What if I told my loved one that watching other women excited me? What if I told her that watching another man excited me? If I said I wanted to be powerless could she hear me? If I wanted her to be powerless, could she join with me in my excitement? How do you tell someone you love that for now, this moment, you do not want to care what is going on with them, you want them to care about what is going on in You?
What do we do at times like these? Do we hear our loved ones? Or do mountains of familial and societal legacy rocket down the slope between us? “Can’t you be excited by ME.” “What do you mean you like…?” “Aren’t we supposed to love each other.” “Don’t I excite you?” “Don’t you love me anymore?” Is hearing of the things that excite our loved ones a joyous sharing exposure of what is vulnerable about them, or does that sharing bring a distancing and destructive competition?
If I tell you as my lover what excites me, I am telling you, sharing with you, exposing myself to you. Can you hear me? Can you?
The Eroticist
Quite so. I am curious how you feel about the opposite situation. I expect you would apply the same principles in situations where you tell your lover, “I don’t like X.” You would expect (I certainly would expect) them to hear that just as much as “I do like X.”
So how does one handle the situation when two lovers run square up against each other in this sort of situation? What do we do when we say, “Watching other women excites me” and our lovers say – not in a judgmental way, not in a reactionary way, but in an honest, wise, this-is-who-I-am way – “That hurts me?” How do we hear them, and how do they hear us, when what we are saying is mutually exclusive?
This deserves two replies. Obviously, you are right that one should expect our lover to hear “I don’t like X” just as openly. But I must say, in my experience, that if the things you do not like are things with which your loved one identifies, her dress, his tats, her hair, their weight (dear heaven), you might wish to be extra careful in the way you phrase your comment.
As for the aspect of being hurt, expressed in a non-judgmental, non-reactionary, this-is-who-I-am sort of way, the first thing I would wish to ask is, “why?”, and be open to the discussion. While it is possible that what is exposed marks deep seated differences in how you look at the world and express yourselves within it, this discussion may give you both understandings into the other which bring you closer.
The Eroticist