The Ontological War

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.