Love on Earth

Posted by: Wendy

Not long ago, after agreeing to review another book for GGG on greening the fashion world, the publisher sent me a note saying that after reviewing my site www.goodcleanlove.com, she was also going to send another  new release that she thought I would be interested in; “Sex Secrets of Porn Stars”.    I wondered if she had actually read anything on my site, because after years of attending the big Vegas “Sex Shows”, it became increasingly clear that my corporate mission, brand identity and personal beliefs about the connection between love and sex was a universe removed from both the intent and content of the adult industry.   Giving into curiosity, I opened the book to the first page, where the author compares women we emulate like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Mead with the famous women of the silver screen, who bare it all, the stars of pornography.  She suggests that if we would emulate these women (instead of great women’s rights leaders???) , we could all enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.  The plot thickens with the essentials on everything from the hair, make up and costume choices of porn stars to the borrowed positions and scripts to spice up one’s own love life.  

Ironically on the same day, I got a lengthy email from a New York literary agent that I had been corresponding with about publishing my work in book form.  Having made contact with her through a possible editor at a large publishing house I was anxious to hear her thoughts on how best to format the work.  She said although she liked my work, the relationship angle on the work involved in building and maintaining a sustainable relationships just wouldn’t sell nearly as well as a cute book about discovering and enjoying a more passionate life.  “Couldn’t you just write a book about finding more passion?  After all, you have this cute company that sells sex products…. Just downplay   all the hard work in relationships, people don’t really want to read about that.”

It occurred to me to send her “Sex Secrets of the Porn Stars”.  

I do sometimes feel like promoting my tag line of  “Making Love Sustainable” is a little like pushing a big rock up a steep hill.   We aren’t really a culture that applies the wisdom of sustainability to our most important relationships.  Often when I say it,  there is a thoughtful pause, as though the idea were completely new.  It isn’t just about promoting green and healthy products although the adult industry could certainly do with a green washing of it’s standard ingredients.   The deeper recognition is the idea that we might be willing to give up momentary happiness or the ease we expect our relationships to provide and actually commit to the work of making our relationships sustainable and lasting, with the same effort we would put into our homes, businesses and health. 

How far our collective reality is from this sustainable love model is evidenced in all of our cultural demographics from rising divorce statistics to the trends of young people who choose to “hook up” or be “friends with benefits” rather than engage in a committed relationship, to how common place pornography has become in our lives.   The percentages of people who participate in the on-line pornographic universe is startling- One in four adults spend four or more hours per week in sexual experiences that are cut off from the relationships that define their lives.  Many actually prefer these virtual relationships to the real live ones that fill their homes.  In a time when there has never been more opportunity and technology to connect to each other, we have never seen the incidence of this many people living alone.  

 That we don’t choose and stay in real love relationships is not that surprising as loving people is one of the most challenging and elevated skills that we are demanded to  develop as human beings.  Most of us come from families which gave us little useful information on the topic and if you are graduated from any public institution in the land,  then you know how little relationship skills are provided in the standard k-12 curriculum.  Even skills as basic as conflict resolution are not nearly as standard for children as geometry.  Given our collective history of war and pillage, you would think it might occur that loving each other is not ingrained in the human model, and that like other coveted skill groups we would set this as our highest level of mastery. 

Still, as complicated and messy as loving relationships can be, they are also the only avenue available to us that can provide the kind of mind blowing, “Wow- that was amazing”  sex that we all long for most.  Making love with someone that you deeply love is a singular experience that so unites the intimates involved that it transforms them. It is the proverbial glue that keeps the rest of the mess intact and inspires people to compassion and kindness that they may not even know they are capable of.   It is the truest part of what it means to be human and the act of love that accompanies it has the power to change the world.  

And change the world it does.    Loving someone is the largest single predictor or health and longevity.  As Dr. Dean Ornish said  “Love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing…I am not aware of any other factor in medicine- not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery- that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes.”   Love is the cure as well as the illness in our world, and evolving our ability to love, increases not only our chances of survival but creates a depth and meaning in life that only happens in relationships.

The healing affects of intimacy and connection extend deeply into the physical act of lovemaking. Hundreds of major medical studies have shown that an active sex life leads to a longer life, better heart health, a healthier immune response, reduction in chronic pain symptoms, lower rates of depression and even protection against some cancers. Men who have regular sex (only twice per week) have half as many heart attacks as men who only have sex once per month. In fact, a regular garden variety sex life has been shown to extend life by as much as ten years. People who enjoy a meaningful sex life are less anxious, fearful and inhibited.

So now that you are sold on the benefits of  love and intimacy,  lets also reveal the unspoken truth  about sustaining love over time, which  is that loving someone else and allowing yourself to be deeply loved is an act of heroic patience, intention and commitment.   After the honeymoon wears off, (and I promise it always will)  we humans  are all as annoying as we are loveable.   Accepting that as fact and then building the skills to undertake the daily problem solving of loving,  is not only wise, but a prerequisite for enjoying the kind of sex that can change your world.  Stay tuned here as we continue to explore new regions of the heart and the delights of sustainable love.  Please Share your stories of keeping your love vital and healthy too.

This post originally seen at www.realitysandwich.com/sustainable_love  has created quite a stir.  The range of experiences and beliefs about what love means is some of the most fascinating and deeply revealing reading we can do.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

 

 

 

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