The Subjective Cunt
This is a response to this post.
I met someone two and a half years ago who I have sinced referred to as my 'relationship guru'. Their advice helped me to 'fall in love' with my current girlfriend.
The advice stated that being in a relationship is about getting to know someone mentally, physically and spiritually. You do this by getting inside them - again, in all three ways. It's a masculine analogy, but I think it applies both ways. You want to find out how best to stimulate them sexually, intellectually and spiritually.
Since then, I've refined it with thoughts like:
- the relationship is strongest when my urge to 'get inside her' (i.e. understand her) is strongest;
- my love for her is measured by her ability to inspire that exploratory desire in me;
- as I explore her, she forces me to understand myself and change, which makes me look for new things in her;
- coupled to this, the scientific principle that the act of observation alters the subject also applies - she changes as I try to understand her.
These last two points make the quest-relationship potentially unfulfillable this means that I will never be bored, or run short of things to look for in her, as she develops over time and that I potentially I will never cease developing in the things that I desire to understand in her. (The flip side is that I may well become bored of questing in her and switch; for example, her tits might shrink, or she might stop liking arthouse films.)
I've not, as of yet, gone so far as to say that by understanding her I understand myself and that is my purpose. It seems a cuntingly selfish thing to do, especially if you assume it from the outset, before the relationship. Yes, with books, with art, with travel, extreme sports, new situations and so on, you test your own limitations, understand yourself. "All self-improvement is masturbation," Tyler Durden. But if it's true for relationships, then you're only capable of wanking.
You might, once, decide you want to tie her up and leave her naked while you go to the shop for milk and then come back and fuck her, without untying her. Is that to understand yourself, or to see how she'll react?
I want to know how she'll react, because it's a chance to work out if other people have different reactions to your own. It's a chance to empathise - the greatest chance to empathise, because you can't tie your mother, or your brother up and fuck them twenty minutes later - a chance to step outside of yourself. This creates a change in yourself, a development, but if you actively seek that change, you're not stepping out of your self. You're looking for a catalyst, not a chemical reaction, because you're too volatile already to ever bond.
My 'guru's' definition for relationships stands true for me, at the moment (and for the past two years), but as you've pointed out, it's subjective. But how else can you learn, except by trial and error, or speaking to other people with their philosophies and seeing if they match your own?
Your own idea of love is based on the principle that 'no one can understand anyone else'. That also guides how you deal with being cunted by love - you can't accept advice on how to deal with your lover, because they're not fully aware of the situation you're in. Maybe I'm too Jungian, or something - shared experiences, collective unconscious - but undoubtably someone has been there first. Learning occurs in more than one way.
Anyway, that inordinately long post doesn't leave you any less cunted for an answer, because you've already made the decision. Talking is useful though: it adds to the LIAC quotient. Eventually the idea will gain critical mass and there'll be an increase in the number of passion-related murders. Can't be all bad, eh?
I met someone two and a half years ago who I have sinced referred to as my 'relationship guru'. Their advice helped me to 'fall in love' with my current girlfriend.
The advice stated that being in a relationship is about getting to know someone mentally, physically and spiritually. You do this by getting inside them - again, in all three ways. It's a masculine analogy, but I think it applies both ways. You want to find out how best to stimulate them sexually, intellectually and spiritually.
Since then, I've refined it with thoughts like:
- the relationship is strongest when my urge to 'get inside her' (i.e. understand her) is strongest;
- my love for her is measured by her ability to inspire that exploratory desire in me;
- as I explore her, she forces me to understand myself and change, which makes me look for new things in her;
- coupled to this, the scientific principle that the act of observation alters the subject also applies - she changes as I try to understand her.
These last two points make the quest-relationship potentially unfulfillable this means that I will never be bored, or run short of things to look for in her, as she develops over time and that I potentially I will never cease developing in the things that I desire to understand in her. (The flip side is that I may well become bored of questing in her and switch; for example, her tits might shrink, or she might stop liking arthouse films.)
I've not, as of yet, gone so far as to say that by understanding her I understand myself and that is my purpose. It seems a cuntingly selfish thing to do, especially if you assume it from the outset, before the relationship. Yes, with books, with art, with travel, extreme sports, new situations and so on, you test your own limitations, understand yourself. "All self-improvement is masturbation," Tyler Durden. But if it's true for relationships, then you're only capable of wanking.
You might, once, decide you want to tie her up and leave her naked while you go to the shop for milk and then come back and fuck her, without untying her. Is that to understand yourself, or to see how she'll react?
I want to know how she'll react, because it's a chance to work out if other people have different reactions to your own. It's a chance to empathise - the greatest chance to empathise, because you can't tie your mother, or your brother up and fuck them twenty minutes later - a chance to step outside of yourself. This creates a change in yourself, a development, but if you actively seek that change, you're not stepping out of your self. You're looking for a catalyst, not a chemical reaction, because you're too volatile already to ever bond.
My 'guru's' definition for relationships stands true for me, at the moment (and for the past two years), but as you've pointed out, it's subjective. But how else can you learn, except by trial and error, or speaking to other people with their philosophies and seeing if they match your own?
Your own idea of love is based on the principle that 'no one can understand anyone else'. That also guides how you deal with being cunted by love - you can't accept advice on how to deal with your lover, because they're not fully aware of the situation you're in. Maybe I'm too Jungian, or something - shared experiences, collective unconscious - but undoubtably someone has been there first. Learning occurs in more than one way.
Anyway, that inordinately long post doesn't leave you any less cunted for an answer, because you've already made the decision. Talking is useful though: it adds to the LIAC quotient. Eventually the idea will gain critical mass and there'll be an increase in the number of passion-related murders. Can't be all bad, eh?
posted by Anonymous | 7:32 pm
