SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER IX: TRANSCENDING OUR SEX-SCRIPTS
As permanent as our imprinted sex-scripts will
probably remain,
it might be possible to live and love beyond our imprinted sexual
fantasies.
Such transcending of our imprinted sex-scripts
seems to occur only within on-going, committed, loving relationships.
The specialness of the encounter between two persons becomes so powerful
that their imprinted sexual fantasies fade into the background.
This shift shows itself by the loss of our generic
sexual responses
to bodies, objects, situations, or personalities
that used to create sexual interest, arousal, & orgasm.
When love replaces lust, our sexual interest,
arousal, & orgasms
are focused on particular persons rather than generic men or women.
Put another way, we find that I-Thou sex
replaces I-It sex.
When we had I-It sexuality, we responded to sexy strangers
because something about them activated our imprinted sexual fantasies.
They had generic sex-appeal, which would have ‘turned on’
anyone who had a sex-script for that type of man or woman.
But I-Thou sex arises only in specific
relationships.
If we are fully present in our sexual celebration,
sex is an encounter of I and Thou on the level of persons,
rather than generic responses arising from our sexual imprinting.
We began our sex-lives in role sexuality,
responding to other personalities and bodies
because of the sexual imprinting we received early in life.
We experienced role sexuality as happening to us
because our endocrine systems (guided by our specific imprinting)
were providing the main dynamics of our sexual experiences.
But this role sexuality can be replaced by
real sexuality
when we discover how to respond to specific other persons
because of who they are in their uniqueness
rather than how well they awaken our pre-existing sexual fantasies.
Such relationships arise from particular encounters with real persons.
These unique encounters cannot be predicted or expected beforehand.
Whatever experiences we had during the years
in which our sex-lives were controlled by our imprinted sexual
fantasies,
we might eventually discover how to transcend that way of being sexual
and how to open ourselves to the possibility loving relationships
based in uniqueness, singularity, even Authenticity.
Chapter
IX
TRANSCENDING OUR
SEX-SCRIPTS
by JAMES
PARK
117
Created
3-16-2008; Revised