What a great article about sex in longterm relationships!
One of your best articles perhaps? Can't believe people haven't seen it much thus far or commented on it.
It's such an amazing topic and then you spice it up with the Japanese culture, fab!
When I'm writing or just thinking about relationships, I start at the most basic point of commonality. ALL humans need love, all humans need attention. All humans need sex.
So what happens in certain cultures? Do some people just not need so much sex for example?
Then I look at other things happening in certain cultures. I look at the most extreme and seemingly bizarre ones, especially when it comes to sex. Given how often I've been sexually abused as a little girl, I kind of HAD to ask myself these questions, because my hope for sanity lied in understanding human nature.
Much for our troubles when it comes to sex stems from religion in our Western cultures but in Japan that probably isn't the case, so it seems simply just part of that society.
Every culture has its reasons deeply in historical circumstances. Some things we developed might have been necessary at the time (war, hunger...), but are our traditions serving us still today?
As much as I love the differences in cultures and traditions, I felt compelled to question them all.
What do we all need in the end? The same things.
No matter what our traditions and our culture, (if that culture prevents our most basic needs to be fulfilled), we become shadows of what we could have been.
Certain things we can not deny ourselves without heavy consequences. Which is why I find it healthier - IF a church has to be part of our lives, then why not allow your priests to get married?
Any country keeping women in the shadows at home is denying itself a wealth of talent and brains which could contribute to an amazing future! That's just one point.
But more importantly, men in such cultures are denying themselves a happy existence with regular sexual intercourse.
When I look at the dark parts of each and every country, I come to the conclusion that we all need sex and we all are making ourselves a disservice by keeping the role of a woman limited in society.
Perhaps we all need a do-over of our cultures.
Can you imagine, just like on those tv shows where they have a make-over of a house or a person, that's what our countries need:
As you said, Paul, neither the US nor Japan are great or horrible.
People asked me why did I choose to live in the UK if I complain about so many things. Because the UK is the only country in Europe which gives hard working people a chance based on their skillset and experience (as long as you're confident enough about them), and the perfect CV or connections hardly matter.
I appreciate the flexibility in this country and for a while it seemed people really enjoyed the fact that London was the most cosmopolitan city in the world, with fantastic food from all over the world. British people have started to enjoy discovering new tastes, started to enjoy facing their feelings.
And, well, then the idea of Brexit came along and while no one was thinking of it and people were far happier than they realised, the politicians once again just HAD to screw a paradise up because it was...what? Too good to be true? As if it was a crime if your people are actually happy and getting somewhere in life.
I never thought I would experience the same stupidity twice in my short span of 44 years. Twice!
Which tells me - if 50% of any country can get so easily aroused just by making them nostalgic of the 'big great times', then we certainly need to re-think our cultures by
- taking only the bits that worked and were good
- omitting the nostalgic BS that we carry around
- define a new era, a new tradition which honours the memory of the past but doesn't glorify the stupidity of it.
Will we ever get there?
