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with stephen douglas MA OACCPP(C)
counselling offices in Toronto and Burlington, Ontario
with stephen douglas MA OACCPP(C)
counselling offices in Toronto and Burlington, Ontario
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Intimate Communion:
Awakening Your Sexual Essence
by David Deida
Health Communications Inc., 1995.
David Deida is something of an icon in this newest era of men's growth
and development. His ideas are encouraging and, for the most part,
I like what he has to say regarding the dance of the masculine and the
feminine in relationship. Yet while Intimate Communion appealed to me
with great promise, it also left me a little disappointed at the end.
So I recommend with a qualification this book to my clients as a resource
for couples wishing to explore the impact of their masculine and feminine
roles upon attraction and sexuality within a relationship.
First, what I like. I agree that the recent movement toward 'equal'
relationships has left the modern couple with a deadened sense of
attraction. Deida is borrowing from Carl Jung's ideas of the masculine
and the feminine. These two polarities that attract (opposite) and repel
(like) and are the essence of our sensuality within relationship, whether
hetero- or homo-sexual.
What I dislike is that Deida has not fully stepped beyond the 80's Iron
John era idea of the exclusively masculine male. I don't disagree that
most males prefer to be in the masculine role and are attracted to the
feminine and vice versa, though I do have questions about his use of
valid statistics in this regard; both media and the individual's desire for
acceptance reinforce the stereotype. I believe that there are a greater
number than he suggested who might like to play with their opposites.
What is mostly absent for me in Deida's argument is the space for
flexibility, play, experimentation, and ultimately growth within a
relationship. In fact, this is one of the greatest gifts relationships can offer
us as individuals. When Jung presented his theories about personality
archetypes he also emphasized that every person is on a path of
individuation over the course of his life where he will learn to develop his
'inferior' functions. In other words, we begin life with stronger preferences
and with age move closer and closer to balance within ourselves.
In fact, it is even a ritual in some indigenous tribes for the male elders to
put on skirts and sit down with the women marking a life passage into a
balance of the masculine and feminine.
Deida, I believe, is right to suggest that we need to avoid 'neutrality'.
It is relationship deadening. What I would like to see explored further,
from this perspective, is the idea of couples learning to 'sense' each
others' desire and attraction moment-to-moment, to recognize and fully
own their masculine or feminine preferences while also developing the
ability to play more with the opposites, particularly at those times they
can see their partners needing space to do so themselves.
A good read, interesting ideas, but not, I recommend, something to be
chewed and swallowed whole without spitting out first what doesn't fit for
you personally.
~ Stephen Douglas, 2009
Awakening Your Sexual Essence
by David Deida
Health Communications Inc., 1995.
David Deida is something of an icon in this newest era of men's growth
and development. His ideas are encouraging and, for the most part,
I like what he has to say regarding the dance of the masculine and the
feminine in relationship. Yet while Intimate Communion appealed to me
with great promise, it also left me a little disappointed at the end.
So I recommend with a qualification this book to my clients as a resource
for couples wishing to explore the impact of their masculine and feminine
roles upon attraction and sexuality within a relationship.
First, what I like. I agree that the recent movement toward 'equal'
relationships has left the modern couple with a deadened sense of
attraction. Deida is borrowing from Carl Jung's ideas of the masculine
and the feminine. These two polarities that attract (opposite) and repel
(like) and are the essence of our sensuality within relationship, whether
hetero- or homo-sexual.
What I dislike is that Deida has not fully stepped beyond the 80's Iron
John era idea of the exclusively masculine male. I don't disagree that
most males prefer to be in the masculine role and are attracted to the
feminine and vice versa, though I do have questions about his use of
valid statistics in this regard; both media and the individual's desire for
acceptance reinforce the stereotype. I believe that there are a greater
number than he suggested who might like to play with their opposites.
What is mostly absent for me in Deida's argument is the space for
flexibility, play, experimentation, and ultimately growth within a
relationship. In fact, this is one of the greatest gifts relationships can offer
us as individuals. When Jung presented his theories about personality
archetypes he also emphasized that every person is on a path of
individuation over the course of his life where he will learn to develop his
'inferior' functions. In other words, we begin life with stronger preferences
and with age move closer and closer to balance within ourselves.
In fact, it is even a ritual in some indigenous tribes for the male elders to
put on skirts and sit down with the women marking a life passage into a
balance of the masculine and feminine.
Deida, I believe, is right to suggest that we need to avoid 'neutrality'.
It is relationship deadening. What I would like to see explored further,
from this perspective, is the idea of couples learning to 'sense' each
others' desire and attraction moment-to-moment, to recognize and fully
own their masculine or feminine preferences while also developing the
ability to play more with the opposites, particularly at those times they
can see their partners needing space to do so themselves.
A good read, interesting ideas, but not, I recommend, something to be
chewed and swallowed whole without spitting out first what doesn't fit for
you personally.
~ Stephen Douglas, 2009
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