On Objectification

Just as women don't want to be sex objects, men don't want to be relationship objects.

I said this about a decade ago, and while it still holds truth for me, the interpretation has changed a bit.

While on one hand it seems normal and natural to want sex and enjoy relating to a man or a woman, on another level we recognize that we are somehow fulfilling a role in the other person's scene. Applying a dramaturgical lens, we become mere "props" in another's creative artistry. We are the lesser. They the greater. But do we seek the staring role or do we wrestle for control?

Self-perception of one's role in one's own script and story is essential in becoming a self-aware, self-actualized actor in the world. "To act" - this is life's charge. We must do something with our lives or else we are nothing but blind and dumb organisms, consuming endlessly, unable to listen to the song of the universe or speak the name of the divine.

We must be more than that. But in the pursuit of human nobility we should not, as the moralists do, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sex is an expression of life and creation, if not a metaphor for the Creation. Thus it is both sacred and a gift to be enjoyed as wished. We must not reduce ourselves to the role; rather, we can use the role to enjoy our ability to participate fully in the human drama and create a new experience. And new life. A story that begets another story in the unfolding of human experience.

So I hesitate when asked, obliquely if not directly: "Do you want a relationship? Just sex?" Next time, I think I'll reply: "Let's throw out our scripts. Write a new story. One with a happy ending." WINK.