Sex and Relationship Success
The ultimate success is being able to live your life your own way, and that also applies to our sexualities and relationships.
Quotes and aphorisms have long been an interest of mine. I collect them. I ponder them. I repeat many of them as ongoing mantras of sorts to keep my life moving in positive directions. Short, pithy material that packs a quick mental punch is something I revere.
A quotation that I had not yet seen made its way in front of my eyes in an article I was recently reading.
There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that quote. So much of what I’ve read, studied, discussed, and written about has been in service to figuring out how to succeed in life, to achieve success. With the full understanding that success looks different to different people.
Wisdom often seems most effective and memorable when it’s encapsulated in a few words. After thinking about it for a while, what Morley said felt to me like as close as I’ve experienced to an embodiment of the entirety of success wisdom in one useful sentence.
So, how does that apply to this newsletter that mostly covers erotic and relationship topics?
Without a doubt I’ve been guilty of the hubris of believing I can impart knowledge or insight to help people have better sex, erotic lives, and meaningful relationships of any duration or type. Hubris be damned, I think I often deliver something useful. But what if much of that advice, information, and commentary could be best thought of as subsets of a higher-level perspective? What if there was an overarching insight that made all the others fall into place?
I think the Morley quote is such an embodying wisdom umbrella and when applied to sex and relationships it possesses a lot of wisdom in those realms too.
There is no shortage of people like me who are ready to tell you how to have good sex, a fulfilling erotic life, and great relationships. There’s lots of advice given, but three things are true.
There is some bad advice.
There is some good advice.
Barring basic consent, decency, and safety, advice must be viewed and processed through the prism of our uniqueness and current life perspective.
What do I mean by all that?
Whenever you read or hear someone’s advice about how to do or experience something, pause for a moment and ask yourself if doing so will lend itself toward you living your erotic or relationship life in your own preferred way.
Again, I’m not talking about consent or basic safety guidelines. I’m not talking about anything that would harm or disrespect someone. I’m talking about the more nebulous or tenuous advice we often get about how to function, look, and interact as a leather, kink, nonmonogamous, or polyamorous person that is frequently founded in opinion or cultural habit.
I concur with Morley that the ultimate sign of success is being able to live the life we want to live, whatever that life might be.
When it comes to sexuality and relationships, the ultimate success is being able to have the erotic life we want and the relationships that bring us the most contentment. As long as we’re not violating someone else’s safety or right to self-determination, however we decide to be and act should be the result of what we’ve determined will make us happiest. What tends to make us happiest is having the autonomy to be ourselves and live as we wish.
Some kinksters like being told exactly how to dress, play, interact, structure their relationships, and so on. If you’re one of those people, great. There are plenty of people who will tell you exactly how to do all those things. The same is true of relationship structures and dynamics.
But many of us, I would bet most of us, don’t want to fall in lockstep with others if it doesn’t make us optimally happy. You’d think that is an obvious thing, but you’d be surprised how often I’ve had discussions with people who aren’t happy with their erotic life or relationship situations but maintain that life because of peer pressure, shaming, or internalized judgment fostered by external sources like religion.
I could go on and try to add examples here, but I hope my point is made. Asking yourself if something contributes to your wellbeing and happiness, for sexualities, relationships, or otherwise, seems like a common sense, prudent thing to do anytime you’re given advice. Especially if that advice is given as an absolute and doesn’t allow you to adapt it to your own needs.
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