I know personally the experience of living after the thrill of living life [as it's presently understood and experienced] is gone.

I’ve experienced layers of it at two different ‘chapters’ in my life.

It was not at all horrific.

Painful yes, but not horrific.

Rather it seemed perfectly natural.

It is from this ‘angst’ of experiencing life as hollow, meaningless and un-fulfilling; and through attempting, yet failing to find anything temporal to satisfy, that something ‘new’ can be born.

And in retrospect, it’s kind of beautiful.

In the same kind of way that childbirth can be painful, messy, bloody and protracted – seemingly horrific – and yet, on the ‘other side of it’, it’s seen as one of life’s most precious (and necessary) experiences.

My wife and I had four sons. The oldest is 36, the youngest is 26. Unfortunately none seem interested in marrying and having children themselves. No grandchildren that we know of.

I find it utterly fascinating that in my younger days, the ‘sex drive’ was in the very center of my motivations; in other words, I assumed (as I see now, later) that it was this way for everyone.

The sex drive was thus ‘transparent’; it was a portable environment, a bubble I carried with me, with me inside, at its centre. I viewed everything through the wall of this bubble; thus, everything had to do with ‘sex’.

I drenched myself with sex; I was an artist of the sexual union. My vitality was geared to my ‘sexuality’; yes, I did many things which were ostensibly non-sexual, but usually, sex was involved, at least indirectly.

I became, in my teens, a ‘master outdoorsman’. I learned to live in the wilderness, by choice, eating wild plants and fish. By forming myself in this way, I became attractive to nubile women who desired deep wilderness experiences, which I could provide. Of course, the close proximity of tents and sleeping bags, and the scary night, provided me with endless sexual coupling.

I discovered that the most vital and fit and exciting women simply adored having naked sex in the deep forest, on tops of mountains, on top of rugged red rocks in the deserts; to be able to look upat the infinite blue sky while orgasm mounts, was described to me as one of the ultimate experiences to be had.

In this fury, and flurry, of sexuality, I was somehow immune to the stories and reports by my elders; but now, I am such an elder, and so, I have this perspective to share, a ‘before and after’.

I understand and appreciate the total and all-encompassing sex drive; it is beautiful, and, it is a force of nature, in the truest sense of the word.

Sexuality is not something that I chose it is not something which I decided upon; it was the central informing energy of my life for many years.

That people have this sex drive in youth, and in youth have children, makes the reality of pregnancy and childbirth and of husbanding children, part of this most powerful drive; children thus result from this non-stop tsunami of energy, and they are swept along by it, carried by it, as they are the products of it, and I ask; what could be more ‘right’, than to surrender to this species-sustaining energy, to this drive to come together, for unity, to interpenetrate, to become ‘one’ for the best of purposes?

I am saying, that I became an expert ‘surfer’ on the wave of sexuality, and at the time, did not realize the bigger picture; that the urge, and the babies born, and the lives started, and the forming of personalities, are all balanced on this huge wave, which blesses us all; but now, I have been deposited on the beach, after my longest and best ride, the most magnificent and magical meeting, coupling, and realization of sexuality that I could ever imagine.

Now, I am amazed; I stand on the beach and watch the huge waves coming, and upon them are the latest ‘crop’ of expert and joyous surfers, and their children pop up around them, and they are all of them, very happy; they are doing their species duty, unafraid of pain, mindless of the drudge of parental responsibility, and it is one big party, and I am not complaining.

I am amazed also, by how I was able to tolerate certain female personalities, as long as I was engaged in the sexual energy field which they carried and deployed as they do; or did. Now in later days, I feel lucky to have known those women, several of whom are close friends.

I am happy now, to have my energy moving in different channels; and there is a lot of it, all of what formerly expressed as sexuality, is expressing as creativity, and my ability to see forward, to plan and to avoid danger, and folly, is greater than it ever has been. I see now, how I was heedless of the lack of those things before, now that I have them; it is the view, of ‘before and after’.

For me, there has been a smooth and gradual shift, from overt ‘full time universal stud’, to circumspect observer and wise investor of energy; now, things have a very different cast, than before; but when I see young people ‘on the chase’, in love, pregnant, making families, I feel a deep and penetrating joy, which is somehow even greater in force, than the sex drive was ‘before’.

Do not mistake me; I have not “lost” either my ‘gender’ or my sex drive. My role has shifted, and so far from its previous position, into a territory which I did not even suspect had existence; and I am happy about that change, genuinely so. There is a peace available, one which I had sought but which had eluded me. And that is no wonder, as I was slaved to my universal duty as a biological organism that reproduces ‘sexually’, and that ‘duty’ involved deftness in competition, and such competition is stressful, but has a blissful reward in its success. The pains were accepted, because the drive to the reward was not only for personal satisfaction, but as I now see, it was obedience to a ‘higher power’.

I am no longer in that bubble, I am outside of it, and when I see it surrounding others, I smile (at least inside) for I know how they are involved; totally, and not by choice, but by universal assignment.

And it is good.

Childbirth seems rather frightening, and my friends who have had babies have said that it’s humiliating (mostly the medical aspect, not the act – “Five different doctors had their hands up there, and nurses would walk by and take a look – you have no modesty after giving birth,”) and incredibly painful. “It felt like the muscles in my legs were pulled so tight that they would snap” is how one friend described labour pains.

There are a lot of natural things that are unpleasant, painful, or disgusting – no one really romanticises urinating, how ever necessary it may be, nor loves the smell of sweat-induced BO, however sure a sign of good health and stamina it may be. There’s plenty of people who say, “Childbirth is incredibly painful and hard, and it’s amazing that women will go through that to bring life into the world”; in my opinion, that’s a fine, non-anti-child way to look at it.

Rather… that childbirth may be a physical nightmare doesn’t mean that babies are anything but good. That there is a cost does not mean that there is not a benefit!

It is really interesting to hear another woman writing the above sentiments. Examining my resistance to your conclusions, I offer the following thoughts.

The sentiments are not so unusual. I have been hanging around discussion blogs dedicated to pregnancy, childbirth and parenting for a while and have come across similar sentiments, though often they are arising directly from some sort of religious foundation that presumes a certain ‘nature of woman’ and familial structure relative to (more often than not) a Christian God.

It isn’t that there is anything surprising about the notion that the ‘nature of woman’ falls in the area of bringing forth life, etc., and that there seems to be a sort of biological determination about the whole thing. I’ve related with several intellectuals who had previously based their entire academic POV purely on nurture. After becoming pregnant, they were confronted with feedback from their bodies that directly countered some of the key elements of what they had been writing and teaching. Imagine the amazing challenge of having to revise a long-standing theory-based profession and teaching (one upon which their careers had been built!), once their bodies began talking and manifesting a whole, previously inaccessible range of strengths and weaknesses, contradictions and complexities! Perhaps you are already familiar with this particular ‘recalibration’.

However, the thing that does surprise me is that, as a woman, you seem to have aligned yourself with a certain ‘story of woman’, which carries with it quite visible and distinct potential-limiting boundaries. For anyone involved in academia, it is possible to see that we write our stories, and then our stories write us. Further, when writing stories concerning the nature of one thing or another, it is helpful to keep in mind that nature is endlessly variable, malleable, and changeable. With that said, one might ask, what is the truest story to write? It would have to be a very large story to contain the truth…

I’m not one of those romantic moms. I entered motherhood with much trepidation. And I’m a big weenie when it comes to medical stuff, so I was a prime candidate for totally grossing out during my labor and delivery. But it didn’t turn out that way.

I had toxemia, which required my labor being induced. The first hour or so I was in the hospital, I was scared. But then I realized–THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME ANYMORE. Everyone in that hospital was there to make sure my baby was born safely; and my fear vanished.

Yeah, the labor was gross. My contractions never got shorter than 5 minutes apart, my daughter was born via vacuum extraction, I had an episiotomy, and I lost a lot of blood because of the toxemia medication.

But all of the gross stuff became a blur compared to the first time I saw my daughter. Her eyes were wide open, and she was looking around questioningly, as if to say, “What’s all the fuss about?” That is the memory I carry with me today when I think of the day she was born.

Yeah, having a baby is not easy or pleasant. But I don’t think it’s supposed to be. I think it’s God’s way of emphasizing the incredible importance of the life we have created.

Some say blithely that any worthwhile achievement comes only with hard work. We think of the struggle through college, or up the career ladder, and look back with pride at how we hard we worked and far we’ve come. Yet we look at the work of giving birth and go “EWWW!” What is wrong with this picture?

Its not child-bearing that’s unnatural, it’s child rearing that’s been turned into a horror show thanks to the government, the courts, the human services bureaucracy, and the schools. Add all that interference on top of that natural headaches and its no wonder more people try to get out of it. I almost think its by design.

Many years ago, when I had my hypnotherapy practice, a psychologist referred to me a client who had been abused by priest as a child. (This was before the Vatican even considered admitting there was a problem, and was one of the first I had heard of abuse by a priest)

I worked with him for quite some time, and can share what I know from that instance.

The priest was very close to the family and my client was an altar boy who thought the world of the priest. What made it more difficult for my client was not only how close and trusted the priest was – not to mention being so ‘close to god’; was that the priest was in such denial of it himself.

As is often exemplified here on this blog, when someone successfully deceives themselves, they will be the last to see or admit their attitude or behavior – much less see the consequences
of their actions.

No one is more dangerous than someone with a strongly repressed shadow. (First person experience.)

It reminds me of a story my therapist told me back in the 80′s. He was also an ordained minister, and he told me he lent money to a Baptist minister friend of his who let himself get in a little ‘hot water’ financially.

He said, despite his best efforts, he was finally resolved that he’d never see that money again because the preacher just couldn’t admit to himself that he was ever ‘in hot water’.

So if the ‘hot water’ incident never happened, neither did the loan of the money. Ha!

And that’s how I think so much of sexual abuse happens: people have these strong standards and ‘principles’ (for themselves and others) that people simply can’t live up to.

But they become so IDENTIFIED with these standards and ideals that the shadow can come and do its ‘dance’ with complete (and wholehearted) deniability.

So it’s been my general observation over time that the people who shout their moral judgments and condemnations the loudest, are apt to be the people most likely to strike ‘under the cover of darkness’ and deniability.

Ah gigi self hypnosis gone awry that explains a lot.

“people most likely to strike ‘under the cover of darkness’ and deniability.”

Wackamole time.