Lying and Sex: The Paradox of the Beloved

by Erika Ginnis
 

The author, Erika Ginnis, introduces herself as follows:  "I offer spiritual counseling and coaching, psychic reading, healing and classes though my practice, "Inspiration is the In-Breath of Spirit."  For more information on me and my work, contact me at erika@inbreath.com, or see my Web page: www.inbreath.com."

Lying and sex...  why do these things so often go together?  Why, in the presence of one of the most intimate of activities, is there so often an undercurrent of dishonesty?  Perhaps there's something intrinsic to sex that creates lies. The familiar saying, "Love is blind," suggests that we see only the good in our beloved, and perhaps that we don’t always see what's in front of us when romantic love enters the picture.

Glamour

Perhaps we do actually see our partners clearly on some level, but they seem too boring or un-glamorous for our tastes.  Do we then secretly long for our sex lives to be more glamorous?  When we look it up, the word glamour means both "exiting allure" and a "charm or spell."  In magick, a glamour is often used to hide or conceal something else.  If the heart of what we want is really an illusion, then we'll be hard pressed to deal in much truth. 

Roots of dishonesty

Why are we this way?  Is it programmed in?  If we look, we can see a number of factors that influence us to behave dishonestly. 

I see roots of our dishonesty in advertising.  Advertisers are enormously skilled at lying to us about what products we have to have in order to be the person we're supposed to be (which is someone who is okay only for the moment it takes to purchase the advertised product).  Sex and sexuality are invoked to sell everything from cars to soda, while at the same time we get a hundred conflicting messages about it — sex is good, sex is bad, sex is dirty, sex is for the young, sex is only for the mature, sex is for the beer-drinking fast-car-driving club-going beautiful sect that you should want to belong to but won’t ever be good enough for.  Sex proves you're worthy, yet sex is extremely dangerous, so be very afraid.  No wonder we're so at odds with ourselves.  This is all happening at the same time that we're being told it shouldn’t be — that sex on TV and in movies is BAD (just don’t look at the commercials) and ought to be censored. 

I see dishonesty at the social level, where we pretend our culture isn't sex-obsessed.  I read somewhere that we are in an adolescent phase in our development as Americans, and I certainly see that all around. Think back to the Junior High School cafeteria and the whispered rumors of who was a "slut."  We both idolize and condemn (depending on the day and the political mood) people who are blatantly sexual.  Frighteningly, we sometimes idolize and then kill them, either with our adoration, by our own hands, or through a political system that often seems to be running on the frenzy of our need to know the sexual drama of the people in power, even if the stories are sometimes untrue or exaggerated. 

I see dishonesty in the personal arena, where computer chat rooms are filled with people pretending to be something they’re not, or acting out things they really are but can't reveal in their regular lives for fear of the consequences.

But what about the dishonesty we practice when we're naked, that can be quite insidious and not even feel like a lie?  How often do we fail to tell our partner what we really want to do, or what would feel good right now?  How often do we just cope with a situation because we don’t know how to speak what’s so?  Perhaps we do it because the truth is uncomfortable.  We may just not have the nerve to say, "I thought I was straight/gay but I realize I am not," or, "I have found out I'm kinky, is there some way we can explore some of my fantasies?" or, "I think I'd like to be polyamorous, is there a way we can negotiate additional partners?" or, "I thought I was poly but I'm realizing I may want to be monogamous."  What we're too scared to say might be as simple as, "I'm afraid of what you think of me," or just, "I love you."

Maybe sometimes a lie is so ingrained in us that we think it's true.  How do we handle it when we're lying to ourselves?  How can we even know? 

How can we know the truth?

So the question becomes, how do we stay open to discovering the truth?  How do we find our own truth in this moment, or in this relationship, or in this sexual experience, and having found it, then carry it with us into the different aspects of our lives?  How can we achieve and maintain some level of authenticity in our sexuality? 

Once, when trying to make sense out of a relationship that I discovered had been based in lies, I had an insight that I wrote down to remember: being able to be honest has to do with faith.  Since we are speaking of sex as a sacred activity, faith does have a place here. 

Can we develop the faith in ourselves necessary to be who we really are in the world?  Can we develop our faith in the Universe so that we know that if we fall we will be caught?  Can we trust that if our life comes apart, its old form just isn't sufficient for the larger good that we are being led towards?  I believe we can.  I also believe that doing so requires us to become deeply thinking and feeling people, to be willing to ask questions, take internal risks, be willing to fail and to succeed.  Most importantly, we must also be willing to practice.

Escaping intimacy

I think one of the reasons we seek to buffer ourselves with lies is that sex is such an intimate thing.  The vulnerability we can feel in the face of it is terrifying.  If we keep it all lies then perhaps we aren't really at risk, we aren't really invested, and perhaps we can't really be hurt?  Or not as much? 

Is that really worth it?  I don’t think so, but I may be in the minority.  One of the reasons I'm involved with promoting the idea that sex is sacred is to bring more information to people, to find a way to have the truth be less scary than all the available lies circulating endlessly around us.  I’d like us to feel we have the option to dance with what’s so, rather than automatically run away from it. 

Acting as if

But is honesty always the goal?  If not, are there ways that we can use and integrate that seemingly basic need to expound past the limits of truth, for "make-believe," when we're dealing with sex?  Yes, totally.  Some examples are: role playing (you may not really be the French Maid, School Mistress or the TV repairman), BDSM (which has a rich blend of reality and extrapolation inherently available), and fantasizing (which is its own topic, really).  There are also times when it's totally appropriate to "act as if" when it comes to arousal — for instance, you may have an intellectual desire to have sex, but are not physically particularly turned on.  You may want to start the foreplay or flirting and go with the flow and let the energy of the experience create that bridge between your mental desire and a physical response.  In that case, although you may have been pretending at first to be more aroused than you were, "acting as if" helped you to bring into being that level of arousal you really wanted. 

Make-believe is different than lying, in that it's not a strategy we practice against each other — it isn't intended as deception, and we're usually willing to step out of it (however reluctantly) into a mutually accepted understanding of reality if we need to.  At the same time, make-believe is a kind of untruth. 

We are working here with the idea that sex is sacred, that it is a sacred activity.  If this is so, why would we ever choose to wrap this sacrament in untruth, either by design, out of malice, or in ignorance?  I wonder if the answer has to do with how we interact in this reality to begin with and the paradoxical nature of being human. 

Finding our other half

This brings to my mind the familiar idea of "The Beloved," which is rooted in our culture and our sexual experience, and which carries with it an inherent contradiction. 

The immortal Beloved appears in many forms in many cultures and contexts — it's the idea that each of us has a twin flame with which we seek to join, another half, a completion of our soul, or the True essence of Self we are able to see in someone else, which resonates with our inner memory of oneness and Divine connection.  Much of the sex I've found most fulfilling has had this component of true joining.  That sense of "made of the same skin" can be experienced both in a new fling and its flood of emotion, or in a steady, long-term relationship and the deep knowledge of a partner that comes with time and understanding.

It is this connection that fuels much of what we're striving for in our sexual experience, even if we don’t have words for it.  Even if you think the drive for sex is purely biological (which I don't), it's still this pull toward coming together (no pun intended), toward fusing ourselves physically and blending the two separate parts into a new whole (as in creating a child), that drives us, whether you're looking at the biology or the realm of spirit.

I feel the action of yearning for the Beloved almost as a gravitational force, a magnetic pull.  Have you ever had the experience where you felt as if you could physically touch the sexual tension with your hands if you knew where to place them?  I think this almost palpable tension is Two seeking to come back into Oneness in some manner.

Here is the idea that through a certain kind of sex we strive to bring the self back into wholeness.  It is the draw from one individual to another beloved other, to the Illumined Divine seen in another person, which for many people is at the heart of amazing connection and sexual expression.  Is that good?  Well, I think so, but at the same time it poses a philosophical dilemma for me. 

The paradox of the beloved

I should state explicitly, in case it's not already clear, that I have a belief system in which I see us all as one at some inherent level.  So if I truly believe that, how can there ever be an "Other" to see, touch, yearn for and connect with?  If we are One, then the other we seek, the Beloved, does not truly exist, at least not at the deepest level of who we may be, not as actually separate from ourselves.  The whole concept of separation is itself an illusion. 

If that's so, then all attraction is based on that illusion of separation, which is a kind of lie.  What an odd thing to consider — that at the core of us we are one, but so much of our everyday energy and experience revolves around what we see as Other. 

This is the paradox, then: The illusion of separation forms a crucible in which we create our rich and complex sexual interactions, yet it's the burning away of that illusion through successful connection that brings about fulfillment and reconnection with underlying unity.  And it's not that we successfully connect with the Other, it's that we realize there never was an Other in the first place. 

Are we capable of sexual honesty?

So this bring me back to the question, is it possible really to be truthful in sex?

Well, yes and no.  No, in that there's always a deeper depth to be considered and that depth may contain truth that proves inaccurate all that's gone before. And Yes, in that the final experience is always about broadening and deepening our perceptions, opening ourselves to a more essential truth.  The more we can consciously align ourselves with what we know to be true of ourselves, our partners and our needs (even if our needs require fantasy)  in the moment of who we are now, the closer we can come to the experience of sex as sacred which we are seeking. 

And in the end, it's the experience, how it touched us, how we are changed by it, what we bring to it and what we bring away from it, that is of ultimate value.