Can You Really Talk About Sex?

Can/do you and your partner openly discuss your sexual likes and dislikes? Can your partner tell you "baby you're not hitting it?" Do you respond with "show me where it's at" or is your ego crushed and you emotionally withdraw?

Can you talk to your partner about using sex toys? Would your male ego be crushed if your partner told you she used a vibrator and enjoyed it? Have you and your partner ever masturbated together or helped each other masturbate? Can you even comfortably talk about it? Oral sex--can you talk about it? Anal sex--can you talk about it, without your partner condemning you to hell!?

What is Sexual Intimacy?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating any particular sexual behavior. What I am advocating is the necessity of two individuals in a relationship communicating openly, without malice, regarding what they want and don't want. Open communication is the prelude to real intimacy, and real intimacy is more than just the physical. It's revealing who you really are to each other. So, if you ain't doing it here, chances are you ain't doing it in other areas as well! In other words, it's not uncommon for the lack of communication regarding sex to be the tip of the iceberg regarding other unresolved issues in the relationship.

What's you opinion? The FLOW WANTS TO KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What is Fatherhood? Is it a role, a frame of reference, a behavior, or just a set of socially sanctioned activities? At one time fathering meant being a good provider, not a nurturer or a homemaker. Today the role of a father has greatly expanded? Has it evolved to reflect who we are as a human being as opposed to a narrowly defined behavior? Is fatherhood something innate to men or a process to be understood, and developed based upon our own personal histories? Is being a “good” father different than being a good person? Do all men have the qualities to be “good” or more importantly healthy father?

We often hear about the value of fatherhood. Is it more than just being present in the home? How essential are father’s as opposed to having a healthy home environment and caregivers? Are there unique values and frames of reference that fathers should pass on to their progeny and children they care for. Fatherhood does not exist in a vacuum. It cannot fully examined without considering the mother or her absence and how society impacts the father role.Fathers are often the role models for love & intimacy, masculinity, gender equality, the treatment of women, etc. What’s the impact of all this for home, family and society?

Join The FLOW, guests and callers on Heart of the Matter, The Relatiionship Magazine, www.blogtalkradio.com/the-flow on November 15th at 6PM where we will explore the multi-demensions of fatherhood. Please share your comments here or send The FLOW email at flow4theworld@verizon.net and of course, join us on Heart of the Matter.

Robert T. Gardner Jr. is the author of The Choices We Make, a book about how our choices can foster or impede healthy loving. Robert has been a FLOW Harlem Book Fair panelist and a guest on Heart of the Matter, The FLOW’s internet radio magazine. In The FLOW we have often stated that it is not uncommon for individuals to be in a relationship that have nothing really to do with their partners. It’s all about need fulfillment. And, most importantly, the beginning of any relationship begins with your relationship with yourself. What folks call love often has nothing to do with giving and receiving healthy, self affirming love, again it’s all about need fulfillment.

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So, check out Robert's posting and share your comments with The FLOW family.

Relationship Sins:

A relationship sin is the thing you do with or for another person that you know is not good for you. It is when you know to do better and you do something to make somebody else happy, but you hurt yourself in the process. There is a list of relationship sins listed below. Be mindful that there are many relationship sins that we commit. However, I thought the list below was appropriate for this book. If you know of other relationship sins, please add them to this list.

Terrence Dean is an openly gay man and author of Hiding in Hip Hop: On the Down Low in the Entertainment Industry--from Music to Hollywood. Terrance, along with Lisa Durden, producer of the documentary film Project Wow: A Look Into The Lives Of Men On The Down Low were guests on Heart of the Matter, The FLOW's internet radio relatationship magazine. The topic was the Down Low, see posting below "What is the Down Low or listen to the show at www.blogtalkradio.com/the-flow. Terrance has written a follwup to our internet radio conversation. The FLOW wants to hear your opinions. This conversation will continue.

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The term “down low” has been surfacing throughout the black community for almost ten years. It has come to define black men who are married or have girlfriends and secretly have sex with other men. Actually, down low is a term that describes any man, or woman, who secretly steps out on their partner to engage in a relationship with another person, be it male or female. But, why is it the term down low seems to only apply to black men who secretly have sex with other black men?

Unfortunately, the term has permeated the black community due to its slang terminology and images that were strewn across the media. From the New York Times to Oprah the images and discussions of down low men only seem to relate to black men. Then the warnings came that black women should be afraid, frightened, and on guard when it came to black men. They are not to be trusted. Black men are evil, vile, and prey on the naiveté of black women. That image has stuck in the minds of black women and has continued to play in the negative attribution and psyche of all Americans.

Sex and its relationship to a meaningful spiritual life is a topic largely ignored, greatly disparaged by organized religion, and largely misrepresented in the media and society. Nonetheless, this disconnection is a burning issue that exists just below the surface of our consciousness, confronting us all, whether religious, spiritual, or unbeliever.

We live in a society where we are bombarded by sex and, unfortunately, religion has failed to put sexuality in any useful context (outside of marriage and procreation), while our communities and societies are ravaged by AIDS, unwanted pregnancies and widespread sexual abuse and dysfunction. The media has taken the sexual disconnect created by religion and has made it a psychologically loaded abstraction and absurdity. Sexuality has been reduced to body parts and sexual acts.

The tragedy of this is that many apply these media induced frames of reference to their lives and relationships which has resulted in the sexual pathology that surrounds us. We are living in the eye of a storm! Can we talk about it? As quiet as it's kept, sex fails to drive relationships, it is the meaning that we bring to the sex and sexuality that does not affirm and honor our highest selves that currently dominate our relationships.

When we hear the term the Downlow it most likely conjures up an image of a black man loving heterosexually by day and lusting homosexually by night. But is it realistic to characterize this as an exclusively black phenomenon? What is The Downlow really? First of all, when you get past the sensationalism, it's basically infidelity and a lack of regard for the well being of your partner. We all know that this may occurs in any relationship. Secondly, it's not new and it's not just men!

It has also been implied that the Downlow is a major risk factor in the transmission of HIV/AIDS to black women. Is this the real HIV/AIDS transmission story? Pat Hill Collins, in her seminal book Black Sexual Politics states that:

Because sexual contact constitutes one major trajectory of HIV contraction, the HIV/AIDS crisis reveals how the failure to criticise prevailing Black sexual politics places all African Americans at risk. Many Africian Americans fail to question dominant Black gender ideology and thus help replicate America's sexually repressive culture that takes special form within African American communities. For example, black men who confuse masculinity with dominance and take these beliefs into their romantic relationships place their partners at risk. Whether straight, gay, or bisexual, Black men who make "booty calls" without condoms foster the spread of HIV. Black women who confuse feminity with submission and weakness fare no better. When partnered with these same men, heterosexual African American women who try to be the "strong" Black woman can end up being sexually exploited, economically used, and abandoned when they can no longer compete sexually in the marketplace."

The American Psychiatic Association describes Domestic violence as "control by one partner over another in a dating, marital or live-in relationship." Abuse is not an accident. It does not happen because someone was stressed-out, drinking, using drugs, repressed or discriminated against.  It is not an example of love gone amuck, as often characterized, but the absence of love and respect.  The abuser has constructed a reality where their needs dominate relationships.  Abusers have learned to satisfy this distorted sense of self through their abuse and feel justified in it's use whether physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological.

 

In the book "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Mind of Angry and Controlling Men, the author, Lundy Bancoft says that there is a "degree of consciousness that goes into [an abusers] cruel and controlling actions," as opposed to the common perception that abusers are out of control.  Mr. Bancroft goes on to say that most times the abusers "value system is unhealthy, not their psychology."  It is their values that inform their behavior.

 

On October, 18th 2000 at 6pm, The FLOW will explore love and intimacy vs. power and control in abusive relationships and how extreme definitions of love become nails in the coffin of healthy relationships. Please join The Flow,  guests and callers on Heart of the Matter, an Internet Radio Relationship Magazine.

 

Guests: 

 

Brenda Thomas, author of Laying Down My Burdens, a deeply moving depiction of the author's struggle with domestic violence

 

Quentin Walcott, Director of CONNECT Training Institute& Community Empowerment Program.  CONNECT is an organization dedicated to ending family and gender violence.

 

 

Love Should Not Hurt: Violence in Relationships

Love & Intimacy vs. Power & Control

Are you looking for "love" and can never seem to find it? Do you find your self in relationships where you don't receive the "love" you give. Are you or have you been in relationhsips where you fear being left alone? Do you feel that you "need" to be in a relationship? Do you lose your sense of self when you are in a relationship? You may be a Love Addict. Pia Mellody, in her book "Facing Love Addiction" characterizes the behavioral symptoms of a Love Addict:

1. Love Addicts assign a disproportionate amount of time, attention and
"value above themselves" to the person to Whom they are addicted,
and this focus often has an obsessive quality about it.

2. Love Addicts have unealistic expectations for unconditional positive regard
from the other person in the relationship.

3. Love Addicts neglect to care for or value themselves while they are in a
relationship.

If you remember, Neo, the hero in the film ‚The Matrix‚ was given a choice by Morpheus. Choose the blue pill to remain in the illusory world of the Matrix, a world that was an elaborate simulation designed to hide it's inhabitants from who they are. Or, choose the red pill and face reality, for the first time with life's real challenges and ultimate successes. We all know what choice the hero made and he was consequently transformed as were those around him.

We all face a similar choice regarding our relationships. Unfortunately, too many of us choose the blue pill and opt to remain in a relationship world that is a figment of our media induced imaginations that in reality have little to do with the happiness we claim to seek. Welcome to the Matrix.

Recently, Michael Baisden, a nationally syndicated radio personality, aired a show titled All About the Benjamins. The question asked during the show was how would a man feel if his significant other made more money than he did? Also asked was what would be the impact upon men if their women were more educated.

Overwhelmingly, the men that called in expressed insecurity regarding what they perceived as the women having more materially, and consequently, more power than they did. Many of the women that called in described negative relationship experiences where they had greater income or education.