A dynamic of control is common in relationships. Often for men, some level of control over their partner is a relationship requirement. Men and women who are attempting to change the dynamic of their relationship, to create a sense of egality and to not rely on a control dynamic, can confuse giving up control with submission. This is especially true for men since we are accustomed to being the one who controls.
Consciously or unconsciously I can feel that my role in a relationship is to have some degree of control over the woman I’m with. Everything that I had been taught about my gender led me to feel a natural affinity with the dominant role. As I adopted a new sexual practice that aligned and was in harmony with female sexual energy, I became confused. I found myself asking the question, “Am I beginning to let this woman control me. Am I submitting to her in some way?” Giving in to these thoughts and feelings created roadblocks to my progress. I impeded myself and the deepening of my relationship with the woman I loved.
For men, a key aspect of relationship transformation and adopting a new sexual practice with ones lover involves becoming more in tune with feminine sexual rhythms. A man who is trying to tune his sexual experience to his female partner has to raise his awareness of her. He has to be willing to follow her rhythm and be guided by it during the act of lovemaking. Her heightened pleasure, her ability to be multi-orgasmic, her more complete sexual experience results, in part, from how the man matches and follows her sexual rhythm.
If you think of lovemaking as an exchange and sharing of energy you can see how this giving up of control is quite different from submission. A great way to think about this is to consider what happens when shaking someone’s hand. Guys, we do this all the time, right? As you reach out for that person’s hand, you are moving your hand to meet his and he is moving his hand to meet yours. Neither of you are really in control of where your hands will meet. There is no agreement about the exact location where you will clasp each other’s hands but somehow, without any verbal agreement and often without even looking directly at the hand of that other person, you manage to clasp and shake hands.
Neither of you are in control of this handshake. One hasn’t submitted to the control of the other in order to shake hands. For a brief moment, you have tuned into that other person in order to have that shared physical experience. You’ve done this with some degree of unconsciousness and with mutuality. The next time you shake hands with someone, observe the experience. Notice how little you have to think about or control that event. It happens naturally. Notice how you are tuning into that other person for a few seconds, how you can feel that person’s energy. To make that handshake happen, you had to match that person’s movement, you had to really notice that other person for a brief second. You didn’t think about it but allowed it to happen. This is this same dynamic of unconsciousness and mutuality, you can bring into the bedroom.
Though I can easily shake someone’s hand without even thinking about it and feel completely comfortable doing so, I experienced a visceral reaction when I stopped controlling what was happening in the bedroom. I had always controlled the dynamic of lovemaking and loss of control felt very similar to being controlled. It took time to realize that there was no longer a requirement for control; that our relationship didn’t need to be defined by the control of one party over the other but by a condition of mutuality where both the man and the woman strive to attune to and be mindful of the other.
We can redefine relationship when we understand our partner’s experience not just at an intellectual level but become entwined within her experience deeply enough to experience it viscerally. A couple can bond in this way through the sharing of many aspects of their lives but the connection is most profound in the context of sexuality. Lovemaking done in this state can be a classroom where you exercise a new way of relating to each other. A wonderful (and fun) way to discover a different way of relating; a method, once learned, that can be extended to all aspects of your life together.