Some of us look upon sexual relationship evolution with a fear or envy. Most of our grandparents would look upon our sexual relations today with disapproval, yet they passed on to us the genetic tendency to adapt.
Today sexual relations are more fair then they were in the past, particularly for women, in spite of the need for more improvement. The sexual freedoms we enjoy today did not result from conformity, but from minorities that dared to try new things. We owe gratitude to those people in the past who were willing to throw their hearts into a melting crucible of freer choices. They became an engine of relationship evolution. They discovered new (and better) ways to love amidst the hardships inherent in stepping beyond the bounds of custom. Such brave men and women are essential to social progress; they’re the vanguards of relationship evolution. We have no reason to think that the way we love today won’t seem as backward as the ideas of the past seem to us.
If we’re NOT making new discoveries in love, let’s ask if we’re limited by beliefs we accepted in our youth.
We probably accept on principle that people need freedom to choose from alternatives not destructive to others, but we are blind today to the obvious implications of such freedom. Trial and error must lead to more choices and that will lead humanity beyond todays unnecessarily limiting beliefs. We may feel fear but the principle of free choice does not impose limits. Where one person halts, another will take up the cause and move forward. Each step beyond the boundary of custom creates a new frontier that new lovers of life will continually dare to cross, just like the sailors of old built ships and sailed into unknown waters to discover whatever lay ahead be it untold wonders or disaster.
The vanguard of sexual relationship evolution must show a path forward to a more liberated and honest sexuality.
“…in the matters which concern the shaping of our own lives, or the publications of our social opinions. In this region we are not imposing charges upon others, either by law or otherwise. We therefore owe nothing to the prejudices or habits of others. If any one sets serious value upon the point of difference between his own ideal and that which is current, if he thinks that his ‘experiment in living’ has promise of real worth, and that if more persons could be induced to imitate it, some portion of mankind would be thus put in possession of a better kind of happiness, then it is selling a birthright for a mess of pottage to abandon hopes so rich and generous, merely in order to avoid the passing and casual penalties of social disapproval.”
John Morley
Until the advanced guard returns showing a clear path forward, most people will probably remain (at best) half-hearted and lukewarm about honestly living in freer sexual choices, especially when the choices of others could go against their desires or beliefs. This timid majority will transgress the boundaries of custom, while also paying lip service to it. Remember hypocrisy is, at best, defensive and, often, becomes predatory. Hypocrisy is not the way to understand and adapt our instincts that exceed the bounds of our belief systems.
Fearing a challenge to belief is NOT a fear of being right!
By exposing a false belief we stop giving our life to it. What might a freer sexual future look like? One result of freer access to wholesome lovers is the energy currently wasted scheming and gaming in our sexually stifling belief systems will be free to do other things. We need only look to the principle of free choice mentioned above. Remember many people still fear and treat any capacity beyond accepted norms as if they are harmful, just as we used to fear letting women own property, allowing them to vote, and the right to divorce.
The curse of mediocrity is, it’s all around us, it’s our point of reference and what’s outside it seems strange and scary.
We can be ahead of the relationship evolutionary curve or wait for the tracks to be laid by others; those with effulgent hearts that trumpet the herald of discoveries destined be the heirloom of humanity. If you feel that your discontent is the call of adventure toward an infinite sea where deceit and half-measures are useless, then you are my brothers and sisters. Welcome to the adventure and I hope to meet you some day!
By Todd Vickers
*John Morley, On Compromise (London Macmillan & Company, 1917)