Larry Pesavento is a member of the TMC Advisory Council, a therapist, an author and the Founder of CHRISTOS - A Center for Men located in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"In 1993 Larry Pesavento started CHRISTOS men's center to help initiate a dialogue about how a man in this confusing, elderless world can find a sense of identity, place and pride. He had been counseling men for close to 25 years and learned from their struggles as well as his own. He then decided to write a book about the internal journey that a man must take in order to find a sense of peace and generativity. He felt called to write this book to share what he had learned as part of his own journey and struggle with manhood.

For more info about Larry Pesavento, visit his web-site, http://www
.christoscenter
.com/
E-mail: Larpes@aol.com

MENSIGHT will publish a chapter each month and we would like for you to submit suggestions and discuss your opinions on our Men's Issues Forum.

Chapter 11 - Part 2
Sex

I also asked Alex to look at his relationship relative to his sexuality. Society is frightened of the individuating adolescence for many reasons already talked about. The patriarchy is also threatened because of the emerging sexuality brought on by adolescent puberty. There is a great fear of sexuality, approaching archetypal proportions, in Western civilization that forms our unhealthy sexual attitudes. This fear is curiously lacking in most Eastern religions and cultures, as well as in indigenous cultures.

The fear of "selfish", "licentious" sex, especially among adolescents, dominates our formal social attitudes. The message we all get about sex is more shaming than uplifting, more about denying it than living it. Healthy heterosexual relations are often stymied or truncated by these shaming messages and structures. Yet, informally, society is obsessed with sex, both by moralizing on it and yet acting it out. Both obsessions act to the detriment of adult relationships.

Actually fear of sexuality is related to fear of initiation. Unrestrained sexual activity is more the action of uninitiated men and women, the blind activity of the sibling society. Malidoma Some talks of the "hormonal invasion" of adolescence being the start of the initiatory process for men. The newfound sexual urge brought by puberty, along with the aggressive energy of maleness, triggers both the adolescent drive and the initiatory archetype. The adolescent urge for freedom is the initiatory archetype being stirred.

Healthy sexual energy is another form of initiatory energy. This stirring is the archetypal need for separation from the prohibitions of father and mother, and the joining with others outside the family circle. In the movie Emerald Forest a young Caucasian boy, Tommy, is kidnapped from his father's presence, while his father is working to build a power generating dam in the Amazon basin. The tribe, called by a name meaning invisible people, raise the young boy, now Tomme, as their own. As Tomme grows up, the boys and girls move in different circles under the watchful eyes of elders. As Tomme grows into adolescence he starts to notice the young adolescent girls and feels the familiar stirrings. One day Tomme, while swimming, moves away from his friends and curiously and playfully reaches for the girl he is attracted to. At that point his father, as elder and chief, forcefully stops him.

The other elders of the tribe support their chief. Tomme does not get a lecture about sexual purity or safe sex. Neither is he punished for lusting in his heart. He is not shamed in any way. What the elders realize is that Tomme is ready for initiation. He cannot bond with a woman, especially in marriage, before he is initiated. Tomme is not ashamed, but he is terrified. The elders have surprised him and started to take him off. He has no time to prepare. His initiation is to start immediately. His mother wails, "I will never see my boy again!" His sexual drive has signaled his readiness for manhood.

For Tomme's tribe, sex and serious relationship are intimately connected. He must be initiated to have an adult relationship with a woman. Sex is reserved for men, not boys. Sex is a sacred part of manhood. Sobonfu Some, Malidoma's wife, talks of sex in the same way in her tribe. Her tribal language has no word for sex. Sex doesn't exist for them outside of an adult context. Sex is an essential part of an adult relationship, symbolized by marriage. Sex is an intricate part of an honest, exclusive, transparent relationship.

Tomme's whole life will change as a result of his maturing adolescence. Tomme will never see women again in the same way. He will also experience his sexual urge in a totally different way. If left alone, his sexual urge would bring him into an area that he was not emotionally able to handle. Like adolescents today, he would find himself in a world, including the possibility of parenthood, which he is ill-prepared to handle. Tomme's story of initiation and preparation will continue in the chapter on death.

Healthy adolescence means experimenting with relationships with the opposite sex, experimenting with issues of friendship, equality, and teamwork. These are the same issues an adolescent needs to explore with male adolescents, his peers. Dealing with women as people, like oneself, rather than as objects that give sexual nurturance, opens a whole new world of relationship. When men find that it is not impossible to be friends with a woman, especially one's wife, the realization is a step toward adulthood. Combining sex and friendship then becomes the Rosetta stone for a whole new life of healthy, heterosexual relationship. It is very hard to have exploitative, destructive sex with a friend.

Healthy adolescence introduces an emerging man to the possibility of a satisfying, committed, sexual relationship with a woman, a relationship which most men want to experience in marriage. If society were not stuck in dark, regressed adolescence there would not be such a fear of sex, or the shadow prevalence of pornography. There would be few double sexual messages. The sibling society creates unhealthy sexuality because it leaves men isolated in a regressed adolescence. A regressed adolescent will pair his newfound sexuality with a mother object instead of with a friend. Sexual addiction will follow. This is when a woman becomes a sexual object rather than a person.

The regressed adolescent is really needing boyish comfort rather than adult companionship. Alex had regressive, addictive sex when he was drunk, and into his father's life script. At that point he was a young, confused, addictive boy. He was a regressed adolescent, not a healthy one. His regressed sexuality was destructive to him and his partner.

I challenged Alex to use his destructive sexual experience to learn and grow, instead of listening to his patriarchal voice. I pointed out to him that he started to contact healthy adolescence when he talked of Janice in terms of a companion, not in terms of merely a fun sexual partner. I pointed out that he was starting to develop a healthy, adolescent relationship with Janice of respectful communication, mutual enjoyment, and working as a partnership. I told him that this partnership dynamic is one strong pillar of a healthy adult relationship. I encouraged him to consider building on this healthy foundation. I encouraged him to experience his sexuality, eyes wide open, with this woman he respected and loved.

Healing The Adolescent

Alex had regressed to the false self, the persona of over-responsible father. Janice had regressed to the false self of overprotective mother. So Alex and Janice related to each other as two pseudo-adult parents and lost the emerging relationship of equality and friendship of healthy adolescents. This regressed relationship felt to Alex like he was back in his first marriage, and he was appropriately fearful and hesitant. His boy inside was in terror of the negative, controlling mother. His young adolescent was depressed at the loss of his companion, and fearful of the premature expectation of pseudo-adult responsibility.

Because Alex was fearful and depressed he had already started back to a life of adolescent fantasy. I talked to Alex about continuing his adolescent journey instead of frustrating it. I talked about the process of the initiatory journey, and the need to look inside himself for his answers. We talked about the futility of rescuing the damsel as a way of becoming a man. I talked of his bonding with other men his age instead of getting all his intimacy needs met by a woman. I talked of risking boundary setting, the jumping off point for any masculine journey.

I talked to Alex about challenging Janice to find her adolescent inside, so that they could help each other grow. I mentioned staying together with Janice only if there was a friendship, and not because of the patriarchal command to be responsible. Alex needed to learn how to be a husband, and not just a patriarch. I talked of re-parenting his adolescent by accepting him and his spirit of individuality.

Alex had to accept and appreciate his adolescent within before he could be ready to go toward initiation and then commitment. Commitment before initiation is unfair to the adolescent within and unhealthy for the true self. Commitment before initiation is also unfair to marriage partners. Like Marty in Back To The Future , Alex had to teach his adolescent other ways of being a man. Just as Marty took an interest in George McFly, Alex had to take an interest in his own emerging self without being self-critical and self-demeaning. Alex had to allow himself to find his own way even though the patriarchy frowned on it. This activity would take a great deal of boundary setting, as Alex gave his adolescent space to grow.

If a man finds himself already in a committed relationship before initiation, he owes it to his partner, as much as himself, to contact his young adolescent and prepare himself for his initiatory journey. The question of risking separation from a loving relationship must be faced. The risk of creating a whole new relationship on the other side of initiation needs to be addressed and negotiated by both partners. I will talk about this issue in much more depth in the chapter called Alone Together.

Princess Leia

In the Star Wars myth, Luke and Han tried to be the hero so Lea would notice them and prove they were men. However, Princess Leia proves very early she is no damsel in distress. She is unimpressed by adolescent heroes, sporting manly personas. As the story unfolds, there is a big surprise for Luke. The woman Luke was romantically attracted to becomes someone infinitely more dear and cherished. He finds she is his sister.

Leia has been a partner in a most meaningful endeavor. She has been friend and confidante. Now she becomes a key to his own self discovery. Leia as Luke's sister symbolizes the heterosexual relationship of friendship and partnership. She also symbolizes the new family a man needs when he leaves his village family. Luke has ultimately found a new sister and a new brother in Leia and Han. Together this new family will inspire him to continue his initiatory journey.

They also open up to him a whole new type of relationship that a man discovers in healthy adolescence. Every man's wife must also become part sister, the part that is beloved friend and ally. In the knightly myth of courtly love, the knight also keeps his relationship to his damsel spiritual, like a sister. Spirituality is symbolized by no hope of sexual union, because of the connection at a soul and spiritual level. She is inspiration, and her love motivates him to find his own true self. She doesn't protect him from his pain. She does not depend on him to take care of her. She is there out of love for his spirit. Every man needs to incorporate this soul connection into his relationship with a beloved. At this point sexuality becomes sacred and part of the spiritual journey.

These two myths are symbolic of the deep connection of friendship and equality, and yes inspiration, that a man and woman can have. Adolescence can lay the foundation for these kinds of relationships. Men and women can inspire each other to find their own initiation. Marriage and sexuality then become the symbol of the union of two mature, initiated people, as well as the archetypal symbol of psychological wholeness. This is when the knight becomes a king, and the damsel, a queen.

Larry Pesavento ©2005