Unconditional love

In terms of writing in the digital space about sexuality, the motivation for that is, I believe, to seek to understand and to be understood. It's the reason why I began this web journal and for many bloggers and people who read blogs, that is a prime motivation for doing so. Correct me if I am wrong.

In my time writing here I've read about and had conversations with many different people. No story is quite the same. Our sexuality belongs to us and only to us. Sexuality is such an important element of all people but when one's sexuality has elements that go outside the norm of what society accepts, it becomes especially important to us. Acceptance is what is we seek; from others and in our own minds and so we go searching for it.

What we do know is that a sexual fetish begins at an early age. Granted, it may not appear in our lives for many years - decades - but the origin of the fetish is in early experiences and even in our DNA. We also know that it won't go away by ignoring the truth and it won't go away by willing it to go away. No amount of will power will enable the fetish to remain hidden in the back vestiges of our mind and what we will find is that if we don't embrace the fetish and incorporate it into our lives in a healthy way, it will be detrimental to us and to those who love us.

I happened to catch an advertisement for a television show here in Australia. It is about unusual fetishes - a light, bright look at that, judging by the tenor of the advertisement - and the man they focused on in the advertisement is a man who has 12 blown up plastic dolphins at home. That is unusual. Some of us like to be given pain - spanking, whipping, dripping candles etc. Some of us like to be contained in tight clothes, to wear soft yarns, to have holes filled, to sleep with something over our heads. Some of  us yearn to feel the control of another person in our lives whilst other people yearn to have someone who trusts them enough to allow and want them to control them.

I find it difficult to separate this sort of behavior (all things being equal such as good intention, consensual behavior, healthy behavior and so on) from someone who wants to sleep on the floor rather than on the bed, or who wants to wear thick pajamas to bed rather than lie between the sheets naked. These are personal preferences, rather than aspects of life deserving the judgement of others.

My thoughts have been focused lately on thinking about these sexual fetishes in terms of one's partner. Some of us are blessed to be in relationships with people who understand us nearly perfectly because they have similar fetishes themselves. Ideally, if we want to be controlled we are with someone who loves to control us. However, no relationship is completely perfect, I don't think. Some people may feel so and good luck to them, but most of us make compromises for the other in order to live and let live.

One the biggest points of difference for us as a couple has been my husband's desire/need to have a 'night time' schedule. That is to say, he doesn't want to come to bed with me. I don't go to bed early. In fact, it's a rare night when I am asleep by midnight, but my husband comes to bed, say, 95% of the time at least, hours after me. It has been my feeling that since I couldn't stay up any later than I do - I am the parent who has got the children off to school and begun the day time activities and I am very tired by midnight - he is being unreasonable.

This has caused me great angst because it seems to me that if he just tried harder (like the sexual fetishist should try harder not to want what he wants?) he could come to bed with me at least a night or two each week. It is not to be and it has made me angry and to feel distance from him. However, he said something to me lately that made me pause. "If I come to bed early, I can't sleep properly."
Ahhhh, I hadn't really taken that in. So, I read about all this and the suggestion was that couples look for the hours that overlap and to make good use of those to feel close. With a changed perspective - that I can't change the situation and that he can't change what he does - I'm prepared to look at this in a new way; to let go of my judgments.

This is not to say that all elements of a partner's behavior should be ignored. For example, if one thinks of adult ADD, the person who stays in denial that he has this condition fails to be treated. It can take a few years for the frontal lobes to be repaired, my doctor told me, but it is never too late to seek treatment for the condition.

I feel deep within my bones that so much of what we do as human beings can be melted down to our need for unconditional love. We need to know that we are lovable with all our flaws and predilections. We need to feel comfortable in  a sense of our own identity and where we belong.