Amp Your Masculinity, Savor Your Femininity

When I was a wee PersistentIllusionist, I was a girl in a male, single parent household.  My siblings were all brothers and I rarely spent time in the company of women.  I didn’t want to be a girl; I was one of the guys!  No Barbies for me, thank you, please pass the Erector Set.

As time passed, and I started dating, I wondered where all the ‘manly’ men were.  I kept getting these really accommodating guys; you know, sensitive.  I didn’t want to date a macho jerk but I wondered, where were all the masculine men?

Unfortunately, no one had explained the properties of balance to me.  And because I wasn’t existing in my feminine, I wasn’t attracting or inspiring masculinity.  What was worse is that I had the outward tools for femininity.  To put it delicately, I am a woman with a sizeable chest.  How could it be possible that I never felt feminine?

I had always associated women with weakness and lack of fortitude and if there was one thing I wasn’t, was weak.  I spent my formative years with no strong women in the picture.  When I finally started encountering women of strength, it was almost too late because I didn’t recognize what I was seeing.

The light finally went on when I got married.  I could be strong and feminine.  I could be with a man who was strong, whose masculinity did not denature my strength.  The more feminine I was, the more masculine he was – and vice versa.

What is Masculinity?  Femininity?

It’s strange that we don’t always recognize masculinity and femininity anymore.  The essence of each cannot be reduced to gender associated qualities like strong, decisive, emotional, or nurturing.  When a man is fully in his masculinity, he is emotional and nurturing.  When a woman is fully in her femininity, she is strong and decisive.

See Jack.  See Jack Run.

Men and women need to ’see’ more men and women.  Go to places where the men are real men, the women are real women, and the furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are real furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.  Basically, we need to see more people fully expressing themselves, their being.

It is no surprise that, after days spent meditating on “who am I?”, my husband decided he needed to engage in more adrenaline based, masculine activities.  No surprise that he realized he felt that he had ‘lost’ a piece of himself by not doing anything like that since his childhood.

Recharge

It never made any sense to me that women hung out together to talk about knitting or scrapbooking, and that men hung out together discussing politics.  Isn’t everyone interested in politics?  And who cares about scrapbooking anyway!

What I didn’t realize was that the specific activity was irrelevant, just the coming together of women in their feminine and men in their masculine.  Some men and women are a little more ‘awakened’ than others, so the activities are not even the same from group to group.

It is absolutely necessary for men to, regularly and frequently, spend time with other men.  Depending the level of ‘awareness’ the activity could be anything from poker to meditation.  The same holds true for women.

Bonus

The kickass side-effect of recharging your feminine or masculine batteries, is the magnetizing effect it has on your romantic relationship.  Opposite polarity really does attract and create the frisson of experience and awareness. 

When people are married for a while, the level of sexual awareness of their partner decreases.  They are demagnetized and their relationship changes from that of lovers to best friends.  Sex is less frequent and more perfunctory.  Eyes and attention may start to wander.

Why?

To fully experience your femininity, you need to be in the presence of someone who is fully experiencing their masculinity.  Duality is the foil of our experience; light and dark, man and woman, lull and storm.  Duality is the actual spice of our existence. 

When your marriage loses the magnetic quality, you’ll seek to replace that energy and you won’t be happy until you do.

Now what?

Get some same-sex friends and spend time with them on a regular basis.  Encourage your special someone to do the same.  Don’t get ticked off at a weekly guys’ night.  As long as you are balanced with a weekly ‘date’ night, all should be well in your world.

Don’t ever make fun of the activity which recharges your wife’s energy.  So what if pilates looks and sounds stupid?  In belittling her activity, it will feel as if your are belittling her. 

Enjoy that time to yourself.  Experience the duality of being with your spouse, then being alone.  You can’t experience light without darkness and so you can’t truly experience your spouse without solitude.