The most intense feelings we can all get is through sexuality, and perhaps life is meant to be intensely pleasurable. In order to feel as though we have a right to intense pleasure, we need to be able to be free from how we are indoctrinated to be defensive about pleasure. We are all brought up in an atmosphere of repression, especially sexual repression, and one way to break free from this is to develop alternatives to learned defensiveness. (Instinctual and intuitive defensiveness is unlearned and arises spontaneously, i.e., the "fight or flight" instinct response.)

Instead of enjoying our physical sensuality and trusting that what we feel IS pleasurable, we often begin to question it, especially if we are deprived of affection and affectionate touching as infants and/or toddlers. This affection may be a kind of PRACTICE validity that we use to build a self that feels deserving of pleasure. If a kind of primary contentedness is lacking we may seek EXTERNALLY derived validity, namely others to CONFIRM that what we FEEL is, in fact what we feel in the first place. This questioning of our validity is our introduction to indoctrination. We think we HAVE to "fit in" to society and, or culture, when, if we only trusted in our own validity, we could have limitless pleasure.

If we all could allow ourselves to become less repressed sexually, we would have a better world. Often, instead of allowing ourselves to "plug-in" and be "filled up" we are prevented, and/or we prevent ourselves from doing so. We need to comprehend that the more we fight repression and enjoy our selves and our lives instead of "going along" to get along, we can maximize our energy. When we allow our NATURAL energies to become repressed, they must be redirected and the most common way we redirect our energies is through internal or external anger. Internal anger becomes depression and external anger becomes symbolic to actual violence.

Women are less likely to see the value in seeking freedom from sexual repression because women are more objectified and are taught from an early age to have an effect on others, especially men, and to have relationships instead of even HAVING a self TO relate to and feel. In other words, a woman is often reduced, limited, defined by her relationships to others and reduced, limited and defined by her appearance and the effect her appearance has on others. As a result females may consider themselves valid only to the extent that they are in a relationship to others, instead of being in a primary relationship to themselves. This may cause women to ignore, trivialize, invalidate, etc., their own sexuality.

B. Todish can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Relationships: Sexuality
B. Todish

MLA Style Citation:
Todish, B. "Men Strive for Absolute Sexuality, While Women Settle for Relative Sexuality." Men Strive for Absolute Sexuality, While Women Settle for Relative Sexuality. 21 Nov. 2011 EzineArticles.com. 24 Nov. 2011 . APA Style Citation:
Todish, B. (2011, November 21). Men Strive for Absolute Sexuality, While Women Settle for Relative Sexuality. Retrieved November 24, 2011, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Men-­Strive-­for-­Absolute-­Sexuality,-­While-­Women-­Settle-­for-­Relative-­Sexuality&id=6707605 Chicago Style Citation:
Todish, B. "Men Strive for Absolute Sexuality, While Women Settle for Relative Sexuality." Men Strive for Absolute Sexuality, While Women Settle for Relative Sexuality EzineArticles.com. http://ezinearticles.com/?Men-­Strive-­for-­Absolute-­Sexuality,-­While-­Women-­Settle-­for-­Relative-­Sexuality&id=6707605