A Sexy Halloween Love Story

Jack and Jill (not their real names, of course) were both in their 90’s and starting to celebrate their 50th Halloween together.  In their first year together as a couple they hosted a very sexy, Halloween party inviting all their friends to come costumed ‘as their favorite sexy character from history or literature’.

Jill had read about Winston Churchill’s mother, Jenny, shocking Victorian London society by going to a big, Royal, costume affair as the prostitute who rose to become Theodora, Empress of the world’s grandest and most glorious Empire, Byzantium.  So, copying Jenny, Jill created her risqué costume, one made up entirely of strings of fake jewels (glass beads) including a totally glorious crown.  Jack went as a sexy sorcerer from a fantasy novel.  The party was a great success, pictures were taken and, thus, the first entry into their Halloween scrapbook was soon thereafter created.

Now, Jack got out the large, old-fashioned, leather bound, orange and black scrapbook and placed it in front of Jill.  Jill poured a glass of their special celebration wine, and they began to look at the pictures from 50 naughty, intimate and ever so love-bonding experiences which they had so happily experienced and created together over the years.

There were pictures from the Halloween, midnight, Goth wedding and party of their best friend’s child, where almost everyone was dressed in weird, black, Goth garb.  They reminisced about the Wicca ceremony which had been surprisingly spiritual and how everyone had cheered as the couple left for their honeymoon in a hearse.  Jack and Jill laughed and smiled knowingly at each other as they turned the pages and paused at a picture of one Halloween night that showed them so very together in their bedroom, lighted only with five, very saucy, carved jack-o’-lanterns which cast amazing, wanton, leering shadows on the walls turning their skin a mischievous orange color.

Other photos were from a nearby city’s gay pride organization’s costume party for everybody, which had been attended by thousands of gays and straights in costumes both ‘beyond the pale’ and beyond belief.  Some pictures were taken at the restaurant which every year held an after Halloween party, 2 AM breakfast reminded of them of the time they arrived and everyone from other parties stood up and clapped because their costumes and those of their friends were so sexy, elaborate and amazing.
Jack and Jill recalled with sadness as they viewed pictures of costumed close friends they had loved but who had since passed away.  They still were amazed by the New Orleans, French Quarter Halloween party where they had seen a woman dressed only in boots, a cat mask and holding two, live leopards on leashes.

The wildest pictures came from the time friends invited them to a nudist colony, costume party where they both went festooned in ribbons as elves. (Let your imagination work on a ‘nude, costume party’).  Jack and Jill hugged each other remembering the time in New England where they attended the telling of Halloween ghost stories at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Many other pictures showed them dancing into the wee hours at a costume ball; carving jack-o’-lanterns with their grandchildren and the friends of grandchildren; other super sexy times, in super sexy costumes, with dear super sexy friends; the Halloween hospital staff party were a nurse won the best costume prize by wearing only very skimpy orange and black bandages; the Boo-at-the-Zoo Halloween party for disadvantaged children where quite a few little tiny Darth Vaders were observed flashing their light sabers.

Then there was the long ago time they, with other Americans in Germany, gave a Halloween party with hand-made cardboard bats, skulls and skeletons everywhere.  Their European guests were very puzzled about this seemingly macabre holiday celebration; they thought it must all have some strange, religious significance, and couldn’t believe all the fun the Americans were having but joined in once they got past their shock.

Jill and Jack got a big laugh viewing the pictures of a dear friend who had come to their party looking extremely ordinary, until you realized he had three arms, one arm which mechanically stretched out stealthily to pinch bottoms and lift skirts at quite a distance.  Jack, once again, expressed his great appreciation for Jill going to the trouble to make a marvelous wizard’s cloak costume for him and one for herself as Queen of the Autumn fairies.  Even more amazing was the costume she had made for him as the Greek god, Pan, and for herself as a woodland sprite.

Pictures of another party where their blackest, dear friend came in a safari outfit explaining he, of course, was “the great white hunter”.  Then there was the time at a Halloween party where Jack and Jill sneaked into a closet to make out, only to find a unicorn getting it on with a fairy princess already there.  Other times of passion, after the guests left their parties were recalled, and they smiled at each other in the most intimate way.

As Jack and Jill went back through the many pages of their scrapbook, they cried together, they laughed often, they talked seriously, and they shared and re-lived great times of spicy and sweet love with one another and with those most dear to them.  Then they went to their special toy chest — where we will leave them now in this little Halloween story of ours.

So, dear reader, are you and yours doing as well at creating love experiences and using things like Halloween to help in that endeavor?  You can, you know!  You can weave together love, sex, intimacy and fun and in doing so grow your love-bonds and love-memories together most magically.

As always – Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
If your next Halloween was a lover’s Halloween, what would you want it to consist of?

Work With and Without Love

Synopsis: Intriguing concepts; Successful failure; Sacrifice and imbalance, Four factors most don’t know to think about; Healthy self-love; and Asking good questions for happy, healthy, work success via love.

How do these ideas strike you? 1.  Work is to serve life, not life to serve work.
2.  To love your work and work your love is to make much of life ‘play’.
3.  The best work is ‘love made manifest’.
4.  One of the healthiest acts of self-love is to find work that you would pay to do if someone wasn’t paying you to do it.
5.  With work, love and play in balance we succeed at life.  Without all three in balance we fail at life.

Harlan told me his story which, sad to say, I’d often heard before.  His version went like this.  “I did what my upbringing taught me to do.  I put almost all my time and effort into succeeding in business.  To accomplish this success I put my wife and kids ‘on the shelf’, so to speak.  I thought I would get back to them once I had climbed high enough on the ladder of success and made enough money.  I lied to myself saying I was doing it all for my loved ones.  The trouble was my loved ones did not stay on the shelf.  "My wife ran off with a guy who doesn’t even make half of what I do.  My kids treat me like the stranger I am to them, and I only have business friends or, in other words, no real friends at all.  I enjoyed my business success so much I neglected learning how to enjoy the rest of life.  Now I am rich in money and status but concerning love and joy I live in poverty.  Please help me.” 

Well of course, I and those who work with me went to work helping Harlan learn to help himself in all his neglected areas.  After some rather intense therapy and a lot of ‘practice work’ putting concepts and realizations into healthy actions I’m pleased to say Harlan now lives a much more balanced and far happier life.

Work is such an enormous part of most people’s life.  Work is also an enormously important factor influencing how well one does healthy self-love and healthy relational love.  Yet many people do not give these aspects of their work-life much thought.  There are those who sacrifice their emotional and their relational life for work.  There also are those who sacrifice their physical health for their work.  Some people actually do work themselves to death.  Like Harlan there are many people who, perhaps unknowingly, sacrifice their love relationships for success, money, status and other work related goals.  There also are work related problems that sabotage love which hardly anyone thinks about.

Here are just four:
*    Succeeding at the wrong thing Here are some examples:  Dean is a very well-off, successful, corporate attorney but he longs to be a camp director – he loved scouting as a boy.  He dreams of this almost nightly and his anti-depression medicine seems to be working less and less.  Janet just wants to raise her kids which is what she both loves and is super good at.  However, being a high dollar, traveling, medical equipment rep just has too many payoffs, even though it takes her away from her family for weeks at a time.  Next year John swears he’s going to stop selling real estate and start back to school to become a veterinarian, but will he?  This is the fourth year he has made this proclamation.

Sarah is a rising project manager in an upscale, big-city, healthcare company but her doodles and daydreams are all about being back on a Navajo reservation working with children where her life felt most fulfilled.  Each of these people do not love their work even though they are good at it.  Sadly, they are more likely than the average person to develop stress related illnesses, damaging alcohol or prescription drug abuse, love relationship deterioration, and an existential crisis resulting in what most people call a complete breakdown.  Hopefully none of those will happen.  Each of these people just may live unfulfilled, unhappy lives being successful at the wrong occupation.

*    Loving only work It’s wonderfully healthful to love your work, enjoy your labors, revel in succeeding, be passionate about the challenges and so forth but only if you balance it with other things to love like healthy self-love, healthy relationship love, healthy love of life, healthy spiritual love, etc..  There is much more to life than work, even highly meaningful work.  People working for important causes, people manifesting their talents in the arts, professions, etc., people doing fascinating research into the great mysteries, and people just enjoying doing a really good job at something they are good at — all can be in danger of imbalanced living because their work is so rewarding and enjoyable.

*    Only tolerating your work Do you ‘love’ your work?  If you don’t do you suspect you ever will?  Many people will leave a job or occupation they hate but will stay in a vocational situation they only can tolerate.  This often is referred to as being “stuck in a dead-end job”.  It is true that a great many people’s life situation does not provide for much more than a vocational situation which is merely tolerable.  However, as an act of healthy self-love searching for better than that and risking a change can mean you will have a longer and happier life, and everybody you love and care about probably will enjoy you more.

It’s always a joy when I get to help a person find the kind of work for which they can get decent pay and be passionate about.  It’s surprising how often this leads to improved financial success.  I once helped a couple who had been saving for years to change occupations from being well-paid engineers to metal sculptors but they just were not brave enough to make the transition.  Finally they worked up their courage to go ahead and become ‘starving artists’ devoted to their passion.  However, it didn’t pan out that way because in their second year they were making twice as much money with their art as they ever had in engineering.  Sometimes it works out like this and sometimes not, but usually the life happiness level is greatly improved.

*    Poor self-love makes for a lousy work life Let me suggest that people who are high in healthy self-love tend to manifest that self-love partly by going after work that actualizes their talents and in which they find enjoyment or even great enjoyment.  Conversely, people with poor self-love and its accompanying low self-esteem and low self-confidence often put up with low satisfaction types of work and less than desirable work settings.

People with high, healthy self-love know they are worthy of good treatment and they won’t tolerate for long people or conditions that are too negative for them.  Those who grow a healthier self love seem, almost invariably, to keep making work-life improvements of one kind or another.  People weak in self-love are seldom proud of the work they do even when they do a pretty good or better job at it and often they don’t go after promotions or improved placement.  At least that is my experience with the many people I have counseled concerning these issues.

Let’s look at some questions concerning love and work.  For you, are love and work two different things or are they integrated?  Do you put love into your work?  Do you love yourself through your work?  Do you love the people you work with?  Does the way you go about work influence the way you go about love away from work?  Does the way you go about love influence the way you go about work?

Now look at a bigger question.  Are you succeeding at the big three i.e. Work, Love and Play?    Are you keeping the big three in a fair amount of balance with each other?  Will it be good for you to give some thought to your work and its influence on your healthy self-love and on your love relationships?  Hopefully this will help you examine the enormous part of life we call work.

As always – Grow and Go in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Does the word ‘work’ elicit an emotion in you that you like to feel, or an emotion you don’t like to feel, or a neutral feeling, and what do you suppose that means about you?

Related posts:

1. Does “Cougar” Love Work? 

Virginity Surpassed and Parental Love

Synopsis: A daughter’s startling declaration and loving request; Parent readiness; Big questions; A different example; Handling it all with the power of love.

“Mother, father, I would like you to just sit and really work at hearing me with love because I have what I think is a good thing to share with you.

Last night I did something really special.  I surpassed my virginity.  That’s what my group calls it instead of seeing it as something lost.”

This shy and gently stated declaration came from a beautiful, super smart, nearly perfect, not quite 17-year-old daughter, as her mother reported it.  She continued, “At first neither my husband nor I understood so my daughter repeated herself,  ‘Surpassed my virginity, not lost my virginity’.  Suddenly I was flooded with cascading, conflicting and confusing emotions washing over me – chaos, disbelief, shock, fear, sadness, empathy, guilt, worry, and a strange sense of pride that she was able to tell us this startling fact.

"Then I heard my husband stammering, ‘What the hell!  You mean you’ve already had…, already …, you mean …, you’re telling me, my little girl’s not a virgin anymore?  Is that what you mean?’  Our daughter calmly and kindly replied, ‘Yes, Daddy, and we did it the safe way with a condom and spermicide, and we did it with lots of love so I want you to be happy for me’."

This mother admitted her next words were a tearful, “But you’re only 16."  Her daughter’s well researched response was, “Mom, do you know around the world 16 is the average age where most girls ‘surpass their virginity’ so I’m just being normal.  Please don’t cry unless those are tears of happiness for me.  It was a really good experience and besides I think I’m the last girl in my group to do this.”

She said her husband, somewhat angrily, replied, “That doesn’t make it right, safe, healthy, or good.  Their daughter’s further response was, “Daddy did you know that in ancient Egypt, whose civilization lasted longer than anybody else’s and whose family life stability was legendary, girls commonly surpassed their virginity between the ages of 12 and 14 and were married by 15.  Not only that but sometimes marriage was to one of their brothers”.

“That’s not what we are talking about,” was this frustrated father’s reply.  This mom reported she then said, “Well, Sweetheart, you have shocked and amazed us, and you are going to have to give your father and I some time to process this because we certainly weren’t ready for it, like we probably should have been.  I do want to thank you for telling us and not keeping it secret like we had to do when we were growing up.  Let’s take a break while you’re father and I talk and then we’ll all talk some more”.

Their daughter replied in a very adult and kind tone, “I know this is hard for you given the way you were brought up so, yes, let’s take a break but first can we all hug?”  She said they did hug and they said they loved each other; then she and her husband shared their confusion and many different feelings.  All this is what the mother of a rather precocious adolescent reported to me in a quickly scheduled parent/guidance counseling session before asking, “Now what do we do?”.

Well, dear parents, are you ready for the day you find out an offspring of yours has “surpassed their virginity”?  Do you think you will be able to handle it with wisdom and love?  Maybe you will try to stay in denial and act like it hasn’t happened.  If that is so it may lead your youngster to feel and think that they shouldn’t or can’t share this kind of big, important fact with you.  If that’s the case they perhaps will try to handle the health, relational and psychological issues without your input, support and guidance.  Please consider that.

Perhaps you feel sure your teenagers will stay virginal until after marriage, and they may.  However, the majority of adolescents in a majority of cultures around the world do not.  As you probably know all around our planet both biology and modern world, cultural influences seem to be pressing youth toward becoming sexually interactive in middle or younger adolescence.  I think it is wise for parents not to be in denial and to prepare ahead of time for dealing with this bio-social ‘pressure’.

Let’s look at this: Concerning sex, especially virginity, do you have different hopes and standards for the males and females you are raising?  I have counseled no small number of parents, mostly fathers but some mothers also, who are secretly or openly proud of their sons but upset with their daughters when they first start having sex.  In this day and age ‘double standards’ more and more lead to destructive family conflict.  This especially seems to be a hard problem for families moving into the modern, westernized world from other cultures.  It also frequently is a devastating difficulty for religious conservative parents of many faiths who find their offspring gravitating toward more contemporary, secularly influenced lifestyles.

The big question for parents, from this family therapist’s point of view, is this.  Are you going to deal with the ‘surpassing virginity’ issue with sufficient healthy, real love?  No matter what your belief system is regarding ethics, morals, mores, propriety, etc., I suggest a powerful love-centered approach will work best.  From my experience with so many parents discovering that their offspring have become sexually interactive, ‘well expressed love’ is the primary thing that makes the outcome constructive.  Without love your mind seems closed and destructive dissonance grows.  Anger, condemnation, guilt tripping, manipulation, disgust, rejection, control efforts, abandonment, expulsion, lack of care, being overly nonchalant and indulgent, punishment, reasoning without compassion, hyper-religiosity etc.  usually lead to far less than desirable results.

Let me suggest that the parents who handle this issue best are also the ones who, with love and some study, prepare for it ahead of time.  Some years ago I worked with a couple who was attempting to deal with this issue responsibly and sanely.  They talked with each other saying, “It is likely our children will become sexually active in their teenage years, because we did, and that’s the way the world seems to work these days.  So, how do we want to prepare for that?”

After some research they decided to follow a parenting approach popular in certain circles in northern Europe, parts of South America and very recently urban China.   They gave their children a far better than average sex education involving not only the biology but also the psychology of sexuality.  There were those in their extended family who said they were just setting up their children for promiscuity and tragedy, but they rejected that after looking at the good results data from various other countries.

When their youngsters were in their early adolescence they openly discussed how and when they might choose to enter into sexual relations.  Each of their children became able to talk quite frankly about all this with their parents.  Both their boys and girls chose ages later than their parents had worried they would.  Healthy self-love and others were a major focus in their discussions.  When older each of their offspring carried out their plans similar to those they had designed with reasoned modifications when needed.  A loving acceptance and even a family celebratory atmosphere prevailed as the plans came to fruition.

Recently I learned that their children, who are now entering adulthood, plan to do much the same thing when they have children because the results have been far better than the bad and chaotic experiences of many others.  No one got pregnant, no one got any sexually transmitted diseases and no one experienced any great emotional upheaval.  All of them agree that because love was made so much more important than sex the sexual issues got dealt with quite fully and constructively.

It is important to know that following this pattern might not lead to such good results for you. 
Because of all sorts of individual differences and possible other intervening variables disasters might yet occur.  There are no guarantees but the above example is, at least, a different example than many parents have been exposed to.  I suggest you study many examples and possible ways to go about facing this issue.  Then as parents you might want to make your plans regarding ‘virginity surpassed’, preferably with a ‘ big, powerful, love focus’ as a big part of them.

For a start on these deliberations let me remind you what that fellow we call Paul said about love over 2000 years ago: Love is patient, kind, not jealous, overbearing, arrogant or rude.  Love does not insist on its own way, is not mean-spirited or resentful, and love bears all things, for real love never ends.

As always Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love success question How similar or different from your parents do you want to be concerning your dealing lovingly with your children’s sexuality?

Related posts:

1. Parenting Series: Paul’s Points On Love For Parents
2. Better Parenting Through Love Series
3. Parenting Series: Love Motivating Your Child (& Every One) Toward Good Behavior
4. Parenting Series: How To Love Your Child Better 

Religion, Love and Mental-Health

“Religion has done me a lot more harm than good,” Molly angrily proclaimed.

Preston, her lover of 6 months, replied with a serious, worried look, “In my way of looking at it religion has been a lifesaver, and it’s what gets me through the bad times”.  Molly folded her arms across her chest and firmly announced, “It took me a lot of work to get over what religion did to me and if we go further in this relationship I don’t want us, or our kids if we decide to have any, to have anything to do with it.”

Preston turned to me with a sad look saying, “Dr. Cookerly, which is it?  Will religion do us more harm or good?  Is our religious difference going to sink us?”  Molly added, “Is religion, if we get into it, going to be a constructive or a destructive thing like it was for me?  You can see this is huge for us and it’s the only big thing keeping Preston and me from going deeper in our relationship.  Can you help us with this?”

Having worked for years with many ‘buckle of the Bible belt’ individuals, couples and families, and later working with a large number of multi-cultural and bi-religion couples and families, I am well acquainted with religion issue questions.  I usually explain that I approach my client’s religion and spiritual issues in counseling as a mental-health professional and not as a theologian or religionist.  As both a psychotherapist and a relational therapist I can agree with Molly that I have seen many people more harmed by some religious involvements than benefited.  I also can agree with Preston having seen religion be a lifesaver, a great helper in the worst of times, and the most constructive influence in many people’s lives.

Sometimes individuals, couples, families and even whole communities are ruined by clashing and destructive religious-based actions, beliefs, judgmentalism, guilt training, and downright sick ways of going about things.  Likewise, by way of religion individuals, couples, families and communities often are healed, reconciled, inspired and re-directed toward healthier, richer, fuller lives through religion.  So the counseling focus for Molly and Preston, and for so many like them, is a three-part question.  Will their religious involvement be more healthful, or more destructive, or will it be the seeming safety of non-involvement?

To help the people I work with discover what their healthiest approach will be concerning religion I start by asking about love.  That’s because how much healthy, real love is, or is not mixed with religion has a lot to do with the mental-health effect the religion has in its participants’ lives.   Starting with simple questions often leads to deep thinking and discussions.  “How’s the love?”  “Where’s the love?”  “Are the people there mostly about love or mostly about something else?”  “How much of what they teach is about love?”  “Is love evident in the practice and actions of the people who practice that religion?”  “Is love central to what’s going on with that religion?”

These and other such questions are typical and important explorations.  Soon we’re talking about how much healthy, real love (see the entries Love’s Definition series) is in evidence at the church, mosque, synagogue, temple, sacred studies class, prayer group, etc. they are contemplating being a part of?

From this mental-health professional’s perspective when considering a religious issue the prime focus is helping clients examine the mental and relational health influence of their religious involvement.  The quickest and best way to start on that is to explore the love issue.  How much is healthy, real love actively being taught and demonstrated by the practitioners of the religion, or religions, being considered?  Likewise, how much anti-healthy, real love teachings and actions are evident in the religious involvement being considered?

Next, it is usually important to look at the following question: In the teachings of the religion being considered is there a high priority placed on compassionate, caring, empathetic, healthy, real love?  Sometimes there is only ‘lip service’ given to compassion and caring love but little or no action.  Here’s another important question.  Where is the love manifest – toward all people or only a select few?  To the clients I’m talking to I also may ask, “How much love do you personally experience coming from the people and the leadership of the religion you’re exploring or getting involved in?”  “Are you dealing with truly love-centered people, or are they practicing more of a ‘fire insurance’ religion where the main interest is just keeping their members out of Hell?”

Also we look into, “Are you getting involved in a religious group where the main thrust is doing healthful love, or is their main dynamic sort of like a game of ‘we are OK, and everyone else is not OK’?”  Could you be in a religion, or subgroup of a religion, which is just a mutual support group for arrogance and safe, social conformity?  Often essential is an answer to this question: As you understand it and discover it, do the religious teachings, scriptures, educational efforts and practices of the religion’s leaders truly exemplify healthy, real love?

Some religious leaders are good at ‘fake love’ so this is sometimes hard to discern.  Is the religion and are the people of the religion love-centered or more centered in status, money, fear, guilt, control or what?  Yes, the first issue to look at, as I see it, has to do with ‘how goes the love’ in the religion and its practitioners.  If the people practicing a religion are not sufficiently about love I have grave doubts about how mentally healthy your experience with them and their ways might be.

It is unfortunate that, as practiced, some religionists are centered on doing non-love and anti-love things.  There are those in religion who just are going through the motions and they are pretty much indifferent, lifeless and loveless.  Others are ‘exclusivity groups’ primarily protecting each other from the new and the different.  A surprising number are primarily about money, and others are about status.  Then there are the groups that are principally about hate.  From a mental-health point of view they are the worst.  Too many others are more about dictatorially telling people what not to do, rather than lovingly suggesting what to do.

Those that are truly love-centered and love-active usually can be found doing great love-centered and love-infused good works helping others.  Their teachings more often tend to coincide with good mental-health concepts and they are actively assisting people toward compassionate, caring, constructive, loving ways of living.  Find and become involved with those groups and you are likely to be much more benefited than harmed.

Now, with those thoughts in mind there is a tricky thing to watch out for.  Some religious groups do ‘fake love’.  This especially is a problem with cults and cult-like groups who practice ‘love bombing’ their candidates for conversion.  This means a person new to the religious cult will be hugged, praised, complimented and well treated so as to get that person addicted to the cult.  Once they are a convert they will be asked for lots of their time, money, effort, etc. and to make sacrifices for the good of the cult.

They also will be pushed toward isolation from ‘unbelievers’ including friends and family, and encouraged to suspend their self-determination and self-directed living.  The convert is, in essence, programmed to not function as a mentally healthy adult but rather as an obedient, unquestioning child.  Reason, skepticism and what we usually think of mature, adult thinking have to be surrendered to the dogmatic tenants and interpretations of the leadership.  Acceptance of the dogma and the leader’s mandates will become primary and real love tertiary at best.

All this and much more were part of Molly and Preston’s discussions concerning religion.  Then Preston asked Molly if she would do him a big love-favor by going to some different religious services, reading different religious material, experimentally engage in some different religious rituals, and be around some different religious groups.  He explained he would like these things to be done so as to jointly get some real experience with religion beyond discussion.  Molly gave this a fair amount of thought and then said she would, if he would endure (out of love for her), any and all doubt, criticism, skepticism and irreverence she might manifest.  She did, however, promise to be publicly polite and respectful.

Preston agreed.  Before they went exploring, however, they made a list of what they thought would be the criteria of a mentally healthy religion which is centered in healthy, real love.  They drew up a list of their own questions and actually were having fun doing this together.  Previously they had been very stuck and only able to destructively argue with one another concerning religion.  Molly said she was going about this exploration like a scientist and pronounced her hypothesis which was that they would never find a religion that would be sufficiently mentally healthy and sufficiently love-centered.  However, she promised to be open minded and to really look at the evidence.

Preston then made his hypothesis which was that they would find at least one, and probably several, religious groups that were mentally healthy and love-centered, and that their involvement in one or more of them would do them a world of good.  Then as a fully loving, good-natured couple they went out to explore and see what they could jointly discover.
Hopefully you and your loved ones can do as well if needed.

Grow and Go with Love, as always!

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Might it be healthful for you to analyze what role religion has played in your own mental health and in your ability to love and be loved?

Related posts:

1. Multiple Sex Partners and Love
2. Do You Want To Say ‘Love’ When You Mean ‘Sex’?
3. Virginity Surpassed and Parental Love
4. Ready or Not for Love?
5. Marriage By Love or by Law

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Previous Comments:

Pro-Love and Anti-Love Talking

Is your way of talking to your loved ones (mate, children, siblings, etc.) more pro-love or more anti-love?

Have you ever examined your habits of speech and speech style for their effect on your loved ones?  Do you know the three big factors determining pro-love and anti-love talking effects?


Factor I    Love Destroyer Words versus Love Builder Words
Below you will find 25 examples of words and phrases which tend to have an anti-love effect.  Following each of these is an example of a pro-love effective way to state a similar thing.  Check your speech habits against these to determine if perhaps you are using love destroyer words and phrases and might need to practice a more pro-love style to have a love building effect through words and phrases.

1.    You should …
You could …
2.    You shouldn’t …
I would like you not to …
3.    You always  …
I’d like that to happen less …
4.    You never …
Really soon I really would like you to …
5.    Why don’t you ever …
I want you to ………………, maybe by tomorrow if that’s OK?
6.    You’re wrong.
I see that differently.
7.    You’re lying.  That’s absolutely not the way it happened.
We remember that differently.
8.    How could you have been so stupid!
In the future I really want you to do that better.
9.    Don’t ever let me catch you doing that again!
How can I help you not to do that again?
10.  You’re terrible!
You can improve!
11.  I hate you!
Right now I’m really mad at you.
12.  You’re an idiot!
Part of me would really like to call you a lot of names right now.
13.  I can’t stand you!
I’m having trouble dealing with you right now, so let’s take a break.
14.  Why did you do such an awful thing?
Let’s look at what we can do to improve that.
15.  I can’t love you when you act that way.
I always love you, and what you’re doing really upsets me.
16.  But … 
And …
17.  Never say that again!
I don’t want to censor you so can we talk about that later and nicer?
18.  I’ve asked you time and again, so when are you going do what I say!
Honey, so that you’re clear, this is not a request, it’s something I have to insist on.
19.  You crazy freak!  Don’t you know any better than that!
In some ways we are really different.
20.  Can’t you ever get it right!
Sweetheart, we don’t seem to be making progress in this area.
21.  That’s all your fault!
Honey, how can we learn to go about that differently?
22.  I blame you for that, and you know you deserve it!
The critical part of me really wants to lay a guilt trip on you for that.
23.  No, not ever, and that’s final!
Sweetheart, right now I am firmly against that so please bear with me and be tolerant.
24.  We are never going to …
So far we haven’t and I really want us to, so this time how can we get to it?
25.  If you really loved me you’d know what I need and you would have done it already!
I probably have not made a clear enough request so let me see if I can be specific
and tell you more exactly what I want.

Factor II    Destroyer Voice Tones versus Love Builder Voice Tones
Did you know that 35 to 37% of what you are communicating in a personal interaction is delivered by your voice tones?  Have you given much thought to what your voice sounds are telling your loved ones when you talk to them?  Below are 10 words describing voice tones which frequently tend to have an anti-love effect and 10 words describing voice sounds that might have a more love positive effect.

Check and see which you think are most common to your own voice tone expressions:
1.  Indifferent    2.  Businesslike    3.  Bored    4.  Harsh    5.  Unfriendly
     Interested         Personal              Intrigued    Gentle        Friendly
6.  Hard    7.  Mean    8.  Condescending    9.Condemning     10. Angry
     Soft          Kind           Respectful               Forgiving          Understanding 

Factor III    Pro Love and Anti-Love Face and Body Communication
Did you know that in person-to-person talk it is not unusual for as much as 55% of the value of what is being communicated to be carried by face and body language factors?  Did you know that in a person-to-person talk your subconscious mind may be interpreting as much as 300 bits of information per minute having to do with face and body language communication?  Have you given much thought to what you’re face and body language messages are to your loved ones?  Here are 10 words that can be used to describe face and body language expressions which can have an anti-love effect.  Under each of these words is another word for a face and body language expression which might have a more pro-love effect.

1.  Uncaring       2.  Judgmental    3.  Rejecting       4.  Bland        5.  Egotistical
     Caring               Forgiving             Accepting            Involved        Sharing
6.  Tough    7.  Superior    8.  Irritated    9.  Impatient     10.  Prudish              Tender            Democratic      Tranquil         Patient                Flirtatious      

Now we suggest you examine what your own, more frequent face and body communications are when you are talking with your loved ones.  Then examine your voice tone communications and see how you might improve them.  After that take a look at the words you are commonly using and see if you want to make some changes so that you can have a greater love-positive effect.  You also might want to lovingly ask a loved one to follow your example and do the same.

As always, Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question Will you ask one, two or three people who know you pretty well what is the best and the worst or how you come across in regard to the above 3 Factors?

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Image credits: “[last remnants of autumn]” image by Flickr user lempel_ziv (Tanya Zagumenov) .
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Related posts:

1. Love Positive Talking
2. Are You Talking About Love Enough?
3. Talking to Feelings First, Then Topics – A Love Skill
4. Say It With Love
5. Additive Talking – A Love Skill 

Power or Love or Both

Synopsis: Raising into awareness our common confusions about power and love; power and love gender issues; the Warrior Princess and her love and power problem; looking at growing your powers and integrating your powers with love; and more.

A Common Confusion

“I don’t want love.  I want power.  Love is for the weak.  It makes you soft and vulnerable.  I don’t ever want to be vulnerable.  The strong don’t care about love.  They care about dominance, and control and getting their own way.  Love makes you surrender and do what other people want.  I will never surrender to anybody, for any reason, about anything.  When you love somebody it just gives them a way to control you.  Love turns people into other people’s slaves.  I am always the one in control.  No one controls me.  You can be my slave but I won’t be yours.  Do everything my way and I’ll keep you around for a while but don’t be surprised when I dump you.  I’d rather make people fear me than love me because that way they know I have the power and they don’t.  That’s the way I like it!  Power is everything.  Love is nothing compared to power.”

The person who said this was confronted by several people saying different things about love being the greatest power there is.  That sparked a vigorous debate.  Some agreed with the speaker, some disagreed and some just were confused.  Some who agreed with the speaker said they keep that secret, around others.  They admitted they say all the ‘socially correct things’ about love being great but they really believe power is more important and love is a wimpy thing.  Some said being vulnerable, becoming powerless and surrendering is a good thing about love, unless perhaps it gets you destroyed. There were those who argued that love gave you the power to survive and conquer all manner of things, and others who said to truly love and be loved you must give up all power.  So where are you on the issue of power versus love?

Gender Issues

Here is a gender question for you.  When you read the opening statement from the person wanting power instead of love do you think it was a statement made by a male or female?  The gender was not indicated.  You can check to make sure.  Whichever gender you thought, what do you suspect that says about you when it comes to your mind-set about power, love and gender?

Males are supposed to be all about power and females all about love.  That’s nature’s way according to some.  And then others can see that the idea that males are power-oriented and females love-oriented could be seen as paradoxical.  That’s because if love is the greatest of all powers, as is religiously attested, love is what males should be all about.  Then what about the ideas that ‘men are afraid of love’ and ‘women can’t handle power’ so they have to turn to love?  Of course, there are a good many who hold that all these gender ideas are just cultural teachings and have nothing to do with innate female or male nature.

Fathers, husbands and male lovers who primarily are focused on power may make good protectors and providers, but otherwise lousy parents and spouses.  Mothers, wives and female lovers who focus on love without enough concern for power and its use are suspected of mating with losers and raising weaklings, or so some think.

When it comes to males and females what do you think the differences are in regard to love and power?  Do you think differences exist between heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals regarding love and power?  How much does your own gender influence your mind-set regarding the uses of power and the uses of love?  How much does your culture’s teachings on what is feminine and what is masculine guide your thinking about love and power and what you should do with both.  Does your religion, or your ethnicity, or the socioeconomic status you were raised in guide you to think differently concerning how men and women are to go about love and go about dealing with powerfulness?

As you can see there are many gender issues affecting our mind-sets concerning love and power.  How powerful you are in your own life and how powerfully you succeed at love may be affected by these issues, so raising them into conscious awareness may prove quite freeing and advantageous to you.

The Warrior Princess

“I was so powerful they called me Xena, the Warrior Princess, you never want to cross.  In our multimillion dollar school system I rose to be the number two, most important ‘go to’ person in the administration when you wanted to get something done.  I made really big things happen for the betterment of kids, teachers, staff – everybody actually.  The way huge sums of money got spent, how careers fared and how public policies were made road on what I decided.  The trouble was that all that power went to my head and I neglected love.  You see power intoxicated me.  I believed myself to be invincible.

“I had a passionate, erotic affair with one of our district’s sexiest coaches just because I could.  Not only that, I manipulated myself into having all sorts of special perks and privileges, and got away with it.  I out-maneuvered my competitors and gloated over defeating my rivals.  It all came crashing down when my much neglected husband left me for another, much more loving woman, and my kids told me they wanted to live with their dad and her.  It was then that I discovered I had no real friends but only ‘power pals’ who would disappear the minute I lost power. 

“It was my loving brother and sister who saved me in spite of all the times I had ignored and discounted them.  They got me to come to counseling where I learned the real significance of love and its incredible, and far more important kind of power.  Now I’m rebuilding my life and doing it with love as the number one priority because that’s what’s really working for me now.  The other day my daughter asked if she could spend the summer with me.  I never was so happy as when I heard her say that.”

Consider this.  Power devoid of love tends toward destruction.  To be constructive all human powers are best mixed with compassionate love, and without love all human powers bend toward evil.  Whether it is in a single individual’s life or in a whole society, culture or civilization, ‘power must be mixed with love’ and ‘love with power’ if good is to be achieved.  Do you disagree?  Do you agree?  If you do, how will you apply this to your life?

Power Positive or Power Negative

The mere mention of the word ‘power’ is off-putting to some.  They see power only in light of its misuse for destruction and dictatorial dominance over others.  Some people exist who seem to want power just to have it without any concept of power’s positive or negative usage.  Many want power because they were once powerless and much pain and suffering resulted.  People who lack sufficient, healthy self-love sometimes want power so they can ‘get even’, ‘wreak vengeance’, or just see themselves as better than others.  Still others want power so that people will envy and fear them.  No small number of people want power so they can acquire money, status and have various advantages.  The question here is, will they do this in a constructive ‘I win, you win, nobody loses’ fashion or will they disadvantage others and be more destructive than constructive?

More healthful are those who want power so they can affect positive change.  That’s where love comes into play.  A passionate, altruistic love of people is the motivation behind so many of the world’s improvements.  The invention of hospitals, the abolition of legalized slavery, freedom movements of many kinds, democracy itself, medicines, cures and treatment methods galore, and so much more has come into existence because love was wed with power and a significant advancement was the result.

At the more personal level, parental love of offspring finds the power to send them to college, friendship love powerfully rescues comrades in distress, family love grows the power to bring relatives out of harms way, and mate love creates the powerful team it takes to cope with and surmount life’s challenges and obstacles, to name but a few ways that power and love work together for human improvement.

There are powers we can see as negative.  The powers of hate and greed are examples.  They are seen mostly as causing destruction even though once in a while they may actually do some good.  Some people have kept themselves alive and surviving by hating an enemy.  Greed occasionally starts a business empire which employs many people in some sort of constructive endeavor.  Powerful and much maligned ‘Lust’ has helped some couples have a really excellent sex life (see the entry “Sexual Love Laces”), and almost no one questions ‘lust for life’ being a good thing.

Some powers are questionable.  A powerful religion may bring about feeding starving children or it can bring us an inquisition or a jihad that slaughters innocents.  A powerful political party can bring needed reform or it can negate the rights of minorities and suppress justice.  Once again the trick is to put ‘power with healthy, real love’ and ‘healthy, real love with power’.  That way the chances of a primarily, healthful, constructive result is not guaranteed but is much more likely.

Neutral Power

Most power can be seen as neutral, not good or bad.  Electric power can light our world but also can electrocute someone.  Economic power can be used to achieve higher standards of living for some while bankrupting others.  Charismatic power can lead armies in both just and unjust causes.  Power may be used for the health and well-being of people, animals and our whole planet but it can be used for death and destruction as well.  Also it can be used for exceedingly useless endeavors.

How you use your power is up to you.  By the way, you have power whether you know it or not.  You have the power to influence, at least a minor way, everyone you encounter.  Your frown, or your smile or your neutral look influences everyone who sees you.  You register in the subconscious of everyone passing by and at least in a tiny way you have your influence.

Grow Your Power, Integrate Your Power

Do you know how you are powerful?  Do you have a powerful personality, powerful charm, powerful leadership ability, powerful kindness, economic power, organizational power, powerful empathy, powerful reasoning ability, powerful friendship, high-quality teaching ability, potent emotional energy, strong listening ability, business acumen, competency in the arts, music, etc., talent for guiding your family, ability to make people laugh and be happy, or any one of at least a thousand other power possibilities?  You do have power, and you do have the power to develop your power.  You also have the power to integrate your power with love.  Examine this thought, “All good things can be said and done with love and be better for it” (see the entry “Say it with Love”.

I like to recommend that if you’re going to make healthy, real love a high priority in your life you might as well also learn to be quite powerful.  That way you will empower your love and likely will be much more effective in your own life and the lives you touch.  Integrate your love with your power and your power with your love and a lot of good things are likely.  Some people don’t do that.  All day at work they are trying to be powerful.  Then they come home and try to be about love. Why not be about love done powerfully all day long?  You can work to grow your power integrated with your love to affect positive change every, healthy way you can.

To do that means you’re probably going to have to think about power and how you mix it with love.  It seems we have an awful lot of people on the planet who are thinking about growing their power but not in connection with love.  Others are thinking about how they hunger for love but not about being powerful in the giving of it.  Whatever ways you can be a love-empowered force for the health and well-being of anyone, including yourself, I suggest, is a very good thing.

Hopefully this mini-lesson will start you thinking about your own power, how to integrate it with your love and grow both together.  There’s lots more to be said about power and love, and in future entries more will be covered.  Until then, do yourself a favor and give some thought to how you go about dealing with love and power – okay?

As always, Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question
Can you list the ways you are and can become more powerful, and can you imagine yourself doing those ways with love?

Other Genders Love

Synopsis: Here we address these troubling yet intriguing questions: Are there more than two genders; What are other genders; Why does nature make more than just male and female; This mini-love-lesson ends with a list of the words and terms now used in the new understandings of gender; more.

Are There More Than Two Genders?

Yes, according to science there are more than just male and female.  Biology, physiology and especially the brain sciences, along with a good many other scientific fields show us this truth which is so troubling to many.  Nature makes humans and a host of other animals with other genders than just the standard two – those distinctly male and those distinctly female.  It is true, at least among humans, that most are easily identified as pretty much male or pretty much female.  However, though in minority, there are others.

What Are “Other” Genders?

We have known for a long time that nature occasionally produces people with the genitalia of both males and females.  More recently, the brain sciences have discovered nature makes a lot more people with the brain chemistry of both males and females.  Not only that, we now know that just about everyone has at least a little bit of both male and female neurochemistry and dual gender brain functioning.  We also have more people, than was originally thought, who are neuropsychologically one gender but their overt biology is that of the other gender.  Thus, in simple terms we have males in female bodies and females in male bodies.

We also may have people whose brain functioning and neurochemistry goes back and forth between being male and female.  Some other species do this biologically whenever there are too many females or males and gender rebalancing a population is in order.  Then of course we have those who seem pretty much male overtly except that they are naturally built to be attracted to other males and those who are pretty much overtly female who are naturally attracted to other females.  And then there are the bisexuals, many of whom can be pretty much equally naturally attracted to both.  Those varieties also occur among other species a lot.  The preponderance of scientific evidence shows all this variety to be natural and not at all unhealthy.

Why Does Nature Make More Than Just Straight Males and Straight Females?

One answer is that nature loves variety.  Variety has great survival value.  You never know when conditions are going to change and a life form variation is going to turn out to better cope with that change in conditions.  Seldom does nature make just one or two varieties of anything.  Think of leaves.  They all do pretty much the same thing yet they come in endless variations of shape.  A small minority are not even green but rather several other colors.  Other leaves are green part of the time but then change to a variety of other often vivid colors.  It seems nature is always making new variations and some of them have advantages in dealing with whatever the changing conditions are at the time.

Another answer is that there are unrecognized species survival contribution and advancement advantages brought to us by those having a not strictly male or female psychobiology.  For instance, it is thought by some that those people who are more androgynous (mentally and emotionally both male and female balanced) may be better at diplomacy, cooperation skills, democratic leadership, mentoring, mediation, counseling, personality assessment, cognition flexibility and altruistic achievement.

Previously and still in certain circles, androgynous people were/are negatively viewed as having what was seen to be the typical weaknesses of both males and females.  Consequently, they often were rejected and excluded as not being male enough or female enough depending on their overt gender identity.  Thus, the Renaissance Man was seen as a “sissy” and the Renaissance Woman as a “pushy broad”.  Both were “freaks”and “misfits” in times and places of high social conformity.

Do the People of “Other” Genders Have Different Love Problems?

Do you agree with these ideas?  Everybody needs love no matter what their difference is from the supposed norm.  Everybody who is different from the norm is in danger of rejection and worse from those who fear difference and desire continuance of the perceived and “correct” norm.  If you see it this way, then you can see how those who have “other” than the usual male and female ways may need extra love, acceptance and inclusion experiences to counter the anti-love events they may experience while they are trying to figure out and adjust to their own differences from the perceived norm.

Healthy self-love development is often an extra tough problem for those growing up or starting to live “other”.  Valuing, appreciating, accepting and honoring oneself can get really tough when faced with exclusion, rejection, criticism and demeaning messages coming from others.  Especially is that true if those anti- love messages are coming from people who are supposed to love you, like parents and family.

Romantic love often presents some very perplexing problems.  If a she loves a he and transgenders into a he, does that make them homosexual lovers and does that matter?  When a bisexual or bi-amore person is loved by both a male and a female can they all three live successfully married together?  If they do, does that mean they are illegally practicing polygamy?  Could you romantically successfully love a transgendered person who used to be the same gender you are?  ‘Is it real love or a form of false love’ is a question that is extra confounding for those who live in the various “other” categories.

Loving family and friends who may experience culture shock and/or strong religious values dissonance because someone is in an “other” category, also is a common but big love problem.  Experiencing being put down, shunned, damned, pitied, preached at or even ‘prayed for’ because you naturally are different is frequently quite tough.

Not hating but instead continuing to love the person or persons sending judgmental rejection messages, also is a love challenge and issue for those who are in some way “other”.  Sometimes in self-love, withdrawing contact from the judgmental and condemning is at first necessary for sufficient self protection.  Family counseling with a good love-oriented therapist is what helps the most, as I see it.

Strengthening oneself through therapy and healthy self-love development so that a love based re-approachment of those who condemn usually is the eventual best solution, from my experience.  Never making such a re-approachment can mean having a wound that never heals and a disturbing lack of closure.  Attempting the re-approachment too soon before your strong enough to be unaffected by the ‘arrows’ that may be fired at you can be disastrous.  So, great care is in order.

Love of children when there are gender issues presents a whole special set of challenges.  How does a parent deal with a child who is exhibiting a tendency towards some form of “other” gender orientation?  How does a parent best explain to a child that parent changing genders or not being of the standard male or female identity?  How can parental or family love best help children struggling with peer rejection because of some “other” gender factor?

Loving the Angry & Threatened

A fair number of people seem to be quite threatened, upset, in denial, and angry concerning all these new “other” ideas, discoveries and social changes concerning gender.

They want all of us to regress to the old understandings that there are only males and females.  The trouble is that science is showing those understandings to be inaccurate, inadequate and quite destructive for a considerable number of people..  Abuses of those who are “other gendered” are abundant.  Anxiety, stress, depression, family breakups, suicide and even murder are sometimes the result of the more extreme abuses enacted by the regressives.  With love must we not therefore embrace the progressive and constructively use the new knowledge concerning gender?  Those who are threatened and angry can, with careful love, decrease their fear and be brought along into a world where difference is so often a good thing.

Do You Know the New Language of Gender?

Recent research has discovered a lot in this area of gender and that has resulted in quite a few new terms.  These terms can help a lot for comprehending more fully, becoming more knowledgeable, thinking more clearly, talking productively, and interacting knowledgeably concerning gender issues.

To help you with that, here is a partial list of words and terms you may wish to familiarize yourself with and be sure you understand.  Affirmed gender, alternating gender neurochemistry, androgyny, asexual, assigned gender, bi-amore, bi-gender, bisexual, cisgender, cross-dresser, dual identity, gender dysphoria, gender expression, gender fluidity, gender identity, gender continuum, gender spectrum, gender predominance, gender web, homo-amore, hermaphodite, hrm, hir, medical gender transition, pansexual, polyAmore , social gender transition, “they” (singular), trans-amore , transgender, transsexual, transman, transwoman, ze.

As always – Go and Grow with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love Success Question: How much of yourself do you suppose is both male and female, and how okay (self loving) are you with that?

Related posts:

1. What about “Bi” Love?
2. Power or Love or Both
3. Men: Doing Well at Love !
4. What Makes Love Last?
5. Attraction or Love or What? 

Multiple Sex Partners and Love

With dismay in his voice Vince blurted out, “Doesn’t everyone feel awful if their main squeeze has sex with someone else?

“Isn’t it natural to feel jealous or bad or something terrible if you really love someone?  So what’s wrong with me and my wife?  When I found out she had sex with a guy on a cruise she went on with her girlfriends it just turned me on.  That night, after she told me, we had the greatest sex ever!  Now she says she wants me to have sex with her friend, Sheila — so we’re even.  Are we both crazy?”

Vince’s bewilderment and similar variations of his confusing situation are not all that uncommon in my couples counseling practice.  The truth is no small number of couples who really do love each other get quite sexually aroused about their spouse having sex with someone else before, during or after it happens, or in fantasy.  Others keep circulating around a confusing mix of strongly opposing feelings and thoughts, while still others begin in agony only to later embraced and enjoy the very sexual behaviors they were first shocked and horrified by.

Another group seems to like it at first but not later.  For most people raised in a culture that condemns this sort of thing and promotes sexual monogamy as ‘the only way to go’ dealing with this issue usually is excruciating.  A great many breakdowns and breakups, along with all sorts of life chaos are the more usual experiences.  Even suicide and/or murder sometimes are known to happen when a spouse or love mate has had sex outside their primary relationship.

What some people find strange is the fact that an increasing majority of couples in the developed world don’t break up or breakdown when one or both of them has sex outside their relationship.  That doesn’t mean it is easy for all these couples to sort out.  Some find it a relatively important but still a lesser significant event in their lives, while no small number of others actually enjoy what is so devastating to others.  A surprising minority report that sex with others is actually good for their primary union, which is so totally opposite to what the majority of Western world couples experience.

What makes the difference between couples who are destroyed, couples who struggle through it and stay together, couples who take it in stride and are not much affected, and couples who enjoy and look forward to having multiple sex partners in their lives?  Before we go after answers let’s get a little perspective and some background.

Down through the ages men and women have lived rather successfully with all sorts of different standards regarding sex.  In all civilizations there have existed sexual standards which have at times included sanctioned and socially honored paramours, inamoratos, concubines, temporary travel spouses, concurrent secondary and tertiary husbands and wives, polygamist mates, and especially for the rich and the Royals various high status official positions for extramarital lovers of all sexual persuasions.  There also have existed official holidays from monogamy, religious ceremonies involving sex with priests and nuns, sanctioned orgies, broadly approved of incestuous assignments and a whole lot more you didn’t get to hear about in World History 101.  All major religions and major cultures have had extramarital, multi-person sex accepted and approved of in their history at times and in certain circumstances.

It is to be noted that traditionally matrilineal societies have had a whole lot less trouble with sex outside marriage than have patrilineal societies.  Also in quite a few male dominant, agrarian societies having multi-person sex partners has been much more OK for males and often not at all OK for females.  However, in certain hunter/gatherer tribes where male/female equality is greater, having multi-person sex outside a pair bond relationship, for both males and females, has been and in some areas still is highly approved of and is the norm.

Today around the world people in different cultures and societies react very differently concerning having multiple sex partners outside of pair bonded relationships.  In some tribal cultures to refuse to have sex with a visitor or an important personage could be grounds for divorce and it might even get a person thrown out of the village.  In other cultural groups multi-person sex can condemn a female to so called “honor murder” possibly by beheading or stoning.  In contrast there are, and have been, sub-societies where the more people a woman has sex with the higher her social standing and desirability.  And there have been the rare religious groups where even monogamous, marital sex has been deemed evil and equal to the sin of sex outside of marriage for both men and women.

You might say, “But all that’s ancient history”.  Not so.  In reviewing our current so-called civilized world I have seen a poll which showed that 67% of young, modern adult Peruvian women think sex with someone other than a spouse is quite justifiable.  This number falls to 59% for young adult Brazilian women, and 50% among female Argentinians under 35 years of age.  In a somewhat similar poll the UK number was 28% and the USA number was 38%, with various countries in the EU registering numbers similar to the South Americans.  Urban dwellers in China score similar to the Peruvian women but measurements in rural China result in scores more similar to the English.

Modern world customs vary greatly in regard to multiple sex partners.  The French have their custom of ‘separate vacations’ allowing for sex with another, and the Germans have Oktoberfest during which extra marital sex is not grounds for divorce.  There is research that shows every year more married people have sex with someone other than their spouse, but the percentage of people divorcing because of infidelity continues to decline.  Other research suggests that an increasing number of couples are jointly agreeing to engage in sex with other couples or a third-party.  An increasing number of prostitutes offer their services to couples.  Swingers’ clubs exclusively for couples are on the increase, and polyamore relationships where couples work to both grow and share real love along with sex with others are receiving increased attention.

No one is sure how many couples engage in Internet sex with others, or phone sex, or Second Life avatar sex, and the debate rages about whether or not any of that is adulterous.  Sexual robots and three-dimensional cyber sex with electrodes to provide the physical sensations are in the works, and meanwhile couples rent and buy more explicit, erotic videos than do single individuals, and married women are the primary purchasers of sexual fantasy and erotic romance books according to some researchers.  There’s a lot going on out there, and knowledge usually serves us better than ignorance.

So, with all that in mind let’s get back to what Vince asked.  “Doesn’t everyone feel awful if their main squeeze has sex with someone else?”  The answer obviously is “no” and reactions actually are quite varied.  I want to acknowledge that many are deeply hurt in these situations, I see them in my practice and help them through very painful emotions.  However, in this entry I want to relate that there are other responses that couples have.  There is a minority in our culture who are erotically aroused and generally quite positive, others are only moderately disturbed, while some actually are fairly indifferent about the whole thing.  This probably means your reaction to your mate having sex with someone else is probably not genetic or biologically ‘natural’ and ‘universal’, as some have argued.  That’s good news because it also means that with work (psychological, ethical, relational, etc. work) you have emotional and behavioral choice.

Let’s look at the love factor for those who do get hurt because their spouse, or committed lover, had sex with someone else.  There are those who argue that the more healthy, real, broad love you have the less you will see a spouse having sex with someone else as ‘vitally’ important.  Therefore, the more you both have real love for each other the more you will be able to successfully stay together, even when great hurt and disturbance occurs.  A supporting thesis goes like this.  Only those who are markedly insecure and inadequate at both love and sex have to break up over a mate having sex with someone else.  This might be because they can’t tolerate the idea that someone else might be better than they are at both love and/or sex.  Secretly they suspect they themselves are inadequate and other people will outperform them.  About that they are profoundly but secretly ashamed.  The truly loving and self secure do not breakup or break down, they work it through with and for love.  At least that’s some of the theory posited for this complicated issue.

We also must look at the healthy self-love factor.  With enough healthy self-love and healing love for a spouse forgiveness, healing and relational improvement becomes more possible.  Splitting up over anything sexual acts to make sex more important than love, and indicates it is likely self-love is deficient.  Some religious leaders have taught that successfully staying together after infidelity is a special application of the great admonition “love others as you love yourself”.  It seems like more and more couples are coming to new psychosexual understandings and with those understandings are working toward staying together.  They do that with growing love for themselves and for each other.  Also they jointly work against the common, cultural training to divorce over ‘going sexually astray’.  This cultural training makes sex so incredibly important that it can, and by these societal standards, should outweigh healthy, real love.  Fortunately for many couples, children and families real love often does prevail, and the problems our culture gives us concerning multiple sex partners are overcome and defeated.

It must be fully recognized that millions have been heavily programmed to give sex great importance, and some argue far more importance than it logically deserves.  This is especially true for those living in the modern world where the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy can be responsibly guarded against.  It also must be fully recognized that how much one hurts in a multi-person sexual situation may be heavily influenced by how one has been subconsciously programmed to feel and think about sex with someone other than a primary mate.  How one has been programmed to behave about all this also is of great import.  Acts against one’s self or against others almost always are counterproductive and they often negate the healing power of love.

Healthy, real love is protective (see the entry “A Functional Definition of Love") so those acting from healthy, real love take appropriate precautions for both sexual and emotional health.  All persons in a multi-person sexual involvement are best treated with love, in fact the more love the better because that will produce the most health and healing when needed.  Love between all participants also will assist in the healthiest resolution of difficulties.  Making an enemy of one person usually just makes everything take longer and be much more difficult.

For the hurting couple grappling with their many difficult emotions here are a number of things to look at so that healing can occur.  Everyone’s sexual background programming and beliefs, along with each person’s own sexual experience history, along with everyone’s religious training are well worth examining – but examining with love and with a loving attitude.  The trick is to be very love-oriented and to combine that with being extremely truthful.  It is love-centeredness mixed with truth that wins the day for most couples and for anyone else involved.  Healing self-love, mate love and love for all concerned is the medicine that makes the difference.

Truth with love can defeat the problems while deception, lies, half lies and attempts at manipulation just make everything worse in the long run.  Being not love-centered but fear-centered, or centered in authoritarian/judgmental controlling, or in victimhood, revenge, self-pity, judgmentalism or anything else can prevent love and truth from doing their healing work.  Blame, accusation, condemnation, rage and other negativity aimed at yourself or others just helps you get a negative outcome.  Be as loving as you can be to yourself and all concerned, be as truthful as you can to yourself and all concerned and you are much more likely to come out better than before.

Again and again that is the result I see in counseling with people dealing with these difficulties.  I have worked with hundreds of couples hurting, struggling and battling their way through these issues.  Those who do love mixed with truth are the ones who come out OK and often even better than they were.  Seek the help of a loving, nonjudgmental counselor or therapist who only ‘takes the side of healthy resolution for all concerned’ and your journey to well-being will be both better and quicker.  At least that is my experience and the experience of those therapists and counselors I have supervised.

Now, let’s look at the love factor for those who don’t get markedly hurt, upset, etc. about their love mate having sex with someone else.  Swingers, polyamores, sex sharers, sex surrogates, erotic communalists, cyber sex aficionados and everyone else engaging in some form of sexuality with multiple people who really do a good job of showing their love-mate lots of healthy, real love usually are the ones who do best.

The general guideline is ‘do lots of love toward everybody involved’ or trouble will probably start and grow.  Lots of truthfulness mixed with lots of love actions keep sex with each other more emotionally safe and nonthreatening.  The couples who are less loving, less truthful and generally less successful at life tend to fail at having multiple sex partners in their lives.  At least, in my counseling and consulting practice that’s what I have seen.  Healthy self-love, mate love, reliance on truth, plus self-disclosure love and protective love (both physical and emotional) help toward a good prognosis.  Anything less loving is likely to be much more problematic.

As in so many things those who do best at multi-person sexuality are those who are highly loving of self and others.

Again, the aim of this entry is to inform about diversity in the human condition.  What we may have been taught is usual, normal, regular, etc. may be different for others, may be changing, and may have much more variation.  What I promote is not a particular relational style but rather health and love in all things.

As always, Go and Grow in Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥  Love Success Question
How do you know the ways you think about love and sex are not just the result of your family’s and your society’s programming and not necessarily about what is natural or best for you?

Related posts:

1. Can You Talk about Sex – with Love?
2. Making Love OR Having Sex?
3. Do You Want To Say ‘Love’ When You Mean ‘Sex’?
4. Monogamy for Love & Monogamy for Sex
5. Sex Drive Differences and Love 

Men: Doing Well at Love !

There are men who do very well at love and there are men who could do well but don’t – yet.  Love of a special other, love of children, family, friends, comrades, love of a cause, one’s higher power, love of country, the weave of sex and love, love of the arts, love of knowledge, healthy real love of self – they all count.  They all can be the focus of men doing well at love.

More and more research shows that men typically go about some things rather differently than most women.  These differences can be used by men to help them go about love powerfully, competently and quite successfully.  A fair percentage of men, along with not a small number of women, rather naturally think in pragmatic, functional terms.  This leads a great many men to think in questions like the following: What is it?, What is it for?, How does it work?, How do you use it?, How do you maintain it?, How much is the right amount?, Can you fix it if it breaks?, How do you improve it?, and Can it be fun?.  All these questions are very applicable to men doing well with love and with love relationships.  In working to love well all these somewhat male oriented cognitions and puzzlements have good workable answers.

The men who focus on love learning can arrive at practical answers to the above questions and then apply themselves to practicing those answers.  They then are likely to do well at love.  I know this because throughout all of my years of practicing counseling and therapy slightly more males than females have consistently come to me for help in solving their love life problems.  Most of the men learn to do quite well at love, be it with a mate, children, family, comrades, spiritual concerns, or self, etc..

Perhaps you are a man needing or wanting to do well at love, or perhaps you know a man who could stand to learn how to do better at love.  Vast numbers of women seem to wish their men would learn how to be more love oriented and generally do better at love.  However, these same women often do not sufficiently seem to know how to successfully tell a man the ‘how to’s’ of making improvements in their love understanding, skills or actions.  Perhaps that has its origins in the neurological and cultural influenced ways men and women operate differently.

Sadly recent Western cultural influences have sort of taught men to think of love as a woman’s thing, and that to be focused on love is somehow unmanly.  This is in spite of the fact that many of the world’s great teachers and theoreticians focusing on love have been men.  Buddha,  Jesus, Socrates, Plato, and Rumi of the ancient world, and Stendhal, Erich Fromm, Kierkegaard, Harry Harlow, Ashley Montagu of more recent times are but a few of the many good male examples available.

For men to get directed and motivated toward doing well or better at love they usually have to see that there are clear advantages and benefits to doing so.  They also need to have clear and fairly precise things to learn and practice, ways to think clearly concerning love and its many dynamics, and recognize ‘manly’ things they may feel when working to improve their love ability.  Fortunately all this is doable for men who apply themselves to the task of looking into and practicing healthy real love.

The first question a man may ask himself is, “Will I go to the trouble to really look into love as something to do well at?”  After that comes the question, “Will I do what it takes to really do well at love?”  If both answers are yes incredible benefits are likely!  If the answer to either is no, missing out on life’s most important involvements, most useful powers, and most pleasurable adventures is predictable.

As always, Grow and Go with Love

Dr. J. Richard Cookerly

♥ Love success questions
Have you read the rather male oriented, scientifically based, and quite practical book Love & Survival by Dean Ornish, M.D., published by Harper Collins?  Or have you read the rather couple-oriented, highly practical, and also rather scientifically based book Recovering Love (although comfortable reading for most men, by all means oriented to both men and women) written by, I shall add perhaps egotistically, yours truly, Dr. J. Richard Cookerly, hardback published by McGraw-Hill, paperback by Authors Choice of  iUniverse?