Sleeping Is the Only Love

When my son pointed to his penis (I’ll be honest, it was more of a grope), my parents and sister made pained noises and my mother asked, “Why did you teach him that?” Why? Because a child who knows about his body and isn’t ashamed is safer, dammit. — Nicholaus Noles

ladybitchez:

memattbe:

monamade:

Michelle is a tremendously strong person, and has a very strong sense of herself and who she is and where she comes from. But I also think in her eyes you can see a trace of vulnerability that most people don’t know, because when she’s walking through the world she is this tall, beautiful, confident woman. There is a part of her that is vulnerable and young and sometimes frightened, and I think seeing both of those things is what attracted me to her. And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

Barack Obama from “A Couple in Chicago” by Mariana Cook, featured in The New Yorker January 2009 [Thank you aimdotme]

Holy shit. That second paragraph. That’s amazing.

OOOh gurl.

We assume that male sexual desire is so powerful that it overrides everything else, including friendship. One of our great myths about men is that lust invariably cancels out empathy. Call it the sexual equivalent of being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time: Harry, Sally, and too many of the rest of us were raised to believe that men can’t experience lust and practice non-sexual friendship simultaneously.

The truth is that men and women alike are capable of being platonic friends with someone to whom they are powerfully attracted. That’s true regardless of the reasons why someone can’t act on his or her desires. Perhaps it’s because the attraction is one-sided, or perhaps it’s because one or both of the friends are in monogamous relationships with other people. Sometimes the attraction is openly acknowledged, more often it’s something of which both are aware but about which there isn’t necessarily much need to speak.

There are a couple of keys to making a platonic friendship work despite the presence of sexual attraction. First off, it helps to demythologize sexual desire. Too many of us speak about attraction as if it were an irresistible and destructive force, like a tornado or a tsunami. If you’ve genuinely fallen in love with a buddy who considers you “just” a friend, that’s one thing. But if all that’s happened is that you find yourself sexually attracted to someone who isn’t attracted to you (or isn’t your significant other), it’s worth saying so what? We’re hardwired to be sexual creatures. But we’re also equipped with the ability to “override” those desires for a host of other reasons—including preserving friendship.

I was married and divorced twice before I was 30, and chronically unfaithful through both marriages. I wouldn’t call myself a sex addict, but like Anthony Weiner, was hungry — even desperate — for validation. The actual sex I had with women was less important than the thrill I got from knowing that someone new was willing to sleep with me. I was chasing affirmation more than orgasm. The thrill wasn’t in getting close to new naked skin, the thrill was in knowing that yet another person found me desirable. It was as if I were trying to collect evidence that I wasn’t that nerdy, awkward boy whom everyone had teased in high school.

Just as Anthony Weiner was more interested in having women praise his naked body than in seeing their nudie pics, I cared as much about being told I was “hot” as I did about sex itself. 

At the same time, like so many men who cheat, I did want a monogamous relationship. I was in love with both of my first two wives and hungry for the stability that marriage could provide. I just had no clue how to deal with that gnawing hunger for sexual validation. In order to “work,” the validation needed to come from someone new each time. I’d make a promise to stop cheating, and then I’d find myself in a situation with another woman, and my compulsive curiosity seemed to take over. As self-destructive and joyless as it usually was, it felt like I had no choice.

Sexually exclusive marriage isn’t for everyone. We live in a society that has increasingly viable alternatives to state-sanctioned monogamy. Fewer and fewer of us can claim to have been forced into something that we didn’t really want and for which we weren’t ready. That means that those of us who want to be and stay married need to realize that the greatest impetus to cheat isn’t sexual frustration or romantic disillusionment or even the easy opportunities that seem to come most easily to the handsome and the powerful. The real problem is that relentless craving for validation.

Full Article