06-13-2021, 07:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2021, 07:33 PM by gayprojectforum.)
This post aims to present some thoughts on forcing in gay relationships. By limiting the discussion to internal forcing of the relationship, I will therefore disregard the intervention of third parties.
AFFECTIVE AND SOCIAL FORCING
“Nobody comes virgin” at the time of trying to build a relationship. By this I’m not referring only or specifically to sexual relations, but to the fact that each one carries with him the legacy of the previous experience, with its load of myths, frustrations and unfulfilled dreams and therefore with a greater or lesser predisposition to create an emotional relationship.
Entering into a relationship means in any case starting a path whose conclusion, a priori, is unpredictable. Many young people try to acquire elements to strengthen their decision by seeking information on their possible partner or seeking reassurance from their possible partner himself, but the predictability and therefore the programmability of an emotional relationship remains anyhow, as a rule, minimal. An emotional relationship is not a game of chess that is played "against" one's partner in order to win him over and which can be won or lost depending on whether the right or wrong moves are made. An emotional relationship aims to overcome individualism in order to gain a unity of purpose that allows us to face a phase of life "together".
It is not possible to enter a relationship "conditionally", setting conditions already means not accepting the other for what he is, putting him "a priori" some stakes and limits to be respected.
Entering into a relationship means accepting the idea that you have to start building in two and starting from scratch, that is, that every form of individualism, every attempt to prevail and to be right must be put aside to start a journey in two.
Entering a relationship with too high expectations means setting yourself up for failure. The ideas of total involvement, of 100% satisfaction, of "all or nothing", are the main enemies of emotional relationships, which can very well be serious and important and at the same time partial and limited, non-exclusive and non-totalizing. This does not mean that we cannot aspire to improve the relationship over time, but that the improvement will have to be built in two and may require a long process and in any case will not have a guaranteed outcome.
Entering into a relationship means putting aside any judgmental attitude, something that is easy only in words and goes far beyond not pronouncing judgments. In order not to pronounce judgments it is enough to keep the tongue in check, in order not to judge one needs an attitude of substantial humility, a very rare virtue. Not judging involves a profound respect for the other and the recognition of a common nature beyond any diversity. In this sense, not judging involves putting aside the concept of guilt. When a relationship doesn't start or ends it's no one's fault. False, aggressive and abusive attitudes are forms of lack of control that we perceive when they are manifested externally and that we consider guilty in themselves, if considered in the narrow context of the relationship, but such attitudes always find a motivation in the experience of the other who reacts to similar false, aggressive and abusive attitudes towards him. Those who really want to enter into an emotional relationship must understand that they must not forgive anything, but must only accept, because forgiving means first of all judging, that is, feeling in a role that radically violates the equality that is the condition of any true emotional relationship.
Entering into a relationship means accepting that the other can retains his privacy. Asking 100% sincerity means running back into that 100% that is the enemy of emotional relationships. The tendency to know at all costs the past of our possible partner actually hides a judgmental attitude that is a sign of emotional dryness and often also a form of insecurity deriving from lack of trust in our partner. Perfect sincerity is not an a priori requirement of affective relationships or even specifically of couple life, but it is an achievement and presupposes a deep trust in the other, which is never a priori taken for granted but is built day by day.
Falling in love does not mean looking for something for oneself, but unconditionally trying to do something positive for the other, hoping that at least partial reciprocity will result. Possessive loves are not loves but forms of narcissism that tend not to understanding but to control the other.
Trust in the other does not consist in believing that the other will be faithful, will cultivate an exclusive relationship, will not have other sympathies or other loves, but in believing that the other will do what "according to him" must be done in every situation, that is, that the other, in conditions of moral freedom, can choose what he thinks is the best.
Attitudes resulting in an "aut aut", "or you accept my conditions or everything is over between us", are completely incompatible with an emotional relationship even at minimal levels.
In a "true" emotional relationship, misunderstandings are an integral part of the relationship, when they are overcome the relationship is consolidated, when they are radicalized the relationship becomes a competition between rivals who want to prevail anyway.
Cultivating a serious emotional relationship requires time and availability, which means that to cultivate an emotional relationship "it may" be necessary to sacrifice other things. An emotional relationship involves a choice because time is in any case limited. Those who do not want to make choices but only want to add an emotional relationship to their many daily commitments are like those who want to cultivate a huge garden full of plants and, in summer, cannot water them all, with the result that some inevitably dry up.
In an emotional relationship there are no due behaviors, it is not necessary to manage the economic resources together, it is not necessary to have all the friends in common and everyone can very well keep their own, it is not necessary to know or be accepted by the family of their partner. Requesting such things means that you do not aim to cultivate a relationship with that guy, but to cultivate it "in a visible way" or "as long as the economic resources are managed together" or with other more or less restrictive conditions. An emotional relationship is a relationship between two people whose meaning should not be conditioned by external factors of any kind.
In an emotional relationship between two gays, one publicly declared and one not, objective difficulties can be created because, in this case, behaviors prior to the couple relationship, such as the generalized coming out of the declared guy, effectively prevent the undeclared partner from maintain his privacy and this represents an objective and not surmountable forcing, because it pre-exists the relationship.
There is also another kind, much lighter, of forcing, which very often one does not even realizes and it is the forcing towards behaviors with a greater emotional content, for example inducing one's partner to exchange gifts, even inexpensive ones or text messages with emotional content. It's one thing to text your partner lovingly and it's a very different thing to expect him to do the same. It should never be forgotten that affectivity is learned above all in a family environment and that behaviors that look normal to some may appear absolutely strange to others, simply because they have never seen them applied in practice. Affection is also learned in the life of a couple. Generally, couple partners who love each other, even if they start from very distant positions, slowly converge towards a common equilibrium point, and with the passing of months and years they end up assuming very similar mental attitudes and ways of reacting, but all this obviously takes time and can only be achieved in a serious and genuinely gratifying emotional environment.
An emotional relationship, at any level, exists only to the extent that it is reciprocal. The absence of reciprocity is not a sign of a pathology of the relationship but of its non-existence.
An emotional relationship cannot be one-sided. It is not easy to distinguish between a weak affective response and a non-existent response, because reciprocity is not manifested through words, on the contrary, the absence of reciprocity is often hidden behind words and even behind behaviors that seem to indicate true involvement and an important affective response .
Often our desires generate fantastic projections that overlap with real situations and modify the perception of facts favoring their interpretation according to our desires, in this way we see what we want to see, we lose contact with reality and we get to not seeing what would be evident in the absence of projective mechanisms. In this way we end up carrying on even for years relationships whose existence is entirely internal to our brain and has nothing to do with reality.
FORCING IN THE SEXUAL FIELD
It is too often taken for granted that between two gay guys, in the context of an emotional relationship, sexuality does not present any problem and comes by itself as the most spontaneous and natural thing, but experience does not confirm these assumptions. If on the one hand it is true that in the gay world occasional relationships are a common thing (beware of sexually transmitted diseases!) It is equally true that "in the context of a serious emotional relationship" the conquest of a spontaneous and uninhibited sexuality is anything but obvious.
Sexual experiences inevitably tend to validate certain patterns of behavior, which end up becoming habitual and are in fact the code of behavior followed automatically when you are not in conditions of deep emotional involvement: "I have always done this and therefore also this time I do this." Sex lived on an occasional basis with different partners, who you'll never meet again, favors this simple pattern of behavior, a bit like it happened in sex with prostitutes. On the other hand, when one finds oneself involved in a serious emotional relationship, totally different categories of thought take over, because in this case there is also the fear of compromising the emotional relationship and one is much more cautious in behavior. In practice, the "problem" of sex arises, of when to do it, of how much to do it, of proceeding step by step or forging ahead, of what to do, all this because there is the concern that that sexual involvement, which is anyhow fundamental, may appear excessive or on the contrary too fragile to our partner. Somehow there is a fear of being judged. In such situations it is common to find a true block of communication, in the sense that the topic is taken for granted or considered as not explicitly addressable and the embarrassment increases, and this risks undermining the whole relationship.
Within a couple, it never hurts to talk explicitly about sex as well. Not only is it not a taboo subject, but it is a way to overcome embarrassment and open a less filtered communication. It must be borne in mind that in sexual matters the variability of fantasies and points of view is extreme and so is the variability of previous experiences and subjective interpretations of those experiences.
In no thing as in sexuality is it appropriate to refrain from judging and considering one's own behavior or all of one's fantasies as the absolute yardstick for measuring the behavior of others. Listening and speaking honestly creates an atmosphere of confidence and mutual trust. Reciprocity is a necessary requirement of this type of dialogue, which must be a dialogue between equals, if this does not happen the level of dialogue inevitably collapses and one or both of the partners feel judged. It must be borne in mind that while talking about sexuality in general is certainly easy, talking about our sexuality with our partner with whom there is an emotional relationship is often very difficult, at least in serious terms. The risk of trivializing the conversation moving it away from becoming a tool for building a couple relationship is very real.
Building a relationship both on an emotional and sexual level is not easy, it takes time, you need to get to know each other thoroughly. Haste is one of the main reasons for failure. Being in a hurry can mean not being able to understand the needs and times of the other and often it is precisely because of the haste that one is induced to "forcing" in sexual matters. These are not constraints, which would be real forms of violence, but techniques aimed at bringing the relationship "almost to the breaking point". Forcing the partner, considered from the point of view of those who put them into being, are not experienced as forcing, but as forms of insistence, of interest in the other and at the limit of love, that is, as ways to bring the other to express quickly the maximum of his potential. But this assessment is totally one-sided. The realization of couple's sexual harmony certainly does not consist in the fact that one of the partners yields to the insistence of the other but in the fact that a balance is reached between the two. Forcing consists in asking the other to make the maximum effort to adapt, believing that we are exempt from doing what would be up to us.
When the result of a forcing leads to the fact that one of the two partners gives completely space to the other, the one who has obtained what he wanted feels gratified and satisfied and does not realize that the relationship is clearly weakened because his partner he feels neglected and, albeit good-naturedly, forced to yield.
A fundamental case of forcing occurs when, breaking a tradition of "protected" intercourses, one of the two partners demands that the other accepts having sex without protection by "blindly trusting" his partner. This is an extremely delicate issue because here it is not a question of making an effort of psychological adjustment but of concretely exposing a guy to a risk that can be very serious. This type of forcing, it must be said very clearly, is not tolerable in any way and can put the weak element of the couple in situations of extreme difficulty, here we are talking about true emotional blackmail of the worst kind, a kind of test of strength, which in addition to exposing people to serious health risks is a real form of abuse that must be opposed putting apart any doubt or swing. In a true love relationship, the other must never be put at risk, for any reason.
Given the above, true "forcing" that is the forcing that can also be rejected and that, if rejected, doesn't involve the end of the relationship but only its redefinition, can also be tolerated if they are episodic and reciprocal, because they can become a kind of characteristic of the relationship. In these cases, it is a question of relative forcing that ends up no longer stressful and that is usually interrupted well before the breaking point of the relationship is reached.
Those who experience or rather undergo real forcing inevitably change their point of view towards their partners and end up harboring feelings of revenge and often do not manifest them until these feelings become explosive and the element that appeared weak ends up presenting the bill to his partner. who absolutely does not expect it.
True forcing is always a pathological aspect of emotional life. It should be emphasized, however, that often, those who suffer because of these behaviors don’t wonder about their origin but limit themselves to judging them negatively. In this sense, the so-called weak element of the couple indulges in judgments that can be misleading. Highly imperative individuals often do not even realize that their behavior can have consequences. In the pact of mutual clarity within the couple it is implicit that the partner who realizes the weaknesses of the other (even hidden behind the appearance of strong gestures) must speak with him, helping him to overcome his problems in the perspective of a clear dialogue. By this I mean that in the face of forcing, in general, the best way to go is neither that of condemning it without reserve nor that of passively adapting, dialogue is always the main way and must be attempted in any case, because it often leads to positive results. Taking indisputable and rigid positions can only lead to further deterioration of the relationship.
It should be emphasized that forcing can be at the limit acceptable and not counterproductive when it aims at overcoming the conditions of embarrassment, but unfortunately there are frequent forcing that, knowingly or not, are aiming to modify or remodel the sexuality of the other by inducing (forcing) him out of complacency to accept sexual practices that are not pleasing to him. On this point we must be very clear: any attempt to forcibly change the preferences, attitudes, fantasies or sexual behaviors of another individual constitutes a form of violence and is inevitably doomed to failure. Thinking of modifying a person's sexuality by inducing behaviors that are not spontaneous for that person means behaving like those who intend to transform gays into straight people through reparative therapies.
The techniques used to put into practice the forcing deserve a separate mention, such techniques are obviously related to the degree of forcing and to the attitudes assumed by the partners in the couple.
1) Playful insistence, alternating with a smile, amusing jokes and gestures of physical confidence such as disheveling your partner's hair, giving him a light push, wink at him or simply look him straight in the face with a smile. Obviously this mode accompanies the slight forcing that at the limit is not even forcing and implies that you can very well resist the forcing assuming for granted that there will be no consequence.
2) Forcing proposed within a "serious" moment. This modality in itself arouses anxiety and forces the other to an explicit response, aims to reach a quasi-juridical agreement, placing the relationship on a formal level made up of pacts and obligations, which are obviously incompatible with a purely affective dimension.
3) Forcing proposed as an ultimatum. This modality already has the requisites of violence, it is accompanied by a high tone of voice and by facial attitudes that aim to be as explicit as possible and to underline that any non-acceptance of forcing will not remain without consequences. These bosses' attitudes are intolerable and trying to save a couple's life anyway means in these cases explicitly accepting a relationship of dependence whose limits are a priori unpredictable.
Forcing "for retaliation" deserves particular attention, that is, reacting to a wrong that has been suffered or that you believe to have suffered by responding blow for blow. In this case, the legal category of "provocation" is invoked to justify an aggressive behavior that has a substantially vindictive purpose, that is, it aims to settle the score by applying the old rule of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". Retaliation may be partially justifiable if it is short and is not substantially punitive. Otherwise it is a strong sign of crisis in the relationship.
The forcing in the sexual sphere that is perceived by far as the most violent consists in placing drastic constraints on the freedom of the other who intends to interrupt the relationship. This type of forcing, which is an overt violence, could be defined as "possessive violence". When one of the two partners perceives the relationship as unbearable and decides to interrupt it, the other hinders him in every way in the realization of his purpose, with more or less veiled threats of retaliation boasting on his partner a true right of possession, it is a question of a radical exploitation of one of the two partners by the other. These behaviors are highly anxious for the weak partner and keep him in a situation of strong and prolonged stress over time, substantially depriving him of his freedom. These behaviors can lead to real crimes that can be punishable by law. The examples, in the hetero field, are unfortunately on the agenda and can go as far as femicide. In the gay field, episodes of that brutality are very rare but possessive violence and forcing still are nowadays not very rare phenomena.
The most aggressive and devastating forms of forcing take place in the context of cohabitation in conditions of substantial economic asymmetry, because in these cases the forcing is amplified by the substantial impossibility of one of the two partners to interrupt the cohabitation even when he feels its weight as an unbearable load. Coexistence in situations of economic asymmetry may seem like a way to solve pressing economic problems but it risks, in the long run, turning into a trap from which it is very difficult to escape.
The only way to avoid oppressive forcing is to have an economic independence that allows "in any case" to avoid forced coexistence.