Tag: sexual freedom

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."  ~ Frank Herbert

We often confuse the idea of doing whatever we want with true freedom. Following our every whim without a sense of responsibility for the consequences is not really freedom, but rather a poor facsimile that ends up entrapping us in unintended patterns of damaged relationships and long-term emotional scarring.

"When a man gives up his freedom to get married, and forsake all others, he reasonably expects to get a ‘little thing’ on a regular basis." ~ Richard Hoad.

The obvious premise of the above quote is that men need "a little thing" or in other words sex, with the underlying implication that women are not always prepared to give it. The problem with this equation is that there is a built-in expectation of exchange. Men are purportedly giving up their "freedom," which means surrendering a "right" to sexual variety, in exchange for regular sex with one woman. Women, however, seldom define marriage in these exact terms. Sure, we know regular sex is involved in a committed relationship, but very often we want more.

"The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage." ~Thucydides

Fear is the driver for many people’s sexual and erotic lives. One of Freud’s students, Otto Rank, was quoted as saying, "People vacillate between the fear of living and the fear of dying."

In some ways, our fears about our sexuality encompass both. We are equally terrified of what might happen if we gave into our erotic fantasy life and that we might never experience the pleasure we know that we hold in us.