Why do Jokes, Innuendo, Sex Clubs and Porn Make Some Men More Comfortable?
Men, when you exchange sexual innuendos, or tell sexual jokes, or go out to sex clubs with other men, maybe even internet porn sites, does it allow you to feel more comfortable? More normal?
When you carry shame about your sexuality, operating with others can allow you to step out of the shame. I call this the shame compartment because it doesn’t get rid of the shame, it doesn’t heal it. It just lets you stop feeling it!
This can be seen with teenagers who steal or cause damage because by doing so, they can operate within the definition of them as bad. When parents shame children throughout their lives, the children feel badly about themselves. When they can get together and be “bad,” they get to step out of the shame for a little while. However, when they get caught, the shame reappears. Then they either feel it, or become oppositional and defiant. Eventually most grow up and see that they can’t use this method of feeling better. They may then become “good,” or offset the shame in other ways. See Healing Humanity: Life Without Shame for more about this.
Men’s sexuality is shamed in our culture. Men are seen as thinking about sex all the time, wanting it, and being willing to use negative methods to get it. However, every man who has sat in my office looking at his style of getting it, or his anger about not getting it, discovers that there is much underlying this desire. Only the psychopathic or seriously narcissistic or very immature men set out to get sex without caring about the consequences.
It is a curse for men that they were turned away from their mother’s protection at a younger age than girls, and are taught to not cry, and be “strong.” It leaves men yearning for love even more women do. Yet they can’t reveal the tender real need and still be seen as masculine. So where does that leave them? Yearning for sex. Sex is the one acceptable way for men to want to be loved.
Men live in a state of confusion over sex.
First, they feel intense need.
Second, they feel shame over being sexual.
Third, they yearn for love.
Fourth, they interpret sex as love.
Fifth, they pursue sex instead of love.
Sixth, they are condemned for this pursuit and condemn themselves.
So, seventh, they climb in the shame compartment in order to validate their right to be sexual, and to want it.
Then, eight, the very women who would gladly love them, shame them for their interest in sex!
Men need to get together in groups and talk about this! They can set out to heal their sexual and other kinds of shame. Then they can access their yearning for what they really need – love. As they no longer need to go to the shame compartment (which only increased the shame) they can continue to remove their sexual shame.
WOMEN AND THE SHAME COMPARTMENT
Women biologically can more easily deal with sexual shame by reducing their interest and level of activity. A woman can conceive and perpetuate the species with no sexual interest at all. A man cannot. However, sexuality is confusing for women, too, because they must address being sexual with a man who carries more shame than she does. She has to figure out how to remain open to sexual desire with a man who feels the need to get in the shame compartment in order to avoid his sexual shame. This makes him distant from his partner.
Women have been encouraged by “experts” and the media to view sex as naughty, doing the “dirty deed,” as a way for them to override the disinclination to be sexual because of shame. However, while the initially intense sexual bonding to a mate brings on their sexual desire, getting married, or especially, having a baby, can interfere with their sexuality. These roles are best shame free, associated with goodness. If sexuality is associated with “badness,” it can become incompatible with being a mother.
Women and men can together work their way through these complications around their loving use of sex to make them into a couple. Reclaiming Healthy Sexual Energy: Revised shows how a couple can work together to heal their sexuality and remove shame.
