The FUD Factor

When the nature of relationships were defined for us, by our religion, our culture, our traditions, few would have to ask, "What are you looking for in a relationship?" There was no need to ask the question since everyone new the definition, already. In today's world, things are no longer so clear.  Where cultures blur and change is constantly occurring, many seek to redefine themselves and who they are.

When I'm asked this question, I can feel myself being tested for a certain response. This is a moment when values are compared. Do you think and feel as I do? Do you want the same things as me? Few understand or will accept that attachment is illusion. For many, attachment is just a control. A control against ones own fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Years ago, when I was in a sales position, I went to sales training where I learned about the technique of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). Yes, I learned to instill FUD in my prospects mind and then lift that veil of FUD away with my wonderful product. Closed! (As a sales technique, FUD isn't really effective but that's for another Blog.)

How many of us make decisions, take action, form our relationships based on FUD? How many of us are controlled by FUD? And, how much of what forms our relationship connections is based on FUD?

Many women rely on control, on adherence to clearly defined roles and predetermined rules, to create the safety they must have in their relationships. Her FUD factor is high. She needs a safe space to be in when she's with a man and this is the only way she knows how to do it. She looks for someone to fill her solitude, someone to be close to, but the risk of hurt, the challenge of the unknown, the questioning of the motives of the man she's with, the FUD, requires her to create her own mechanisms of safety in the only manner she knows how.

So much around her prevents her from feeling comfortable with herself. No one has shown her that she isn't defined by the man next to her. That she can truly revel in her moments of solitude. That she can allow herself to fully and completely receive a man. And, do so without the controls, the buffers, the FUD. For the woman reading this, ask yourself, does the goddess in you require this for you to be with a man? Does she know that a relationship isn't about control, or roles, or need. Can you, goddess, operate outside the FUD factor?

Of course, and it goes without saying, that there must be someone on the other side of the bed from you, who will honor you without trying to enslave you. I'm not suggesting that I, a man, does not carry great responsibility for this dynamic or that I don't have the potential to bring dysfunction based on FUD to play in our love dance. We both carry responsibility for the relationship we create, together. But, goddess, you control yourself. You are the master of your own happiness, you can create the safety you need, and you are, ultimately, responsible for your pleasure. I can enable, I can support, I can even, at times, create space for you or help you to feel safer, but at the end your orgasm is your own. (This is a sexual reference but you can also think of the orgasm as symbolic of all pleasure, all happiness, of mindfulness, and of presence.)

So, Goddesses, you can be safe without rejecting intimacy. You can join with a man and experience pleasure for pleasure's sake. Sex doesn't have to be the reward in return for a commitment that is nothing more than control? A truly loving relationship must reject control as it embraces the physical. This is the challenge, the journey that we are on, together.

Love,

TL
tantricalover@gmail.com