The Secret of open Marriages

As read in The Times of India- 21 Apr 2008, Radhika Das

Rekha (name changed to protect identity) is a pretty, outgoing, 30-year-old who works as a copywriter. She is married to 32-year-old Jai (name changed to protect identity), an investment banker, who is rather shy and an introvert. The couple, married for five years, though not regular party-goers, enjoy the occasional night out with close friends or a dinner with a movie thrown in. The five years of their married existence had seen its share of ups and downs - from cosy weekends to occasional fights, door-slamming, tantrums and all.


Things were more or less beginning to settle down in a pattern familiar to most married couples and there was even talk of planning for a family. Till one fine day when Rekha was jolted out of her routine existence by Jai, who confessed to being physically attracted to a colleague. What was even more surprising was the fact that Rekha herself seemed not totally averse to the idea of infusing some adventure into their humdrum lives. Of course, as long as this urge to stray did not become a habit, she could live with it. In fact, she was looking forward to having a little 'fun’ of her own.

"We spent hours discussing what each of us wanted from this and set some boundaries that were not to be crossed. And at any point, if either of us had a problem, we would pull back. We didn’t want to do anything that would hurt the other," says Rekha.

Rekha and Jai are amongst the new breed of young couples who are consensually seeking gratification outside marriage without rocking their own boat. Using the term 'open marriage’ these couples are seeking to spice up their relationships by experimenting with other partners. Call it shocking or call it an indication of changing societal codes the question is: is an open marriage really what some define it to be - one in which both partners are free to participate sexually with partners outside marriage?

Tracing the origins of the term, researchers believed that it was first used in the West in the 60s to give societal sanction to individuals to choose their own life partner. But the meaning of the term changed radically in 1972, when Nena and George O'Neill used the term in their bestselling book Open Marriage: A New Life Style for Couples. The O'Neill’s perceived open marriage as one that is liberating and not suffocating where each partner gives the other space to grow as an individual first. While the O’Neill’s have discussed the possibility of developing 'intimate’ friendships outside marriage, popular culture began using the phrase as a synonym for sexual infidelity, much to the dismay of the authors.

In India too, the idea of open marriage has been adapted differently by experts. According to psychologist, Dr. Rachna Kothari, "Open marriage is an alliance where husband and wife are open to relationships outside marriage. It may specifically refer to both the partners, not having any reservations about indulging in sexual relationships outside their marriage."

Dr. Vibhuti Patel, a reader in the University of Mumbai, and member secretary, Women Development Cell, feels otherwise, "Open marriage is one where spouses share a democratic and transparent relationship without any 'personal secrets’. Here, the couples are candid and share each others problems, predicaments, confusions and doubts without fear of emotional blackmail or retaliation."

Agrees Arvinder J. Singh, a practicing therapist who deals with emotional and psychological problems, "Open marriage is where there is entry and exit whenever and wherever; without any conditions imposed upon each other. Marriage has some written and some unwritten codes and to me, open marriage means unwritten codes, that is, no commitments and no expectations."

Indeed, the system of marriage and divorce with its written codes evolved more recently. In fact, according to Dr. Patel, the system of divorce is only 5000 years old! According to Dr. Prakash Kothari, chief of sexual medicine at KEM Hospital and GS Medical College, Mumbai, "There was no marriage system in our country earlier. Anybody could go and sleep with anybody if they desired to."

According to Dr. Patel, "In traditional societies, adultery was and is the norm and not an exception. Look at the Garhwali tribe in the Himalayas, the Garo and Khasi tribes in the north east and the Mewati tribe in Rajasthan."

Truly, if we look closely at traditional societies you’d find that the concept of 'open marriages’ was and is prevalent in its own way. Marriages were and are more democratic and liberating without its modern-day garb of hypocrisy. If anything, the written codes brought with them oppressive traditions which led to jealousy, betrayal, and deceit. These are traditions that couples have been increasingly battling with - earlier in silence and today more vocally. "Open marriages are based on assertion of identities, dignity, self-esteem and self respect of both partners. In 'closed marriages’ there is more emotional, psychological, sexual, physical and economic violence as well as cheating, fraud and back-stabbing," asserts Dr. Patel.

In essence, people who are looking at open marriages or relationships are in fact those who are stepping out of the closet, and rewriting the codes. According to Dr. Devika Chawla, Professor of Communication Studies, Ohio University, US, who has researched on women's experiences in Hindu arranged marriages," open marriages can be an expression of uninhibited sexuality and sexual freedom."

Sexual freedom or not, increasing couples are seeking gratification outside of their marriages or relationships in an attempt to have a healthier conjugal and holistic life and shed the garb of hypocrisy. Of course, sexual fidelity will always remain a challenge, but what will ultimately triumph are the strength, honesty, and trust that an 'open marriage' is based on.

The appeal of earthy women

by Brad Viking

They’ve been in some campaigns. Taken a few rounds. They are the battle-tested, highly-sexed, salt-of-the-earth women that bring you back to your senses when you’ve been living at the edge too long. Once you’ve been in the sack with them you know you’ve been well-fucked. These are high mileage women. A little scuffed up by life. But they are the kind of women willing to travel up-river… into the densest reaches of the jungle to deliver that kind of contraband… that sexual nitro-glycerin that feeds the insurrection in your soul. And you never want to go back to civilization again. They’ve got their own spark of divine fire. The pure heat of animal passion. They feel the beauty of being alive. And they make you feel it as you lie beside their glistening bodies… feel yourself consumed by their voluptuous appetite. And drenched in their sweat and gratitude… shedding all the desperate baggage of your past… satiated at long last… the majesty of some emotional truth shines in her eyes… the gratitude she expresses in her soft kisses… the absence of all reason as the echoes of her moans subside… You have made her happy. And she will do the same for you. What greater rush can there be in life? She’s a woman who has come to terms with reality. No more delusions. Life is here and now. Seize what few pleasures there are because it’ll soon be over and we’ll all be gone and there is no more. She carries herself a certain way. An absence of sexual fear that burdens so many women. She knows her body. Knows it’s hers and no one else’s. And she’ll pleasure herself as she damn well pleases. She knows hunger. She knows appetite. And she knows how to satiate it. If there’s a driving force behind her hunger then it’s that look at the back of her eyes… some feeling of loss from way back when… as if there were no remembered embrace in her infancy. And now she longs to recapture that. She has become a hot bundle of infantile passions. Of hungry kisses. And eager touch. And the joy of explosive orgasms. And sucking… the original source of nurturing. She senses all those years of erotic hunger she needs to make up for. Desperately. Passionately. With not a moment to waste. That’s the kind of woman I’m talking about… the kind of woman a man responds to… the kind of woman that keeps the world sane. If she has a motto, it’s the credo of the Rock ‘n’ Roll legacy: Too much is never enough. She senses the arithmetic of life. The closing window of time we have to make love. She is driven by this lust to feel sensation… the feeling of being alive. There is no greater excitement. She doesn’t live by hope or fear. She knows we arose from the swamp and we live a perilous existence and life is basically a long lonely train ride to nowhere. And she’s going to fill those moments with sensation. When you’re in her bed she will whisper that the goal of all life and all lovers is to be set free. Liberation through the joy of sexual release. What higher aspiration could there be? And you’re inclined to agree with her because she has just made you feel incredibly liberated and incredibly free. And when she suddenly goes to flame… another burst… and another… every joy she’s ever felt… every sadness she’s ever endured… is released upon the sky. And in each burst of perfection that explodes inside her you can see it all right there in her eyes… the brilliant collision of ecstasy and pain and cries and feeling and perfection and longing and color and light… released upon the night as pure, incandescent energy… You watch with wonder as she lies there in a mist of sweat and gratitude. Shafts of light stream into the room… caress the voluptuous curve of her breast… the glistening beads of sweat on her body. There is one last quiver of ecstasy on her lips and you cannot help but adore her… to feel a tenderness for this wonderful creature as she floats blissfully to the sky above… up there… up where the sun is rich and warm and forever…

Are We Addicted to Love?

How do I love thee? Let a poet count the ways. I love you to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, to the level of everyday's most quiet need; freely, purely, with the passion of old grief and childhood's faith, with a love lost with lost saints, with the breadth, smiles, tears, of all my life.

Why do I love thee? Let anthropologist Helen Fisher count the ways. I love you because of a complex chemistry of dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin, testosterone and norepinephrine; because I have a large caudate nucleus, amygdala, and hippocampus; because I walk upright and have helpless babies and I need you to protect me from predators. I love you because your testosterone has made you taller and stronger than me and given your jaw a handsome square cut.

Not very romantic, but what do you expect from a physiologic, evolutionary, and anthropological assessment of love? For Fisher is a love researcher. That's right. Love researcher. And she has collected the results of this research in her new book Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.
And it's quite a collection. For example, did you know that there is a natural anti-depressant in seminal fluid? That there is a National Broken Hearts Day? That love's passions are the same across such disparate cultures as the United States and Japan? OK, maybe you knew that, since poetry across all cultures has so much to say on the topic. Did you know that love is an addiction? Of course you did.

But, did you know that the biochemistry of love is the same as the biochemistry of addiction? That's what Fisher's research shows. She has scanned the brains of people who are newly, deeply, and passionately in love and found that they have increased activity in areas that (surprise) are associated with arousal and concentration, such as the caudate nucleus and the ventral segmental area, the bottom portion of the brain that is high in dopamine producing cells. It is dopamine that's responsible for the cocaine addict's high, the chocolate lover's satisfaction, the cigarette smoker's contentment, and, evidently, the lover's passionate obsession. Fisher has also scanned the brains of dejected and rejected lovers, and although she doesn't share those results in the book, her thesis is that the dejected suffer from a depletion of dopamine, leading to feelings very similar to withdrawal.

Since she's an evolutionary anthropologist, not a poet or a psychologist, Fisher's take on this is that our loving ways have evolved to give us an evolutionary edge. Our dopamine level surges when we meet people who are most likely to make the best mates for us. From her studies, that would suggest that love's catalyst for men is beautiful, come-hither women. For women, it's square-jawed, successful men. But, if that's true, how do you explain that someone like Harvey Pekar has been married three times (twice before he became comic book famous)? Or how do you explain the miserable failures that are the marriages of so many Hollywood beautiful people?

Clearly, there's more to this love thing than hardwiring and neurotransmitters and evolutionary gain. And, too her credit, Fisher recognizes this. Maybe it was the exposure to all the poetry about love she peppers throughout her book. Or maybe it was her exposure to her research subjects in the agonizing throws of lost love. But, for whatever reason, she admits that there's something more at work in human love than a finely tuned, highly evolved animal magnetism. Even in our worst moments we are capable of controlling our basest passions. We are not slaves to our neurons. And at our best moments, we are capable of a higher, selfless love that can't be explained by evolutionary theory and that isn't found anywhere else in the animal kingdom.

Maybe understanding this thing we call love is best left to the poets.

Flirting

Flirting is fun but it's risky. Many people enjoy flirting simply because it's so risky. Flirting involves putting your whole outward appearance and inner personality on the line. You're basically asking a stranger if they fancy you, and if they don't, it's going to hurt! If they do fancy you and your other half later finds out, it's going to hurt even more.

That's why the phrase 'flirting with danger' is apt. Flirting is one of the most dangerous aspects of modern society. It's similar to skiing, only more people have their legs broken at cocktail parties than on mountainsides.*

Anyone can learn to flirt. It's about taking control of an interaction with someone and steering it in a romantic direction. Some people have sufficient natural charisma to cause a spark in others when communicating. For others there are many easy ways to ignite a flame: a few simple tips and a little self-control will transform anyone's flirting technique. Failing that, try a box of matches.

If you want to flirt without the risk of getting hurt, make sure you have the correct safety gear: a good understanding of body language, a reasonable-sounding excuse for when you get caught out, and a secure helmet.

Men and women throughout history have developed their own ways of flirting. Viking men a thousand years ago flirted with women by killing their husbands, burning their houses and inserting their penises without permission. Later, a misguided King Henry VIII flirted with girls by cutting their heads off. Jane Austen flirted with men by talking to them in convoluted, turgid Georgian prose that sent them into a deep coma, thus enabling her to do whatever she wanted with them.

Victorian times saw the arrival of flirting techniques that almost brought humanity to a sudden halt. Body language was made impossible because everyone was so covered up with layers of unnecessary clothing that no one knew if they had any bodies. Any male/female contact was only possilbe in the presence of a vicar or a doctor.

The most popular chat up line of the time was:

"if i verbally articulated the splendour and unblemished beauty of your physicality, would it in any way prejudice your sentiments with regard to the individual who habitually refers to himself by the perpendicular pronoun?" #

With these restrictions, the growth in population slowed considerably.

The most important part of talking flirtatiously is to show interest in the other person. We all love to talk about ourselves and we instinctively like people who encourage us to do so. If you give someone plenty of opportunities to blow their own trumpet, you're more likely to get to the point where they're blowing your trumpet. And if brass instrument euphemisms aren't your thing, just ask for a blow job.

Stay tuned for more blogs including 'Sexual Etiquette- Searching for Mr or Ms Compatible without making a complete fool of yourself' and 'Orgasm- the 30 (if you're lucky) seconds we go to so-o-o-o-o much effort for."

*This is a lie.

# If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?