{"id":6333,"date":"2018-08-06T18:02:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T18:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.imagoafrica.co.za\/?p=6333"},"modified":"2018-08-06T18:02:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T18:02:02","slug":"our-myths-about-sexuality-by-esther-perel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imagoafrica.co.za\/for-professionals\/our-myths-about-sexuality-by-esther-perel\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Myths about Sexuality By Esther Perel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Esther Perel<\/strong> called on the Symposium audience to challenge the various myths, especially those about male sexuality, that get in the way of deeper relational authenticity and more fulfilling ways of navigating modern relationships.<\/p>\n

At this moment in our society, we\u2019re experiencing a reckoning in the relationships between men and women<\/strong>, in the relationships between gender and anatomy, and in the relationships between sex and power. Once again, because it\u2019s certainly not new, we\u2019re taking a deeper look at one of the oldest power-exchange systems. For most of history, men have leveraged their social power and status for sexual favors. And women have used their beauty, their youth, and their sexuality to access social power that would otherwise be denied to them.<\/p>\n

The #MeToo movement<\/strong> is about more than harassment. It\u2019s about challenging the vestiges of the old structures of power, because patriarchy doesn\u2019t just hurt women, it hurts men as well. Terry Real says, \u201cUnder patriarchy, we can either be powerful or connected but not both.\u201d My work is about helping men and integrating those two dimensions.<\/p>\n

Women have had about 50 years in this country to rethink their place in the world, to organize, to expand the definitions of female identity. Men haven\u2019t had that opportunity yet. But, to me, it\u2019s always been clear that the lives of women will not change until the men come along and get to do their own thinking and have their own reckoning, until they get to challenge the definitional void of manhood, and until we stop not touching our three-year-old boys because we don\u2019t want them to be \u201csissies<\/strong>.\u201d Even before our sons can walk, parents overestimate their physical prowess\u2014how well they crawl\u2014because we\u2019re already imposing on them performance-based masculinity, built on autonomy, silence, strength, fearlessness, and competition. This is toxic masculinity: the norm itself.<\/p>\n

So we have to continue to invest in helping women find their voice and find their power. And at the same time, we have to help men be able to safely open their hearts and show their vulnerability. Emotions are human, and we need to free them from the gender-specific reductionism of labeling tenderness and softness as feminine and power and robustness as masculine.<\/p>\n

In my work I\u2019ve focused extensively on gender and sexuality. I\u2019ve tried to debunk age-old myths and narrow definitions. At this moment, our main attention is being placed on the aggressive, sadistic, and predatory nature of masculinity, specifically male sexuality, and the \u201cpowerful men who harass<\/strong>.\u201d But powerful men don\u2019t harass; powerful men seduce. It\u2019s insecure men who harass, who feel the need to use their social power to extract sex.<\/p>\n

But this insecurity is old news. We know that on dating websites, a man needs to earn $40,000 more per year to look as attractive as a man who is one inch taller than him. This skewed sense of masculinity is societal. Men internalize it, boys internalize it, and the people who raise them internalize it.<\/p>\n

And that leads me to think about male sexuality<\/strong>. Do you know that 97 percent of all research on low sexual desire is done on women? What does that mean? It presupposes that men never lack sexual desire because men are always \u201cinterested,\u201d right? Male sexuality is defined as biological and female sexuality is defined as psychological. This is one of the age-old myths I\u2019m determined to bust\u2014that male sexuality is biological, indiscriminate, perpetually in search of an outlet, whereas female sexuality requires certain relational conditions to be met. But men bring major vulnerabilities to sexuality that have led me to understand that male sexuality is in fact highly relational, not at all simplistic and just biological. Consider the fear of rejection. Is that not a relational experience? What about the fear of inadequacy and performance anxiety? If those don\u2019t make male sexuality highly relational, then I don\u2019t know what would.<\/p>\n

Next myth: male sexuality is predatory.<\/strong> The New York Times printed a whole article about how it\u2019s predatory by nature. I wanted to say that is so not the case. What I see in my clients, in my audiences, everywhere I go, is that it\u2019s not the predatory nature of male sexuality that occupies men: it\u2019s the fear of being predatory.<\/p>\n

Heterosexual men in committed relationships often tell me, \u201cNothing turns me on more than to see her turned on.\u201d I owe my understanding of this sentence to sex researcher Marta Meana. The man depends on the woman\u2019s response to confirm that he\u2019s pleasing her and not hurting her. And there\u2014in his concern for her experience\u2014lies the line between sex and violence. This too is highly relational. Paid sex or porn are often sought out for precisely this reason.<\/p>\n

In contrast, have you ever heard in your office a woman say, \u201cNothing turns me on more than to see him turned on\u201d? No, it\u2019s irrelevant. He can be standing there with a full erection, and it doesn\u2019t move her one bit. If she\u2019s not into it, she\u2019s not into it. Why? Because what turns her on is to be the turn-on. If for men the predatory fear is the central erotic block, for women it\u2019s the burden of caretaking that stands in the way of connecting with her erotic self. She needs to know that everybody is fine, and she\u2019s off-duty from caretaking, before she can completely focus on herself and on her pleasure.<\/p>\n

Last male-sexuality myth: all he wants is sex.<\/strong> No, that\u2019s not the case. But if tenderness, softness, surrender, closeness, touch, affection\u2014if all those things aren\u2019t part of a man\u2019s identity, then sex becomes the only keyhole through which he can experience any of them. What comes across as his singular determination for sex is often hiding his true needs: sex is the only socially acceptable way to experience those feelings. If we want this to shift, we need to create a culture where men can express their needs in more than just the masculine code of sex.<\/p>\n

As therapists, we have a unique role at this moment to help everyone navigate the challenges of modern relationship<\/strong>. Our relationships are undergoing massive changes, and we can help people engage in courageous conversations and speak the unspoken. For many of us therapists, this may be the first time we ourselves are having these conversations. But one thing doesn\u2019t change and makes our work forever meaningful: the quality of our relationships is what determines the quality of our lives.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Esther Perel, MA, LMFT,<\/strong> is the New York Times bestselling author of The State of Affairs and Mating in Captivity<\/strong>. Her TED talks have more than 21 million views. She hosts the Audible podcast Where Should We Begin? and leads the online clinical training platform Sessions with Esther Perel.<\/p>\n

Photo by Sam Levitan. Check out more photos from Symposium 2018 here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Source: Psychotherapy Networker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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