by Donna Eden
At this point she was scarcely able to breathe. The therapist stopped her and said that it was not necessary to go any further. He had her state her distress rating about the memory, which obviously was a 10. He then led her through the Tapping Sequence. Her intensity dropped from 10 to 6. At this point, an Acceptance Statement that began “Even though I still feel overwhelmed . . .” was used, followed by another round of tapping. This time the intensity fell to 2. Then another Acceptance Statement was introduced, beginning with, “Even if I never get completely over this . . . ,” and a last round of tapping.
By this time, Sandy was breathing quietly. Her skin was free of blotches, her eyes were clear, and she was looking at her hands, lying folded in her lap. The therapist said, “Sandy, as you sit there now, think back to that hot summer day when your stepfather took you for that walk down that country road. Think about how you hiked up the side of that hill until you stopped. Think about how he took off all your clothes. Think of how he took off all his clothes. Now, what do you get?”
She sat there without moving for maybe five seconds, then looked up calmly and said, without excessive emotion, “Well, I still hate him.” The therapist, after agreeing that hating him might be a reasonable response and possibly a useful one to keep, then asked, “But what about the distress you were feeling?”
Again she paused before answering. This time she laughed as she said, “I don’t know. I just can’t get there. Well, that was twenty years ago. I was just a little girl. I couldn’t protect myself then the way I can now. What’s the point in getting upset about something like that . . . I never let that man touch me again, and my kids have never been allowed to be near him. I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem to bother me like it did.”
After this single session, she no longer experienced negative feelings in response to her partner’s sexual advances. On a two-year follow-up, she reported that the problem was “good and gone,” and her partner, now her husband, confirmed that there was no sign of the former difficulties. Notice, also, that by the end of the session she was speaking of the trauma almost casually, and she was placing it into a self-affirming framework: “Well, that was twenty years ago. I was just a little girl. I couldn’t protect myself then the way I can now.” Such shifts in relationship to a traumatic memory that has been emotionally cleared with a therapist who uses an energy approach are not unusual, and they can give you a new lease on your sexual life.
Men’s Ancestral Programming; Women’s Ancestral Programming
The old quip that “God gave men two brains but only enough blood to run one at a time” has been excruciatingly played out in innumerable broken relationships and the downfall of many a politician. It is also a source of tension in the psyches of men and women and even many happy relationships. Marianne Williamson describes the dilemma in evolutionary terms: For our distant ancestors, “nature needed men to go from one woman to another, impregnating us as they went along to propagate the species. And women needed to settle down with the children, to nurture them so that they would grow into adulthood. Those impulses running through our systems for at least a few hundred thousand years turned man’s instinctive response after sex into, ‘I gotta go,’ while a woman’s still tends to be, ‘Let’s settle down.’”52
Whatever the evolutionary contributions to tension in male-female relationships, nearly half of marriages in the United States end in divorce,53 and infidelity is one of the most frequently stated reasons for divorce.54 In one survey, 74 percent of men and 68 percent of women said they would consider an affair if they knew they would never get caught.55 Attraction to others is a powerful and often unacknowledged energy in many relationships. It plays out differently in men than in women, and it can be a challenging issue for couples who are committed to going the distance with one another. This closing section of the chapter grapples with the biological underpinnings of this energetic conundrum.
Why Men Stray
A study that interviewed 120 young men about their relationships found conflict about fidelity to be a common theme. Emotionally they wanted to be monogamous, but their brains still craved sex outside their relationship. After a romantic phase of six months to two years, despite the love and intimacy they had come to share with their partner, their discontent grew until it felt like the relationship had placed them in a “form of socially compelled sexual incarceration.”56 They did not want to break up with their partners, but even as the emotional bonds deepened, a cognitive dissonance occurred (in this case, wanting two things that are mutually exclusive) as they tried to reconcile their sexual desires with their desire not to hurt their partner and honor the social mandates of a committed relationship. Simply stated by the investigator, they “want something they do not want.”57 Making matters worse was that they feared telling their partners about their desire for sex with others. Because of cultural beliefs that equate such desires with depravity or at least no longer being in love, regardless of the strength of the emotional bond, they feared that their partners would break up with them if they were honest. Cheating seemed less risky to the stability of their relationships than honesty, giving them a chance to have sex outside the relationship while maintaining emotional intimacy with their partner.
According to neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, “both men and women have a deep misunderstanding of the biological and social instincts that drive the other sex.”58 For starters, a human male produces enough sperm in two weeks to impregnate every fertile female on the planet,59 and men have two and a half times as much space devoted to sexual drive in the brain area where lust originates as women.60 With forefathers who pursued fertile females having been selected to pass along their genes, modern men are physiologically primed to respond to appealing sexual opportunities independent of their values or druthers. Across all cultures, men evolved to focus on features that indicate health and fertility. Firm ample breasts, a small waist, flat stomach, full hips, clear skin, and facial symmetry add up to a look that “tells his brain that she’s young, healthy, and probably not pregnant with another man’s child.”61 His primary “mate-detection circuit comes prewired” to notice women with these physical characteristics, and when it does, “his brain’s ‘must have’ sequence” is, at least for a moment, triggered.62 A high-octane mix of testosterone and dopamine bathes brain regions that fuel his cravings for the blissful euphoric experience promised by the raw data his eyes are sending to his visual cortex. The attraction is magnetic. Like it or not, these rude physiological facts are ingredients in the male’s side of the physical-psychological-interpersonal-social-spiritual-energetic stew called marriage. In energetic terms, it takes, as we showed earlier, little provocation for a man’s Root Chakra energies to rush up to his Heart Chakra and surge “out of his body like a heat-seeking missile speeding toward a near stranger” (here).
Why Women Stray
Our culture’s assumptions about monogamy are captured in the popular ditty (often incorrectly attributed to William James), “Higamous, hogamous, woman is monogamous; hogamous, higamous, man is polygamous.” For more than three decades, David has invoked this to explain peculiarities of his gender as well as to give himself license to keep some measure of self-respect amid feelings and urges he would prefer to no longer be experiencing. For Donna, it gave license for her to assume that males were an inferior, lascivious, unconscious lot, not wired to really love. David wanted to counter this viewpoint, sensing that it somehow did not reflect favorably on him, but he would be muted when the discussion would progress to rapists, plunderers, and philanderers as cases in point.
For the umpteenth time in our long relationship, we were having the higamous/hogamous discussion when David, who had been reading about the biological underpinnings of sexual behavior in animals and humans for this very chapter, decided to take a new tack in trying to defend himself from Donna’s “holier than thou” attitude. Donna was not aware of any urge to not be monogamous within her primary relati
onship (unless she had been abandoned—physically or emotionally), and she viewed men who didn’t hold to the same standard with contempt. That is not to say that she wasn’t aware of her attractions to other men. She was, and she had no compunction about freely sharing such feelings. She had, in fact, recently mentioned how drawn she was to the mathematician and cosmologist Brian Swimme while we were watching a DVD of his, The Universe Story.
David said, “Okay, let me give you a hypothetical. Imagine us living as we do, happy with each other. Brian Swimme is living next door. He lives alone. He has respectfully signaled to you that he finds you attractive. I am getting old and able to make love only occasionally. I also travel a lot. Are you still monogamous? Or say we’re younger. . . . We’ve had two children with severe congenital health problems. You desire a third child and everything in you wants this child to be healthy. You are walking by Mr. Swimme’s home one day while I am at work. He looks so healthy and so strong. He invites you in. You are in the fertile time of your cycle. Are you still monogamous?” Donna: “Okay, okay, I get it! A woman’s hogamous can go higamous. But men who fool around are still jerks!”
After working intensively with hundreds of women, we believe that women stray outside their primary relationship most often because they feel unloved or seek affirmation their partner is not providing. Variety, excitement, waning passion, and revenge are other reasons women give for cheating. Personal histories that include parental or other abuse can also make commitment to one partner difficult. Beyond these more obvious explanations are biological predispositions that may influence a woman’s motivations in ways that are outside her awareness. Females in the wild generally choose their mate based on whether he has “what it takes to be a good protector and provider.”63 That is still our basic programming. Interestingly a woman is not necessarily primed to select the genetically superior man.
• THE ENERGY DIMENSION •
While everyone is unique, here are some features that stood out when, at a party, Donna compared the energies of men and women who were obviously “on the make.”
Men on the Prowl
If men only knew how unattractive their energies are when they are trying to be suave and debonair for the purpose of seduction, they would take a different tack. The strongest energy emanating from a man who is making an uninvited pass comes from both his Root Chakra and his Third Chakra, which is at the solar plexus. The energy feels aggressive yet strangely impersonal. It has an air of manipulation and dishonesty and a desire to overpower and win at all costs. Part of what makes it so unattractive is that it is not deeply connected to him—it starts on the surface of his body and moves out from there. Its color is usually in the range from sharp yellow to brown. The energies of a man who is genuinely and deeply attracted to a woman have a very different quality. While they also come out of his Root Chakra, they come out of his Heart Chakra as well.
Women on the Prowl
I usually see a receptive rather than aggressive energy. The energy coming out of her heart is large and open, ready to take in and embrace the energy of a suitor. This energy has an air of hope and excitement. Once she is interested in someone, however, this energy becomes more focused. It moves out from her Third Chakra, which carries strategic energy, often geared toward playing to the man’s ego. I can’t exactly describe it except to say that I have seen women follow this energy in their behavior. And, embarrassing as it should be to men, it often works.
In fact, dominant males who are genetically superior often “have a tendency for lower parental investment.”64 Single women can smell this, literally. Subtle body odors provide women with a surprising amount of information as their brains respond to cues about whether a man is nurturing and will stick around to help raise his offspring. Preferences also change with the time of the month and with marital status. Yes, scientists actually study these things! Dominant, genetically superior males (who are less likely to help with parenting) literally smell better to women who already have stable partners than they do to women who are unpaired, particularly during the time of the month that they are fertile.65 Why might that be?
One of nature’s first priorities in designing women was to favor the survival and success of their young. Once having secured a reliable partner, a woman who is open to a dalliance with a genetically superior man can improve the chances of genetically superior offspring. With nature having set it up so that men don’t know if their partner’s child is theirs, combined with a bit of deception, she can pass on better genes while being supported by the unsuspecting and characteristically more faithful partner. Given all of this, it is not surprising that a good deal of human history has been shaped by fuss about paternity. Another practical reason for a woman to indulge in secret liaisons, beyond psychological benefits such as adventure and affirmation of attractiveness, is to ensure that she will indeed be impregnated. Another is that a clandestine lover may bring gifts that will benefit her and her children, which in our ancestors’ time usually meant food. Her genetic programming not only drives her to find a mate who will help her raise her young, it then drives her to see that those young have the best genes and resources she can attract.
These Forces Play Out within You in a Way That Is Unique to You
To become conscious of these forces in a manner that will be useful, the starting point is not only to read about their place in human evolution, as presented above, but also to recognize how they may or may not influence you at this point in your life and in your relationship. They do not operate in equal measure in all people or consistently across time. For instance, you may be a man whose sexual interest focuses only on your partner, or you may be a woman who can enjoy multiple sexual relationships with no emotional commitment.
Instructive here is a story Brizendine likes to tell of the side-blotched lizard. The males use three different mating strategies, and the tactics they use match the color of their throat. Males with orange throats guard a group of females, and they mate with all of them. Males with yellow throats sneak into the “harems” of the orange-throated males and mate with their females whenever they can get away with it. Males with throats that are a brilliant blue are wired for an entirely different strategy: They mate with only one female and guard her ardently. From a biological perspective, Brizendine concludes, these are three “successful mating strategies for lizards and for human males, too. I affectionately call my husband a blue-throat.”66 With humans, however, whose throats are not conveniently color-coded, the truth is that imprints for more than one mating strategy are probably fighting it out, or have fought it out at least at some point in your life. Bringing your consciousness to the battle makes a beneficial resolution more likely.
Does Monogamy Best Serve the Man, the Woman, Both, or Neither?
The above discussion shows that higamous/hogamous may not be the final words about male and female sexual drives after all. In The Myth of Monogamy, evolutionary biologist David Barash and his wife, Judith Lipton, a psychiatrist who specializes in women’s issues, note that the traditional belief is that in nature as well as in civilized society, the female’s “yearning for cozy monogamous domesticity was supposed to be as strong as the male tendency to mate with as many different partners as possible.”67 DNA analysis and related technologies have, however, found that even in the relatively few animal species that were believed to be monogamous, “females are not nearly as reliably monogamous as had been thought . . . they are active sexual adventurers in their own right.”68 Bird species that had been seen as being among nature’s prototypes for monogamy often have eggs spawned by more than one male in the same nest, “tell me it ain’t so” sentiments notwithstanding.
If aspiring toward monogamy, as Barash and Lipton and many other social scientists have concluded, goes “against some of the deepest-seated evolutionary inclinations with which biology has endowed most creatures, Homo sapiens included,”69 why is it the bedrock of our culture? Not
only does the Sixth Commandment demand “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” the Tenth Commandment prohibits you from even enjoying the fantasy. This has, however, proven to be difficult to legislate. Anthropologists and historians of family and sexual arrangements have had to recognize that “the triumph of monogamy” has also been the “triumph of” unfaithfulness, marital deceit, and dishonesty.70 The title of the section of our workshops that addresses these issues is called “What Was God Thinking?!”
Given the power of the male’s proclivity for conspicuous and relatively indiscriminate fooling around, monogamy is often thought of as an arrangement that benefits women more than men. Historically, however, monogamy actually protected the interests of men more than of women. According to Barash and Lipton, having no restrictions on male sexual activity “is a disaster for most men.”71 The reason is that, unchecked, a small number of dominant males tend to reign over most of the females. While modern laws and mores counter this tendency, it was dramatic in many preindustrial societies. One of the most beautiful love poems ever written, The Song of Songs, is attributed to King Solomon. He was apparently writing from experience. The Old Testament reports that he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, an innovative strategy for not being tempted to break the Sixth Commandment. Among the Incans, the four top political officials in a region (from petty chief to chief) were allotted seven, eight, fifteen, and thirty wives, respectively, while the emperor kept thousands of women.72 Those of you who are good at math can see the problems this might cause for men in the middle or lower ranks. Monogamy also helps ensure a man’s paternity and the inheritance rights that go with it. In addition, monogamy keeps the father around to protect his offspring against the little quirk in the brains of male mammals to kill the infants of other males,73 a credible threat when living in nature “red of tooth and claw.”