Mojo asks The Big Question

[MJontheMend]

MoJo gave up her attached meaning to sex. What it did or did not mean to her.

I think this is right, but I was having a hard time explaining what I did even to myself until I started thinking about it in terms of philosophy. If I agree that I am a Type 7 then my natural philosophy might be Epicurean. I believe that it is good to seek pleasure in life. Not just in the "duh" way of thinking that pleasure is good, pain is bad, but in a fundamental, spiritual way of thinking that it is wrong or a kind of sin not to appreciate the pleasures that life has to offer.

Corri, I remember once you wrote to me that it was wrong to view the world as a sort of sexual smorgasboard laid out for my pleasure. As a Type 7 Epicurean, I felt I had to strongly disagree with this statement. I still disagree with the statement but not as strongly. Now I would say I believe that the world is a smorgasboard laid out for my pleasure, but I don't have to visit the sex part of the buffet every time I'm hungry. I try to think of sex as being like the dessert buffet, something I want very much that would make me very happy while I was munching it down but don't have to have to get by or be happy.

So JJ, theoretically it would be easier for you, as a Seven, to distract youself from the meaning you previously associated with your husband's failure to initiate sex.

As a Type 7, I can't stop myself from constantly making plans for my happiness. It's not so much that I distract myself from making sexual plans for my happiness by making other plans for my happiness, it's just that if I stop making sexual plans for my happiness, I naturally start making other kinds of plans. There must be an equivalent to this in terms of Type 4 philosophy.

The difference for me would be simply freedom of choice.

If I was single and choose to go with out sex thats my choice. And I have the option to change my mind at any time. I know that if I choose to have sex it would not be a problem to find a willing partner (beer googles if needed).

Well, one reply I might make would be is I haven't really given up freedom of choice because I could always choose to leave my marriage. The more relevant reply I will make is that I haven't chosen to go without sex, I've simply chosen to stop initiating sex and it's a decision I've made for myself that doesn't just apply to my marriage. If I was single right now I wouldn't initiate sex with men either. I've decided it was a bad habit that I picked up in adolescence, probably from reading too many Cosmopolitan articles. So to restate my position- I am choosing to go without any sex which I can only get by initiating.

You mean there are people out there who would find themselves suddenly celibate and be okay with it? Not me! I hate being celibate, even if it's self inflicted. I would not be "okay" with that thought, so the whole premise is not sitting right with me.

LOL. I know what you're saying. I hate giving up dessert even though I am freely choosing to be on a diet, but I am still operating as a Type 7 who is in pursuit of pleasure. I am simply choosing the pleasure of a light body over the pleasure of a yummy taste treat. I just have to face up to the reality that these two pleasures are to some extent mutually exclusive. If I was single and I was choosing not to have sex it would probably be because I was choosing the pleasures of freedom over the pleasures of friendship or the pleasures of the mind over the pleasures of the body to the extent that I believed they were mutually exclusive.

For instance, let's say I was single and I had a plan for happiness that included moving to France in two years and writing a book. I might hesitate to become involved in a longterm relationship with a man because he might not be able or willing to go along with my plan for happiness and I might not want to have casual sex for the next two years for all the obvious reasons that casual sex can be not that great. So, I would be making a plan for my happiness that does not necessarily include sex. Now, I might discover that this is a stupid plan because for me sex really isn't dessert, it is more like Vitamin C and I will start getting all rickety if I don't include it as a necessity in my plan for happiness, but by just being willing to experiment and see how long and in what context I can go without it or what sort of capsules I can get by on if real oranges aren't available, I am making myself less HD or just discovering how HD I really am.