This was a recent post on FL, and I 'think' that She wanted me to read it...
According to Wikipedia, compersion is “an empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy.” I often think of this as the opposite of schadenfreude, which means “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” We might just as well have used the word empathy instead of compersion, but in this case, we’re specifically talking about it in a sexual or romantic context.
We use compersion in the sexual context to talk about polyamory, and the ability of partners to feel happiness when their partner finds fulfillment with someone else. This is a difficult state for many people in the lifestyle to come to, not because they are not capable of compersion, but because they are not capable of compersion only.
What I mean by this is that most people love their partner and want what’s best for them. They could be happy for their partner’s happiness until some other countering emotion or personal agenda arises. In some cases this is jealousy. In some it’s insecurity. In some, it’s feelings that the power exchange will be weakened. What all of them have at their core is the worry that one will lose their partner.
These roadblocks are different from actually concern about a partner’s mental, emotional, or physical safety. Those are valid points that might make a partner intervene in their significant other’s quest for added fulfillment outside the relationship.
Some of our worry about losing a partner stems from our lizard brain and its instinct for procreation and self-preservation. If we are not allowed to mate, our genetic line will not continue. We also want to guard our mate and keep them from encroaching "others" for the same reason. Many of us lay claim to our mates by ritualistic markings, which can be anything from the wearing of our collars (or wedding rings) to permanent body modifications (things like tattoos, piercings, and brands). It can also be the equivalent of "peeing" on them, marking your territory by making comments which imply ownership or prior commitment.
American marriage vows often include the line "forsaking all others," and it has been an assumption in the general culture that pair bonding is the primary and socially acceptable way to go about having relationships. You may be able to have multiple relationships in your lifetime, but they should be had one at a time.
There are many reasons why pair bonding is seen as a positive thing. First of all, it may be less complicated. Adding partners is an emotionally exponential process; even if the added partners do not know each other, there is still an invisible relationship between them. People assume that if the relationship is "invisible" then it does not cause any connection, but that is incorrect. There are always shifts in the way things are done to accommodate a third (or fourth, etc.), even if the unknowing partner does not realize to what cause the changes may be attributed. There is a sharing of energy and focus if nothing else, let alone the less ephemeral items of time and material resources. In pair bonding, a person only has to worry about a their partner and one set of available resources.
Pair bonding is also supposed to do things like suppress the spread of sexually transmitted disease, encourage socially responsible behavior, and make civil laws less convoluted (if that's possible). However, just because people are in a pair-bonded situation, it doesn't mean that any of those things actually happen.
Because pair bonding is such a "time-honored" condition, we tend to know a lot more about it and how it should be working than we might in polyamorous or polysexual relationships. Compare the number of books in your local bookstore dedicated to non-monogamy as opposed to pair bonding concerns. What you've got, if you're lucky, is a 2/200 ratio. This does not mean they don't exist. In fact, if people actually read the Bible, they'd find a good number of poly relationships therein which were not condemned (or even commented upon) by God (or the writer's of the work). But our culture goes out of its way to scrub much of that sort of information from the general discourse. (god bless the internet for its ability to be less scrub-able).
We run into problems in some situations, however, when we find that pair bonding is not the most fulfilling way of being. For bi-sexual partners, this may be a logical issue to face. But we also know that some people want/need multiple relationships for any number of reasons. Whatever our reasoning, we are then faced with the questions of how to make it all work.
This gets sticky in the BDSM community because your significant other may have given you "ownership rights" and therefore has given you the right to say how they can get their needs met. If you are in a power exchange, it may make the other person feel as though they may lose you to another person if another element comes into the equation.
For others, the very notion that your significant other might need someone else brings about horrible feelings of inadequacy. Why are you not enough? I also often hear that people want to feel special, and if there is not something that you share with your partner only, that you lose that feeling of "specialness."
I'm not saying that all of these feelings and worries aren't understandable. Most of us have lost relationships (not just sexual ones) and are reacting out of the very real fear that we will lose this one as well. But all of this is our personal work. Our partners can help us deal with our emotions and issues, but this is really a conversation that has to be worked out with ourselves.
We have to deal with our inward impediments before we can deal with logistics.
What is it that's getting in the way of our compersion? How does it call for us to dig more deeply within ourselves to do our personal work? How does it ask us to gain confidence from deep inside ourselves where it is not dependent upon an "other"?
This does not mean that after we do our personal work we may not come to the conclusion that non-monogomy is just not for us. Our preferred state may be pair bonded. But it will mean that we will make our choice from a place of true compersion, either way.
We may love the person enough to let them go because we are not really suited sexually, or we may love them enough to let them go to the arms of another. But either way, we will be living out of love and making purposeful, thoughtful decisions.
Compersion requires a letting go of many things, until in the end, there is only love.
According to Wikipedia, compersion is “an empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy.” I often think of this as the opposite of schadenfreude, which means “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” We might just as well have used the word empathy instead of compersion, but in this case, we’re specifically talking about it in a sexual or romantic context.
We use compersion in the sexual context to talk about polyamory, and the ability of partners to feel happiness when their partner finds fulfillment with someone else. This is a difficult state for many people in the lifestyle to come to, not because they are not capable of compersion, but because they are not capable of compersion only.
What I mean by this is that most people love their partner and want what’s best for them. They could be happy for their partner’s happiness until some other countering emotion or personal agenda arises. In some cases this is jealousy. In some it’s insecurity. In some, it’s feelings that the power exchange will be weakened. What all of them have at their core is the worry that one will lose their partner.
These roadblocks are different from actually concern about a partner’s mental, emotional, or physical safety. Those are valid points that might make a partner intervene in their significant other’s quest for added fulfillment outside the relationship.
Some of our worry about losing a partner stems from our lizard brain and its instinct for procreation and self-preservation. If we are not allowed to mate, our genetic line will not continue. We also want to guard our mate and keep them from encroaching "others" for the same reason. Many of us lay claim to our mates by ritualistic markings, which can be anything from the wearing of our collars (or wedding rings) to permanent body modifications (things like tattoos, piercings, and brands). It can also be the equivalent of "peeing" on them, marking your territory by making comments which imply ownership or prior commitment.
American marriage vows often include the line "forsaking all others," and it has been an assumption in the general culture that pair bonding is the primary and socially acceptable way to go about having relationships. You may be able to have multiple relationships in your lifetime, but they should be had one at a time.
There are many reasons why pair bonding is seen as a positive thing. First of all, it may be less complicated. Adding partners is an emotionally exponential process; even if the added partners do not know each other, there is still an invisible relationship between them. People assume that if the relationship is "invisible" then it does not cause any connection, but that is incorrect. There are always shifts in the way things are done to accommodate a third (or fourth, etc.), even if the unknowing partner does not realize to what cause the changes may be attributed. There is a sharing of energy and focus if nothing else, let alone the less ephemeral items of time and material resources. In pair bonding, a person only has to worry about a their partner and one set of available resources.
Pair bonding is also supposed to do things like suppress the spread of sexually transmitted disease, encourage socially responsible behavior, and make civil laws less convoluted (if that's possible). However, just because people are in a pair-bonded situation, it doesn't mean that any of those things actually happen.
Because pair bonding is such a "time-honored" condition, we tend to know a lot more about it and how it should be working than we might in polyamorous or polysexual relationships. Compare the number of books in your local bookstore dedicated to non-monogamy as opposed to pair bonding concerns. What you've got, if you're lucky, is a 2/200 ratio. This does not mean they don't exist. In fact, if people actually read the Bible, they'd find a good number of poly relationships therein which were not condemned (or even commented upon) by God (or the writer's of the work). But our culture goes out of its way to scrub much of that sort of information from the general discourse. (god bless the internet for its ability to be less scrub-able).
We run into problems in some situations, however, when we find that pair bonding is not the most fulfilling way of being. For bi-sexual partners, this may be a logical issue to face. But we also know that some people want/need multiple relationships for any number of reasons. Whatever our reasoning, we are then faced with the questions of how to make it all work.
This gets sticky in the BDSM community because your significant other may have given you "ownership rights" and therefore has given you the right to say how they can get their needs met. If you are in a power exchange, it may make the other person feel as though they may lose you to another person if another element comes into the equation.
For others, the very notion that your significant other might need someone else brings about horrible feelings of inadequacy. Why are you not enough? I also often hear that people want to feel special, and if there is not something that you share with your partner only, that you lose that feeling of "specialness."
I'm not saying that all of these feelings and worries aren't understandable. Most of us have lost relationships (not just sexual ones) and are reacting out of the very real fear that we will lose this one as well. But all of this is our personal work. Our partners can help us deal with our emotions and issues, but this is really a conversation that has to be worked out with ourselves.
We have to deal with our inward impediments before we can deal with logistics.
What is it that's getting in the way of our compersion? How does it call for us to dig more deeply within ourselves to do our personal work? How does it ask us to gain confidence from deep inside ourselves where it is not dependent upon an "other"?
This does not mean that after we do our personal work we may not come to the conclusion that non-monogomy is just not for us. Our preferred state may be pair bonded. But it will mean that we will make our choice from a place of true compersion, either way.
We may love the person enough to let them go because we are not really suited sexually, or we may love them enough to let them go to the arms of another. But either way, we will be living out of love and making purposeful, thoughtful decisions.
Compersion requires a letting go of many things, until in the end, there is only love.
you will not lose me to Stitch or anyone else because you were chosen by me for your unique ability to handle what I give you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mistress Merry.
DeleteTHAT has never been my real concern, but again, thank you for the reassurance.