Eros Unredeemed by Dieter Duhm

Author:Dieter Duhm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: change, consciousness, healing, ecology, eros, political theory, free love, cooperation, spirituality and nature, violence versus peace
Publisher: Verlag

Chapter 22: Tenderness and the Intimacy Afterwards

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Through a sexual encounter a feeling of pleasure arises that we prefer not to end immediately – we desire the “intimacy afterwards.” Oh have we sinned in this respect, we men especially! A friend called me recently to talk about explosions and manslaughter and psychotherapy. Her boyfriend Mario had just left her hanging after a very nice time in bed – he simply got up and left. It was always like that, she said, and she couldn’t stand it any more. Here I have no intention of condemning my fellow men; I would be much better off concentrating on my own shortcomings. But it’s true that we have a way of passing from sex right back into our daily routine as if we had just brushed our teeth.

After a rapturous sexual encounter, a natural feeling of gratitude and tenderness generally follows. It gives us a lift which we would like to take with us into the world and into the day. A sexual encounter which ends at the moment of orgasm is like a spiritual coitus interruptus, since the process is broken off in the middle. The mental quality of sensual love, the joy that a man and a woman feel when they understand each other and make love to each other, is normally not fulfilled by merely performing the sexual act, it is only just awakened. It is often said that sexual union arises from tenderness. This is a limitation that does not necessarily correspond to the nature of Eros. Sexuality can arise from tender feelings, but it can just as well arise from the most bestial desires. Morally speaking, one is not better than the other. When it happens and it’s good, a sort of natural tenderness develops. The lion licks its lioness.

There are circumstances under which sex becomes a routine, such as in marriage or in groups which have a conventional understanding of free love. There is nothing wrong with a quickie every now and then. Feel free to treat sex like brushing your teeth occasionally, as long as you don’t have a bad taste in your mouth afterwards. But what goes on in that space of ten square feet between four bedposts mustn’t be allowed to disappear from the rest of our daily life. Eros, even in its most carnal manifestation, has a fine and sensitive texture which longs for tenderness. It may however only be activated after we have reminisced over the experience with some distance. We certainly need a lot of conscious tolerance for one another in order to avoid being consumed by our anger over another’s insensitivity. A man who leaves his wife like a stick-in-the-mud after the act would be shocked at his behavior if he could see what he was doing. If he weren’t all caught up in his eternal film of performance and duty, if he weren’t forced to compensate for his unfulfilled longing through work, if he hadn’t

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