The Mystery and Magic of the Human Pair Bond

In my last post, I made a case that humans have (at least) three overlapping and competing attraction systems, and that there are styles of sex that are appropriate to each of the three. The key problem is that everyone starts out with lust and romance, but people who want to be in satisfying long-term relationships often aren’t able to make the transition to the kind of sex that can sustain a long-term relationship.

Lust, Romance, and Pair Bonding

You’ve now had a chance to read about four of the couples I interviewed.  I chose these couples to profile because they represent the range of differences I encountered fairly well.  (There was one obvious exception:  because I was also favoring the more reflective and articulate interviews, the couples I ended up choosing to describe for you were all college educated, and four of the eight individuals have at least a masters, whereas seven of the people I interviewed had some or no college.)

But as you read through this series of posts, you should have noticed a clear similarity:  all four of these couples are strongly devoted to each other.  In this, they are completely representative of all of the (now almost 60) couples I've interviewed.  To understand why, we need to take a step back and look at why this question even comes up.  Why aren’t humans, like many species, simply hardwired to be either monogamous or promiscuous?

Jack & Lita, Part 2: Tantra as Sacred Sex

Getting back to our interview with Jack and Lita...

Can you describe your usual Tantric experience?

Lita: [laughs] Oh, wow, I don’t know what’s typical! We keep mixing things up! Okay, let’s see… He flies home on Thursdays, so we have a Thursday-nighter when he gets back that’s usually just a basic body rub for him, something simple for me for a warm up, and then regular sex. It depends on how tired and sore he is.

On Friday night, we’re usually out at a restaurant, a concert, or a party or we go dancing or something like that, so we get home late-ish and don’t have time for much fancy stuff. Saturday is my biggest day at the dojo, so it’s my turn to get a good long massage before bed, but it’s usually just that, some drinks, a movie, and a cuddle, no sex, ‘cause we’re sort of saving up. Sunday, we head out to the shack, and I guess that’s what you mean by a Tantra experience, but it’s just sort of loosely woven into the whole day.

Jack & Lita: Male Orgasm and Ejaculation Control

I decided to introduce you to this next couple because my interview with them touched on two important questions:  How can couples manage if the two people feel very different about the spiritual or religious side of Tantra? And how important is the role of “sacredness” in what is often called “sacred sexuality”?

The other reason that I wanted to write up this interview for the blog is that Jack is the only man I talked to who had been able to go beyond the kegel clamp method for having multiple orgasms, to being able to trigger a complete orgasm without ejaculation by an act of will.  We’ll get to his account of what that learning process was like at the end of part one of this interview.