Trish Everett offers an innovative way to deal with desire we don’t want to act on: the attraction contract.
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Eyes meet with that sizzle. That sizzle that drips pleasure down your spine. Attraction knocks on the door again. Wraps you in its arms til you are giddy with the intoxication of it. Yet it is so elusive, attraction. Addictive, tantalising, surprising. And on some level, attraction draws up a contract, a contract between you and this latest person. Calls us to honour something.
I was sexually attracted to a man that I had no interest in being with. All I wanted to do was bask in the loveliness of just being in the attraction.
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Ok so this may sound all a little zany. I guess I am mulling over the role attraction plays in our lives. What got me thinking about this is recently I found myself with all the physical and sensual symptoms of attraction but no desire to further it. In short I was sexually attracted to a man that I had no interest in being with. All I wanted to do was bask in the loveliness of just being in the attraction. But as we all know, from both sides, this is not an easy place to tread water. There are big vibrations going on here and they can easily turn to frustration, agitation and so on, if there is an attempt to hold on to them. So what the hell am I going to do with this attraction??
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It got me thinking about our three brains. We all have our reptilian sexually driven survival brain, our emotional and empathic mammalian brain and our oh so clever neocortex. Now for me, and for many others, getting all three brains to work together—especially around intimacy stuff—can be hard going. And we all have set patterns that our brain uses to process this brain sizzling attraction.
So one approach is to select the reptilian brain and just get all survival of the species. Put the mute on the other two brains that are checking this person out and not feeling or thinking this is a super flash idea. Another option is to deny the reptilian brain’s sexual desire and shame it into retreat. So, what to do when the three brains just can’t agree?
What if I let all three brains interact with this attraction honestly. What does the attraction feel like? What happens if it is just let be, allow it and be open to it. Then at the same time truly feel. When are there feelings of happiness, horniness, fear, sadness, annoyance, joy, irritation and so on? And deeper, what do these feelings tell us about ourselves and what do they tell us about them? And the thinky brain … set it to observe—observe ourselves, observe them. What is at play here?
So I didn’t rip our clothes nor did I deny the attraction. I spoke it, I owned it, I let the words, “I am attracted to you” fall from my lips and also the reality that “I don’t want to do anything about it.”
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So I didn’t rip our clothes nor did I deny the attraction. I spoke it, I owned it, I let the words, “I am attracted to you” fall from my lips and also the reality that “I don’t want to do anything about it.” And we became great friends, friends based on the truth of where we are both at.
So these are my thoughts. Attraction is beautiful, powerful and creative. It connects us at a deep level with another. This is where my idea about it being like a contract comes in. I wish I could think of a better word to describe it. The attraction invites an openness, a vulnerability of our soul and that of the other person. And the contract is like the lesson that we have agreed to sail together.
And they are all different. Attraction contracts for sexual exploration, to magnify a deep pattern of abandonment, an opportunity to learn to open your heart, exploring self worth, to name a few … the options are endless. Whether the attraction lasts for a life time or a night, they all offer us up something.
Next time attraction is knocking on your door, maybe you can unravel what you have signed on for.
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Originally published on Connectful and is republished on Medium.
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Maybe we should we should legalizes and subsidies prostitution if people want to make love to an attractive person(s) but don’t want to get married.
I am sorry, but I do not believe you.
You became friends…
This is called having a back up. People (especially women) do this all the time where they will keep people around and then when an opportunity arrives they jump on it.