The Ontological War

In Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Cynthia and Ann are talking, and Cynthia says she and Graham made a videotape. Ann then states

You can’t trust him. He’s perverted.

Ann’s resolute comment is a 180° change from her feelings about Graham a few days earlier, and there are several possible reasons for it:

• She thinks sex is ok, but sex videotapes are not.
• She likes or maybe even loves Graham from her realself, but then she finds out that he made sexual videotapes of many other women.
• She likes or maybe even loves Graham from her realself, but then she finds out that he made a sex tape with her sister.
• She feels betrayed ontologically, “You can’t trust him,” because she feels she and Graham were developing some kind of deeper relationship, and then she learns that he made the videotapes or videotape.

It’s impossible to say exactly how much of Ann’s negative and angry feelings about Graham are based on her belief that the videotapes are inherently perverted and how much of her feelings are based on what she feels is his ontological infidelity with other women, with her sister, or with both. Whatever the reasons, she feels they were developing a realself-to-realself relationship, but that relationship has failed and is now over.

Ann doesn’t know it yet, but one of the question she will need to answer as she continues moving forward ontologically is Are the tapes truly perverted or are they something else? She will need to answer this because the answer will go a long ways in determining if Graham truly is perverted, and that answer will go a long way in determining if she should continue developing a deeper relationship with him.

In another ontological area, we have all grown up in a socialself world, and so we have all assimilated a lot of socialself, and even decreasing realself, negative ideas about sex. This assimilation presents a problem for people who are increasing their degrees of realself because they have to understand these ideas in their true ontological context if they are to continue moving forward. Among the many other things she has to think about, Ann is confronting some of these ideas—such as the fundamental question Is sex dirty or perverted?—that are incompatible with the greater and greater degrees of realself she is becoming. She is a woman with a lot on her mind and a lot of strong emotions swirling around within her.

All in all, there isn’t a lot here ontologically; this post is included mainly to set up Ann’s ontological world and then show in the next post how two statements by Cynthia potentially have a great impact on Ann’s changing her mind about Graham.

Number 14 in the Sex, Lies, and Videotape series. All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.

In Sex, Lies, and Videotape Cynthia goes over to Graham’s apartment, partly to meet him and partly to find out what “spooked” Ann during her last visit. Soon after Cynthia arrives Graham asks her if she would like to make a videotape, she agrees, and by her own choice she masturbates on film during the interview.

After the filming Cynthia goes home and calls John at his office:

I want to see you.

John: Ah. When?

Cynthia: Right now.

John: I don’t know if I can do that. I got a client waiting. I’ve already rescheduled him once. I’d have to do some heavy-duty juggling.

Cynthia: Then get those balls in the air and get your butt over here.

John goes over to Cynthia’s place, they have very passionate sex, and immediately after they finish John says

You’re on fire today.

to which Cynthia harshly replies

Yes. … You can go now.

Ontologically, the interesting part about all of this is that Cynthia becomes more her realself during the filming, which brings up two important questions: Why did she become more her realself during the filming and Why did that make her more lustful?

As noted earlier, sex is a realself event, and so people become more their realselves when they become sexually aroused or have sex, whether they are conscious of their ontological change or not. Graham is being much more his realself than Cynthia is being hers, and so just by the way he talks to her about sex—the tone of voice he uses, his choice of words, his body language, the self he is being while talking to her—all of these contribute to his reaching her realself and to his helping her become as much of her realself as she is able to be at the time.

Cynthia is very lustful—she is “on fire”—after the filming because her conversation with Graham has made her become more her realself; because of this when she has sex with John she is being much more realself than her socialself; and this shift to greater ontological authenticity explains her greater sexual passion and intensity and her greater desire for it. Sex is much better for a person when the person is the one who is having the sex, as compared to when the person is acting as someone else who is having the sex.

As a side note, Cynthia’s character doesn’t appear to be as accurately drawn ontologically as Graham’s, Ann’s, and John’s characters. Most of what Graham, Ann, and John say and do rings true for the degree of realself they are each being, but Cynthia sometimes says and does things that seem to represent a much greater degree of realself than she is being at the time. For example, she becomes more her realself during the filming, and this greatly increases her desire to have sex. But an important part of her desire to have sex in this circumstance would be to have realself-to-realself sex and not the realself-to-socialself she knows she will have with John.

Cynthia isn’t an increasing realself person; rather, she is someone who appears to have innate ontological sensitivity and insight, but who hasn’t started increasing her degree of realself. If she is looked at in this way, her character makes more sense: she may be a socialself person within whom her realself is just starting to wake up; it is just starting to make her aware of realself thoughts and emotions; and she hasn’t started to reconcile all of her socialself and realself thoughts and emotions.

Number 13 in the Sex, Lies, and Videotape series. All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.

Ontologically, Sex, Lies, and Videotape is interesting for two main reasons. The first is that the two main characters, Ann and Graham, are both ontologically sensitive and insightful, and the second is that the movie shows Ann’s ontological growth over a period of time.

Other movies may have one of their characters express an ontological emotion or thought, but in these movies the characters’ ontological expressions are usually more isolated events than extended examinations of people who are committed to increasing their degrees of realself. Graham has spent the last nine years of his life on his ontological journey, and Ann begins her journey at the beginning of the movie.

Ann’s ontological journey is much more interesting because she keeps making progress throughout the movie—she is definitely more her realself at the end of the movie than she is at the beginning.

But not every incident in Ann’s life moves her forward. She senses Graham’s realself within him from the first day or two after meeting him, and she responds to that self and to him from her own nascent realself.

She develops an ontologically trusting feeling for him, and one day she happily goes to visit him. She says “Hi!” on first seeing him, and after seeing that he has videos she asks in a friendly and flirty tone, “Can we watch one?” But her thoughts and feelings about him change as she hears more about the videos:

Graham: It’s open!

Ann: Hi!

Graham: Hello, Ann.

Ann: I hope I’m not botherin’ you.

Graham: No, no.

Ann: I would’ve phoned. You busy?

Graham: No, no. I can finish later.

Ann: I just wanted to see what the apartment looked like with furniture.

Graham: Yeah, well, I’m afraid there’s not much to see. I’m sort of cultivating this minimalist vibe.

Ann: You could use a bookshelf.

Graham: Yeah? Yeah, you think so? They’re … you know, they’re all library books.

Ann: What are these?

Graham: Uh, those are videotapes.

Ann: I can see that. Of what?

Graham: It’s a personal project I’ve been workin’ on.

Ann: What kind of personal project?

Graham: What?

Ann: What kind of personal project?

Graham: Uh, a personal project like anyone else’s personal project. Mine’s just a little more … personal, I guess.

Ann: Who’s Donna?

Graham: What?

Ann: Donna. It says “Donna” here on the tape.

Graham: Donna was a girl I knew in Florida.

Ann: Oh, you went out with her?

Graham: No, not really.

Ann: Why do these tapes all have women’s names on ’em?

Graham: Well, I enjoy interviewing women more than men.

Graham: It’s iced tea.

Ann: Thanks.

Graham: I’m sorry, do you want some lemon?

Ann: No, this is perfect.

Ann: So, all of these are … are interviews, huh?

Graham: Uh, yes.

Ann: Can we watch one?

Graham: No, I’d … No.

Ann: Why not?

Graham: Well, I promised each of the subjects that no one would see the videotapes except for me.

Ann: What are the interviews about?

Graham: The interviews are about sex.

Ann: Sex? What about sex?

Graham: Uh, everything about sex.

Ann: Like what?

Graham: What they’ve done, what they do, what they want to do but are afraid to ask for, what they wouldn’t do even if asked. Anything I can think of. Oh, your ice.

Ann: You just ask them questions?

Graham: Yes.

Ann: And they answer ’em?

Graham: Yeah. Uh … Mostly. Sometimes they do things.

Ann: To you?

Graham: No, uh … for the camera.

Ann: Graham, this is just so …

Graham: I’m sorry this came up.

Ann: No, I’m sorry.

Graham: I’m sorry this came up, and …

Ann: I’m … I’m gonna go.

Graham: Here, I’ll take it.

Ann: OK. Yeah. All right.

Graham: Bye.

Throughout the movie Ann moves forward toward realself-to-realself sex, but even though she does doesn’t mean that she still doesn’t have many negative and conflicting ideas about sex. She likes realself-to-realself sex more as she becomes more aware of it, but this video kind of sex, or what she thinks is this kind of sex, is not that kind of sex. Are the videos voyeuristic? Perverted? Pornographic? She feels a realself-to-realself connection with Graham, but now she knows he has videos of other women, lots of other women, and some of them are doing things sexual on the videos.

Ann soon leaves, stunned ontologically: “Graham, this is just so … .” Probably the main reason she is stunned is that she feels she opened her ego boundary to him, to her realself, and she now feels that he has betrayed that self in some way. As she walks out the door, she has shut her realself off to him.

Number 12 in the Sex, Lies, and Videotape series. All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.

As with all increasing realself people, Ann and Graham in Sex, Lies, and Videotape express their current ontological thoughts and emotions through their sex lives. One example of their doing this is when they each say they are the most sexual when they are by themselves.

Ann tells her therapist:

Ann: I mean, I’m sure he probably wishes that I would initiate things once in a while, and I would, except for it just never occurs to me, and … well, the few times I have felt like it I was by myself.

And in the café Graham tells Ann “something personal”:

Graham: I’m impotent.

Ann: You’re what?

Graham: Impotent.

Ann: You are?

Graham: Yeah. I mean, like, well, I can’t … I can’t get an erection … in the presence of another person. So, for all practical purposes, I’m impotent.

Ann and Graham are both in the beginning to early Transition, and so among many other things sex for them is a realself event. Men and women who are in the early stages of becoming their realselves are self-conscious and inhibited about becoming more their realselves with others, and this means they are also self-conscious and inhibited about sex because they sense they become more their realselves during sexual activity.

Ann thinks about sex only when “I was by myself” and Graham says he was impotent “in the presence of another person,” but in fact they are saying that they feel sexual, truly and fully sexual, only when they are their realselves. They have each reached degrees of realself where they sense that they can become as much of their realselves as they are able to be at the time only in privacy, which means they are also their most sexual when they are alone. They don’t understand all the details, but they are both aware that it’s one thing to talk to socialself people and it’s something entirely different to have sex as one’s realself with someone who is being his or her socialself.

At the end of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Ann and Graham have sex, and they do because, before everything else, they have each found someone with whom they can be their realselves. However, it’s probably more accurate, and it is certainly more insightful, to say that instead of their having sex to say they develop a realself-to-realself relationship that includes sex, because that is by far the most important element in what takes place between them.

All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.

It’s very common for people who are increasing their degrees of realself to take a step forward, learn something new, and then use that new knowledge to examine other aspects of their lives. Ann does this in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and these post about her will do the same.

Going back to the time when Ann and Graham were in the café, she says she wants to tell him “something personal”:

Ann: I think that, um … I think that people place far too much importance on it. And I think that stuff about women wantin’ it just as bad as men is crap. I think they want it, I just don’t think they want it for the reason men think they do.

I’m getting confused. Do you understand what I’m …?

Graham: Yeah.

Ann had started increasing her degree of realself before she met Graham, and that means when she talks to him she is somewhere between her socialself and her realself ontologically. By being in the transitional state between these two selves, she is also, inevitably, between socialself sex and realself sex in both her experiencing and her understanding of each of them.

As people become more their realself, they want to be that self more in their relationship with someone they love. They also want their sex life to be more realself-to-realself because they know that that is what sex truly is: it is isn’t just genital activity of “going through the motions,” but a sensuous blending of being and bodies.

Ann isn’t yet at the degree of realself where she is conscious of the importance of the realself in one’s sex life, but she is definitely at the degree of realself where she senses that sex as socialself sex is “overrated.”

She gets “confused” when she explains her thoughts about sex because she is aware that socialself-to-socialself sex is not very enjoyable and it’s not how sex should be. But at the same time she is not conscious of either the socialself’s or the realself’s existence, and that lack of understanding makes it impossible for her to explain accurately what she is feeling.

In the back of her mind, however, Ann has started thinking about having realself sex. Even though she doesn’t consciously know that the realself exists, or what a realself-to-realself relationship is, or what realself-to-realself sex is, she is moving forward in their direction.

In broader terms, the awareness that sex is “overrated” can represent a beginning understanding of the reason couples can have a good sexual relationship for the first two or three years of their marriage, but after that they have sex less and less until they have it only infrequently. They start their marriage with the unconscious belief that it might develop into some kind of realself-to-realself relationship, and that underlying belief makes the sex good. But once one of the couple slowly becomes more his or her socialself with the other, the sex changes to socialself sex, and that change is followed by a lack of ontological and sexual interest and desire by the other person.

All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.

In Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Ann is talking with her therapist, and she mentions that her husband has not been having as much sex with her as in the past. She continues:

Ann: I mean, I’m sure he probably wishes that I would initiate things once in a while, and I would, except for it just never occurs to me, and … well, the few times I have felt like it I was by myself.

Therapist: Did you do anything?

Ann: What do you mean?

Therapist: Did you masturbate?

Ann: Oh! Oh. Oh. God, no. No. Mm-mm.

Therapist: I take it from your response that you never masturbate.

Ann: Well … I tried once. It just seems so stupid!

Two ontological thoughts on Ann’s embarrassment:

• Sex is a realself event, and so she was embarrassed about admitting to having masturbated because it meant she was being her realself when she did it and, to a lesser degree, when she admits to it and talks about it. She puts her hands over her face to cover or conceal her realself, which feels exposed.
• Additionally, by admitting to masturbating she felt as if she were caught being her realself in the socialself world, and we all learn early in our lives that we are not suppose to do that.

A common socialself world misconception about all of this is that some people are confident about their sexuality, and they can discuss their masturbating without getting embarrassed. But what these people don’t realize is that Ann’s embarrassment wasn’t caused strictly by her admitting to masturbating, but by her being more her realself while she was doing it and later talking about it.

It’s not hard to give the impression of confidence when one talks about one’s sex life as one’s socialself, but once people reach the degree of realself Ann was in, they too will feel embarrassed discussing their sex lives, since everyone in the beginning Transition feels embarrassed about being more his or her realself.

The answer to all of this embarrassment, of course, is not to strive to become more “confident,” but to become more one’s realself. Becoming more “confident” now almost always means becoming more confident as one’s socialself, when instead what people really need to do is to become more their realself, thus making them more confident in being it with others.

All the posts in this series are listed in the All the Series’ Posts page.

Quite a few people think sex is “just biological,” or “just physical,” or even “just chemical.” But as men and women increase their degrees of realself, they see that sex is actually linked inextricably to the realself.

Why is this? The main reason is probably that even though we can become alienated ontologically—we can fool ourselves into thinking we are who we aren’t and we aren’t who we are—we probably can’t fool our sexual nature because it is connected with the core of who we truly are, our realselves.

Most people are being mostly their socialselves, and so one might think that expressions of sex as a realself event would be rare. But one needs to keep in mind that everyone has a realself, and so when men and women have sex their realselves, to whatever degree they are being it, enters into and influences their sexual lives.

Future posts will examine in detail many of the connections between sex and the realself, but for now here is a quick overview of a few ontological areas where sex is a realself event:

• The link between sex and the realself means that sex often represents an increase in degree of realself, and so the people who on some level fear, reject, or even hate that increase will also fear, reject, or even hate sex.
• This fear, rejection, and hate is seen in religious and social conservatives preoccupation with sex: gays, gay marriage, contraceptives, abortion, and so on. It’s not sex they dislike the most, but actually the increase in degree of realself that sex represents.
• Sex and the realself can be thought of as two ends of a spectrum, and so even for those who are fully conscious of the realself, it’s hard to tell in some cases where sex ends and ontology begins and where ontology ends and sex begins.
• Men and women have both sexual desires and ontological desires, and sometimes, maybe even often, men and women have sex to satisfy their ontological desires or, but to a lesser extent, they use their ontological emotions to enhance their sexual desires.
• The pleasures of sex are partly the pleasures of becoming more one’s realself with another person, whether the people involved are conscious of this or not.
• The ontological component in sexuality covers the full range of sexuality, from its best to its worst: one man may want a sensuous blending of beings and bodies with his wife and another man shoots his girlfriend who is leaving him, later telling authorities “if I can’t have her, no one will have her” or “now I will be the only man she’s ever had sex with and we will be together for ever.”
• Intense sexual jealousy, in all its various forms, is mostly if not almost entirely an ontological emotion.

There’s no question about it: we will never understand sex until we understand realself ontology.

A minor note about the term: in realself ontology sex is described as a realself event rather than something such as a realself phenomena in order to encompass a lot of non-physical sexuality, such as what have in the past been thought of as strictly sexual fantasies or sexual desires.

At this stage of their relationship, most people might not think a deep connection is developing between Ann and Graham in Sex, Lies, and Videotape. After all, she tells her therapist Graham is “interesting,” and that isn’t much to go on when considering the ontological depth of the relationship between two people.

But there were two incidents that indicate their relationship is becoming more ontological, meaning it is moving beyond the very common socialself-to-socialself relationship and is developing into a relationship between their realselves.

In the café Graham told Ann she was self-conscious, and she said

Ann: Me? Me? You think I’m self-conscious?

Graham: Well … I’ve been watching you. I watch you eat, you know, I watch you speak, watch you move, and I see somebody who is extremely aware of people looking at you.

Initially, it might seem creepy to have someone closely watching everything a person does. And for socialself-to-socialself relationships, this may be true. But when relationships start becoming ontological, the people involved understand that this heightened “tuning in” to another person is more an expression of one person’s realself getting closer to another person’s realself, and it is not seen as a violation of what might be thought of as a person’s sphere of privacy. Ann undoubtedly took Graham’s actions in this way—she wasn’t upset by them.

Late that night, Graham was sleeping on a couch (Ann and John don’t have a guest room?), and Ann got up, went to him, and knelt beside him, looking at him. She didn’t say anything or wake him; she just looked at him for a little while and then went back to bed. (As it turns out, Graham was actually awake, but he didn’t let Ann know.)

What’s happening to Ann is that Graham is reaching her realself, and unconsciously she is responding to him and his realself from her own realself. She goes to him in the middle of the night because she is becoming aware of ontological thoughts and feelings; she knows they are important, powerful, and good; but she doesn’t know what to make of them. At the ontological state she is passing through, Graham represents something much bigger and deeper in her life, but she doesn’t understand what that something is, other than being drawn to it.

She may think that a part of her may love Graham in some way or that a part of her may be attracted to him sexually. But she is also aware that the feelings she has for him are, before everything else, something beyond sexual and something beyond what is usually thought of as love.

In the café Ann and Graham were engaged in what might be called “ontological flirting”: two people who are aware of the realself in each other enjoying the pleasure of being that self with someone they like. But when Ann looks at Graham in the middle of the night, she is unconsciously taking her first steps forward as an adult woman in developing a conscious, realself-to-realself relationship with a man.

In the past, almost all the people who started increasing their degrees of realself did not know that the realself, realself-to-realself relationships, and realself life exist. These people were drawn forward by their wakening realselves, but consciously they didn’t have any idea what was ahead of them ontologically.

Ann, in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, was in this ontological state in the days after she talked with Graham in the café. Before she met him she had told her therapist she wasn’t very happy about one of her husband’s college friends coming to visit. But later, after she has met Graham, she talks about him with her therapist:

Therapist: Did you confront John about the visitor?

Ann: The visitor?

Therapist: The friend of John’s that was staying at your house.

Ann: Graham.

Therapist: Graham.

Ann: Yeah. I mean … no. That actually turned out to be interesting. You know, I was expecting him to be just like John. You know, cos they went to school together and everything. You know, talking about getting drunk together and secret handshakes and … He turned out to be really this … character. He’s kind of arty. But OK.

Therapist: Is he still at your house?

Ann: No. No. No. He’s gone.

Even though consciously she didn’t understand what was taking place ontologically, in the café Ann got caught up in the pleasure of talking with someone with whom she could have more of a realself-to-realself relationship than she was having within anyone else, and that made her conversation with Graham exciting and enjoyable. He was being his realself somewhat with her, and by his doing that she was able to be more of her realself with him.

Ann is sensitive enough to her realself to think that her relationship with Graham is “interesting.” And after he finds a residence of his own, she has a chance to think about him, the type of man he is, and the kind of relationship she might have with him. One of the main reasons she thinks he is interesting is that on some level she is beginning to move from the spontaneous and unexamined realself-to-realself relationship she had with him in the café to a deeper, more considered, and more conscious realself-to-realself relationship with him.

At a future time Ann tells Graham, “You’ve had an effect on my life,” (which will be the subject of another post) and the effect he has on her is in his showing her that she has and can be a deeper self within her, and she can also have the deeper and more intimate relationships that come with that self.

It may be obvious, but in case it isn’t the main reason for this blog is to help make humankind less alienated ontologically and eventually to end our ontological alienation completely.

In working toward that goal, The Ontological War is concerned with two main groups. The first group is made up of ontological sensitive people, and the posts written for them focus on explaining everything having to do with increasing one’s degree of realself. And if these posts are looked at even closer, one will see that half of this blog is actually directed at those ontologically sensitive people who want to, or will want to, become increasing realself people.

The second group is made up of decreasing realself people, and the posts for them explain the great harm their promotion of alienated life causes all of us and explain the reasons for their having made the worst of all ontological decisions: the rejection of their realselves and realself life.

Of course, by having these two ontologically opposite audiences, there will be a wide range in the types of posts. The posts for ontologically sensitive people will include those such as in the Sex, Lies, and Videotape series. These posts will be directed mainly at increasing one’s degree of realself by showing the thoughts and emotions of others who are at various degrees of realself and then explaining why those who continue moving forward make the decisions they do.

The posts for decreasing realself people, on the other hand, will explain why they are alienated and why they made their decisions to turn around in the Transition and become more alienated rather than more who they truly are. The posts for this group will include those such as in the Jesus Is My Bitch! series, the Prof. L. Bernard Budlong Award series, and the Help! The World Is Too Big For Me! series. Besides explaining why the ontological states of decreasing realself people are alienated, a secondary purpose for these post will be to make it very difficult in the future for anyone to happily be a decreasing realself person.