, my son’s father died four years ago today, December 30, 2015, from cancer all over his body because he lived a life of rage and cigarette smoking. He caused his own death even though his brothers scapegoated me upon his death. My boyfriend Michael died three months later from the flu which turned into pneumonia. That happens often. And with people who have weak lungs or are generally unhealthy, it’s even more common. Michael did not take care of himself either and did have weak lungs. Instead of compassion for all of this loss I’ve gone through, because I’m intelligent and confident, I’ve been blamed for the death of males as though my very existence was a threat to them. I deserve love and compassion for what I’ve been through, not blame, competition from women, or attempt to vampire my energy because I know who I am. I’m on this planet to help, not to harm and I need reciprocation from a new, straight mate.
Women and men do take turns blaming each other for each other’s demise when the truth is, our health and happiness lie in our own hands. But we can simply help one another when it’s appropriate. The black widow accusation is just another way for certain men to escape taking responsibility for maturing when it comes to bonding and honoring their feelings for a certain woman. Many continue in their socially sanctioned slutty ways of hook-ups and friends with benefits. That’s fine but I’m not doing it. Maybe they miss their very mean ex’s and they don’t want a kind, nurturing woman. That’s always possible but I don’t attend low self-esteem meetings either.
She doesn’t look like an arachnid to me.
Heartset; Love and Lust are a Two-Way Street
Both women and men love and lust. Women don’t just attract men with their loving relationship skills and men don’t just attract women with their constantly lusty energy. There are plenty of women who no longer believe in love and have just given in to the lust paradigm of hook-ups, use, and throw which is what most men engender. So the women just go along with it having experienced too many men who don’t seem to want to love or don’t know how to. The women are busier making money than teaching the men about feelings or loving them in friendship.
There are also plenty of loving, sensitive men who do want intimacy, bonding, and a monogamous relationship. The key is obviously to find the person who wants the same thing as you. And it’s hard for men to trust women when many women are very bitchy or downright abusive and mean. They don’t take care of themselves and are in no mood to be loving to a man.
It does seem to generally be true that men are very, very comfortable lusting after women and just going forward with that and wishing for the woman to cooperate. It’s also generally true that women are more relational and loving and draw men in with that warmth going forward and wish a man would cooperate with that. The problem is, most women will not just cooperate with pure lust in a relationship with no bonding and most men will not just cooperate with pure loving relational energy in a relationship with bonding. There has to be compromise.
The truth is men sorely, sorely need someone who they can express their deepest feelings with and feel safe; someone who will be their friend with whom they can talk. They need a relationship far more than a woman. That can happen with a kind woman. The truth is women sorely, sorely need hot, great sex that fulfills their physical needs with a man who cares how she physically and emotionally responds to sex. Sex is spiritual to most women! We need a man who will stimulate our lustiness! I have yet to meet a man who really wants to get to know my body and soul sexually. I’ve almost given up. I wonder if men feel the same way about expressing their feelings to a woman without her making fun of him?
I don’t know. What I do know is that a woman’s lusty self needs to be stimulated by a man and a man’s relational self needs to be stimulated by a woman. Then both of them will be more satisfied and turned on.
Heartset; The word “Love” is a prison?
I find loving others to be freedom. There aren’t different kinds of love as love is a unified singularity in the universe.
Love is expressed differently to different people based on social customs. All love has a physical connection and expression with it. We hug our parents and kiss them on the cheek, maybe hold or rub their hand. Those physical expressions are the same for friends.
They are the same for lovers but Eros is added to it. However, it’s important to have that physical contact in a friendship before sex. It just seems very dysfunctional to me to have sex with someone unless they are your friend first and you’ve loved each other for a while.
Of course, talking, communicating and understanding each other all enter into all of those relationships as well. But it appears to me that men view loving someone, anyone, as a type of prison. I’m mystified. Truly. Love is all there is! Don’t be afraid to say it, do it, feel it, or live it. It’s the only thing we truly need and absolutely cannot do without.
What we know now is guilt, self-loathing, perfectionism, illness and addiction wear away at your core of self-love. Self-love is being your own best friend, who you are and how you take care of yourself when no one else is around. Treat yourself the way you would your best friend. I do that now and it helps me feel secure in knowing my value in relationships.
