101 the care of you

The care of you is a constant thing:
as air loves fire and ever seeks it out,
so heart, soul, and mind I seek you, feed you–
give you all need-deserve, all want-serve,
give you me —for when desire speaks desire
the beauty bright fire                   wastes nothing.

Practical Dynamics & Meaningful Purpose

You know it’s my suspicion that a great many men desire a Female-Led Relationship (FLR) for the sake of kink and eroticism, but if they looked at my life closely they’d see little more of either than any ‘traditional vanilla’ couple. ‘Course we’re not in an FLR for those reasons (in so much as the label accurately applies to us), so perhaps it’s all apples and oranges.

I’ve made a joke out of complaining about exercising, about the exercising itself mind you not the fact that my wife has told me to do it everyday (and told me on multiple occasions including when she made my New Year’s resolutions for me). So I’ll call her up before, during or after exercising and say something like, “people who do this for fun are either insane or part of the conspiracy of aliens trying to take over the world.” She’ll laugh and say, “yes but you’re doing it anyway because it’s good for you and I don’t want a saggy flabby man who dies of a heart attack at 50.” And I’ll jokingly hem and haw, and finally say something like, “Aye Captain, obeying orders.” And she’ll say something like, “Good. And you should. I have good ideas and you need me to make sure you stay on track.” (Yes, I often call her ‘Captain’, but sometimes when she’s delegating she’ll call me ‘Captain’ too.)

Well there’s a kernel of truth here: I don’t particularly care for exercising all that much and probably wouldn’t be as diligent about exercise as I currently am without my wife’s expressed interest –she’s always been more health conscious than I. But on the other hand: I certainly don’t really NEED her to “take care of me”, I’d merely find some slightly less rigorous standard of maintenance and stick with it because **I** don’t want to be flabby, saggy and dead at 50 either. And neither is she forcing me in any to do that extra bit of exercising (up from my standard to her standard), I’m choosing it because I know it makes her happy, because doing so feeds the fiery self that she is and that I love so much.

You know, most of the things that she actually tells me to do (which admittedly often takes the grammatical form of asking but again it’s about an understood dynamic) probably boil down to she and I having slightly different standards on something. We’ve just agreed that when this happens that ‘we’ll compromise’ by my ‘obeying’ her (fiery, willful, want, desire for her own) standard instead of my own –instead of oh say, me **arguing** for my standard and both of us ending up unhappy. Though again admittedly my opinion, ideas, and feelings are heard first, and admittedly we’re both certain that if I felt strongly enough about something (also admittedly rare) that she’d bend to my standard simply because she wants me to be happy too.

Perhaps a lot of this is simply about getting and staying on the same page as it were. Perhaps our dynamic is ultimately just a way to maintain mental and emotional closeness throughout more aspects of our lives together than the closeness we’d manage without this dynamic. Perhaps it just gives me a reason to call her up in the middle of the day and talk for fifteen minutes about something so uninteresting and mundane as exercise.

There’s a thread on the She Makes the Rules forum titled “sexualizing the mundane” which at first blush again might highlight slightly different motives –kink/eroticism vs emotional intimacy– but honestly I think of people’s focus on kink/eroticism as their way (path/manner/symbols) for achieving emotional intimacy. The kernel of truth I see is that the meaningful and abstract (‘transcendent’ if you will) experiences of love and intimacy between two people that we may WANT in a relationship must still happen amidst a daily context of mundane, material, NEEDS. The integration of of these semi-dualistic aspects (mundane v transcendent, need v want, meaning v. drudgery, etc.)  probably happens differently from couple to couple, to varying degrees, incorporating different and varying aspects of their relationship, and of course with varying degrees of perceived satisfaction. But perhaps the process of working out the manner of that integration might be more directly labeled “making the mundane meaningful”. Or “making practical life a basis for meaningful relationship intimacy”. Or something along those lines, and to this extent perhaps ‘kink’ and ‘vanilla’ isn’t all so “apples and oranges” after all.

Um, let’s see, my wife told me on Thursday evening (and reminded me Friday morning) to clean out the fridge and make a preliminary shopping list as she was doing the shopping Saturday morning. I used to do the shopping during the week because I wanted to spend more time with her on the weekend and not have her run errands after working all week, but she usually does it now –because she’s more naturally more health conscious, she enjoys making health choices more than I do, and she likes having her standard met more than I care about not having mine met. So when she tells me what to do to help her get dome what she likes doing I of course say, “Aye Captain” and just do it. But we still discussed the myriad grocery choices, ideas and planning for the week before the final list was made this morning and our conversation was probably indecipherable from any other couple’s conversation about such a thing.

Aaaand just now she stopped back in after hitting two stores and I can see that she changed the bread I’ve been using in my diet regimen. I might have made up my diet regimen, but just now she –without asking, without consulting– changed the bread I eat. Because she decided her choice was more healthy than mine. Aaaand she only told me to try it, and after I expressed my sincere concern that I mightn’t like it she said ‘then we’ll freeze the rest, I’ll eat it eventually and you can go back to your less healthy bread’. I tasted it and true to form I don’t think it’s as tasty as my bread, but I also think it’s tasty enough to eat instead of the bread I choose –because it’s not something (i.e. as a standard) that I care enough about to change. Especially when her choice means so much to her, when her choice has such clear reasonable benefits, and when I enjoy participating in her fiery, willful existence so intimately.

So how different is this from and vanilla couple’s dynamic? Possibly not so much at all. But it’s what works for us. I figure some people find more kinky dynamics to be easier for expressing their emotions and intimacy, some don’t, and some are in the grey area in between the spectrum’s poles. For functional relationship intimacy in the “making mundane meaningful” area, whatever works –well, works. And I think that’s the point.

Power & Passion: Partner/Dynamic Balance

This is the fourth of five in this series on relationship balance:
1. Symbol Distance
2. Metaphor Direction
3. Self/Other Diametric
4. Power/Passion Dynamic

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As Richard John Neuhaus puts it [in 'American Babylon'], ‘libido dominandi’ is “the lust for power, advantage, and glory.” It shouts, “My way or no way!”

This lust for domination doesn’t just characterize politics in the City of Man, it characterizes each of us. The libido dominandi is that within each of us that plots and strives to have our own way and force others do as we say.
~ James Tonkowich, Libido Dominandi: St. Augustine and the Lust for Domination (emphasis mine)

Of course power and passion are close cousins in human experience, we can see how close by looking closely at the word ‘ambition’:

Ambition:
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment

Synonyms:
appetite, ardor, aspiration, avidity, craving, desire, drive, eagerness, earnestness, emulation, energy, enterprise, enthusiasm, hope, hunger, initiative, itch, keenness, longing, love, lust, passion, pretension, push, spirit, striving, thirst, vigor, yearning, zeal

I might like to think of myself as a passionate ‘sensitive guy’ but it is no secret men often have their interior experiential want and desire for things egotistically attached to their sex drive as if their will-to-power‘s force of self were the very fist of their phallus.

It’s why St. Augustine called it ‘libido dominandi‘, “the lust [to dominate and] for power, advantage, and glory”. So it is I wonder if my interior “desire for” is comparatively merely more attached to ‘emotional requite-ment’ of passionate (romantic) love, rather than to lustful (orgiastic?) climax of powerful domination. In a way this topic could easily be about ‘sorts of uxory’ and the difference between uxory and submission, however rather than compare kinds of relationships I think this issue more educational about negotiating a functional power-passion dynamic within a single relationship.

For I don’t think libido dominandi is always bad (certainly not always “sinful”) in and of itself; the libido dominandi by another name might be Nietzsche’s ’will-to-power’, something neither moral nor immoral but merely essential about life and living. And if some women like a sensitive man, I can also see how some women find the sensitive man “too (emotionally) needy” and instead prefer a man with more ambition, drive and will-to-power. In fact such grit, moxie and determination is sometimes thought courageous, independent, self-reliant and oft idolized in ‘the rugged individual’. And of course, not only is there going to be a range of behaviors among men and expectations among women (or vice versa) along this spectrum, but there’s certainly also variance within any particular individual character from time to time – and such variance of personalities and expectations  within a relationship dynamic means (re)negotiation, adjustment and coping.

And if some men like a sensitive woman, I can also see how some men instead prefer a woman with more ambition, drive and will-to-power. I think my wife manages to minimally define any other person when she says “I want” – rather than forcing another to do it “my way or no way” she more often simply says ”I just want what I want – and you can do what you want”. But if I happen to like ”her will to power” more than “her power over me”, I can surely see how other people might prefer something further down the spectrum and may even experience a more dominating dynamic as something more intimate, loving and functional – for them.

Moreover what I might label my “passionate, emotional sensitivity” (or ‘emotional requite-ment’ of passionate romantic love) my wife sometimes labels with a simple “emotionally needy”. This mismatch doesn’t happen often enough to be a serious issue for us (though it can in some relationships) and when it does we adjust and negotiate: I find a balance of self and other that’s right for me (as does she) and each of us (with our partner in mind) try (re)negotiating our love symbols in order to attain a balance that is functional for both of us. And of course we don’t get everything we want right away and we often end up coping with whatever unmet desire (for ‘more of the other’ or for ‘more space’) as best we can. I always try to remember that she doesn’t always get everything what she wants either, when she doesn’t get all the relationship ‘space’ (or the immaculately clean home) that she wants (from me) she has to cope with possibly having more guilt and less freedom than she wanted.

Finding the balance and dynamic of power and passion that works for both people in the relationship is a process probably best approached with patience – and also with some recognition of the interconnectivity of these four different relationship balances. In a very real sense each of these balances are merely different perspectives, each highlighting slightly different aspects and nuances, of the intersection between two individuals in an intimate relationship.

Metaphor & Dynamic: ‘Pointing’ Balance

If two individual’s interior ‘balance distance’ between (love) symbol and object come together to form a relationship dynamic (albeit still yet with need/room for some negotiation), describing that resulting dynamic directly in all its disparate aspects can be difficult, which is why we use metaphors.

Driving, of course, is commonly used even in ‘vanilla’ relationships to metaphorically point at which partner is “behind the wheel” and is ultimately in control of where the couple is going, how fast they’re going, what route they’ll take to get there. This despite the fact that at sea the one making such decisions quite often isn’t the one “behind the wheel” – or that many “in charge” people prefer to have a driver and to make those decisions from the back seat in a more ‘driving Miss Dominant’ scenario. Picking driving as a metaphor, no matter how complex one makes the metaphor or how accurate it is, will only highlight a limited number of specific relationship dynamic aspects and only to a certain degree; a metaphor always remains an illustration of part of something and will never be the ‘real thing’.

And by highlighting some certain relationship aspects, other aspects are diminished. Certainly the ‘passenger’ ‘drives’ his own life and likely ‘drives’ a number of aspects in the relationship as one person actively making every decision seems unlikely. At some point all metaphors break down and/or need other (new) metaphors to better adequately “point” at whichever aspects happen to currently be under illustration.

Perhaps rather than ”Mr. Submissive” driving “Miss Dominant” or vice versa (I should probably admit I never saw that movie), perhaps they each have their own car, each driver making equal and individual driver decisions in tandem coordination as they move along together, perhaps caravaning one in front of the other, perhaps sometimes side by side (almost as if in the same car), perhaps sometimes the other in front of the one depending on who has better information about the area they’re navigating at the time.

Of course there are going to be times when they get separated, either accidentally or perhaps intentionally in order to rendezvous later. And it might happen that they arrive at a ‘stop sign intersection’ simultaneously from perpendicular directions (or in another example from opposite directions). In such situations my old driver ed teacher taught me to make eye contact and communicate with the other driver over who would proceed through the intersection first. Will waving the other driver through first be the ’safe’ and ‘prudent’ choice or the ‘passive’ and ‘submissive’ choice? There’s always the ‘driver to the left’ rule of right-of-way and there’s always the possibility these two particular drivers may already have some prearranged rule on the matter. And then of course there’s always the option of merely waving a thank you at the other driver (or skipping this entirely) and ‘aggressively’ (hopefully not quite ‘recklessly’) gunning it through the intersection, perhaps thereby dominating the intersection? or dominating the other driver? Or ‘forcing’ the other driver to take the ‘passive’/'submissive’ position?

Well once again, at some point all metaphors break down, and I’ll be honest up front: in this example I’m not sure it matters who proceeds through the intersection first so long as there isn’t an ‘accident’ or ‘incident’ — and if on some level such a thing as “right-of-way” doesn’t matter, then certainly there’s will be a level at which labeling people by such relative and aspectual ‘relationship positions’ will seem silly too.

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It is true that in both cars and relationships every person  fears ‘personal injury’ and the expense of ‘repairing’ their ‘vehicle’, or much worse ‘replacing’ their ‘vehicle’. These fears aren’t bad in or of themselves, but another fear we all have about ‘accidents’ or ‘incidents’ is that those we love might be injured, even fearing our loved ones’ subsequent emotional injury should anything ‘accidentally’ or ‘incidentally’ happen to us. And we tend to classify some fears as more noble because they’re focused on people and other people at that. Moreover when one has ‘too much’ self-centered fear when compared to fear on behalf of others, that person is usually considered ’self-centered’, ‘weak’ or ‘cowardly’ –precisely the words often heard in association with ‘passive’ or ‘submissive’. Yet clearly people can do the same thing (the ‘action’ of avoiding accidents and incidents however done) for different, multiple and even ambigious reasons, and a closer look at more than one aspect is often warranted.

For if in my real life driving I always wave the other driver ahead, always take the ‘passive’ or ‘submissive’ position largely (though admittedly not solely) because I fear for my loved ones, in my real life relationship I always wave my wife ahead, always cede to her the right-of-way, not out of fear, but because I passionately love her and passionately love seeing her go, quickly and lively, wherever she wants to go. In fact, I’m going to turn whatever way I need to in order to follow her through that intersection because I want to continue seeing her go, not because I am fearful of going, or passionate about ‘stopping’, or passionate about ‘ceding’ or about the ‘passive’ ‘following’ ‘position’. Yet even so, might someone accordingly, relativistically, relationally, positionally, label me (pejoratively or not) ‘submissive’.

And it is certainly true that my wife is more passionate about ‘going where she wants to go’ (obviously preferably with me) than she is passionate about ‘stopping me’ or my ‘ceding’ anything. Yet from another perspective (possibly about other aspects) this isn’t entirely true because I’m surely (at least) equally passionate about having what I want, even if what I want passionately is to be in the car/caravan/ship/whatever with her, even if my other interests and self definitions are more ‘portable’ than hers, even if we’ve made/negotiated other arrangements/agreements. My wife (who isn’t really interested ‘dominating’ per se) ends up ‘driving me’ (‘leading’, whatever the current metaphor is) merely because I passionately, uxoriously, wave her through/on/by the ‘intersection’ of whatever relationship choice happens to be current. Yet even so, might someone accordingly, relativistically, relationally, positionally, label her (pejoratively or not) ‘dominant’.

Thus I think there’s really only one thing that always remains important and relevant regardless of which relationship aspects one’s preferred metaphor illustratively highlights. If it is true that we ‘point’ with metaphors at aspects of our relationship, we shouldn’t be surprised our attention is on what we’re pointing at. (How many times has a driver pointed at something out the window for the benefit of others and promptly made a regrettable driving error?) Where and how we “point” is going to be where our attentions are, is going to be how we think about our relationship. How we choose to think about our relationship, even which aspects we predominantly choose to highlight, will shape our interior perception of our relationship and subsequently affect our relationship “driving decisions”.  A balanced approach to how we think about our relationships is important.

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(And for the record, in real life when we do go somewhere in the same car, I do all the literal driving, largely because she thinks I’m a better (=safer) driver. Whatever aspect that may metaphorically point at about our relationship.)

Symbol & Object: ‘Distance’ Balance

I might encourage her to unchain and release her interior kraken, encourage her to stop differentiating between loving me and loving what I do for her …

…when symbol confusion leads one to love power exchange instead of loving one’s partner, the resulting relationship becomes philosophically untenable if not functionally untenable as well.
~ OH, Monsters

And though many of us may be “addicted” to symbols involving behaviors less than physically or mentally healthy or sometimes to behaviors and symbols that do not actually fulfill the interior ‘hole’ [need] very well at all [too much 'fetishizing], yet when a symbol really works for our interior need and desire, it really works and we know it.
~ OH, Passion Addiction

I’ve written before about what happens in intimate relationships when symbols and their objects get too close, but I’ve missed putting such objectification in perspective with having symbols and objects too far apart.

The fact that objects are more easily dominated (used) than people is perhaps the heart of the “objectifying fetish”: I am so without objection (so submissive) that I am like unto – nay, I have become – an object. And I can imagine for some people the feeling of being dominated (manipulated, used) like an object (or the experiential movement from personhood into the “objecthood” of a “tool”) is an important part of their submissive experience, either for a more masochistic sense of dehumanization or simply for the meaningful sense of perfect use of thing/person (or other senses and combinations).

Of course I can also imagine that fetishistically having less distance between symbol and object like this might be accepted, functional and welcomed in an individual’s interior and even in a couple’s relationship. However for me there’s a point at which tend to feel more as if I’m an actor on a stage, too aware of ‘playing’ a ‘role‘ to experience the meaning I seek. This is why I rather think my ’electric’ uxory is more interactively communicative dynamic rather than objectifying symbol fetish and is why I believe I understand and maintain the difference between ‘being the object of her desire/passion’ and ‘being an object/tool that gets used by her’.

But of course on the other hand it’s about aspects in a spectrum with abstract poles and about finding and negotiating a range of symbol functionality (a ‘sweet spot’). For if on one hand there is the symbol-object ‘distance collapse’ of  fetish, on the other end there is symbol-object ‘distance mismatch’ of miscommunication, where intimacy or significance is entirely lost because symbols don’t seem to carry enough (or the ‘right’) meaning either among partners (relationship dissonance) or within one individual (interior dissonance). And if every individual is likely to have a slightly different comfort zone so also will every couple have a slightly different ‘distance range’ in their negotiated love symbols; yet what works, works – and when it does, we know it.

So in putting my “electric” response to my wife’s fiery self in the perspective of such a spectrum, an awareness rises of purposefully treading a balanced middle ground between symbol and object:

While I am comforted by my constant effort to make love symbols clear and transparent (without ‘too much’ mis-communicating distance between symbol and object) and by my avoidance of fetishized symbols that stop the movement of meaning from one interior all the way through to the other interior (because they don’t have ‘enough’ distance between symbol and object), still yet I tread with fear and trembling as I differentiate and negotiate a balance that works for me, my beloved and us.
~ Rephrased from Monsters