This book is a guide for a specific kind of newly evolving man. This man is unashamedly masculine—he is purposeful, confident, and directed, living his chosen way of life with deep integrity and humor—and he is sensitive, spontaneous, and spiritually alive, with a heart-commitment to discovering and living his deepest truth. This kind of man is totally turned on by the feminine. He loves to take his woman sexually, to ravish her, but not in some old-style macho fashion. Rather, he wants to ravish her with so much love she is vanished, they both vanish, in the fullness of loving itself. He is dedicated to incarnating love on this earth, through his work and his sexuality, and he does so as a free man, bound neither by outer convention nor inner cowardice. This newly evolving man is not a scared bully, posturing like some King Kong in charge of the universe.
Nor is he a new age wimp, all spineless, smiley, and starry-eyed. He has embraced both his inner masculine and feminine, and he no longer holds onto either of them. He doesn’t need to be right all the time, nor does he need to be always safe, cooperative, and sharing, like an androgynous Mr. Nice Guy. He simply lives from his deepest core, fearlessly giving his gifts, feeling through the fleeting moment into the openness of existence, totally committed toMagnifying love. To help illuminate the purpose of The Way of the Superior Man, I will draw on a few principles of sexuality and spiritual growth which are developed in my book Intimate Communion. Until fairly recently, traditional roles for men and women were fixed and separated. Men were supposed to go out and earn money.
Women were supposed to stay home and take care of the kids. Men often manipulated their women through physical and financial dominance and threat. Women often manipulated their men through emotional and mental strokes and stabs. The typical and extreme caricatures of this previous time are the macho jerk and the submissive housewife. If you are reading this book, you have probably outgrown this first stage of sexual identity. Or at least you can smile about it. Next came (and is still coming) a stage in which men and women both sought to balance their inner masculine and feminine energies toward “50/50,” becoming more like one another. For instance, in the United States in the 1960’s, men began to emphasize their inner feminine.
They learned to go with the flow. They let go of their rigid, one-dimensional masculine stance and embraced long hair, colorful clothes, nature, music, and a more carefree and sensual lifestyle, all means of embellishing or magnifying radiance, energy, and the abundant force of life—magnifying the feminine. Meanwhile, many women were doing just the opposite. They were magnifying their inner masculine, which, at the level of human character, appears as direction, or clarity of purpose, and vision. Women gained financial and political independence. They strengthened their careers, focused more on personal long term goals, went to school in increasing numbers for advanced degrees, and learned to be more assertive in their needs and desires.
Chances are, if you are reading this book, you are more balanced than your parents were. If you were a woman, you are probably more independent and assertive than your mother was. If you are a man, you are probably more emotionally expressive and open-minded than your father was. Or, at least such qualities seem acceptable to you, even if you don’t express them yourself. Remember, not that many qualities seem acceptable to you, even if you don’t express them yourself. Remember, not that many years ago, a man who got his hair styled or a woman who wore a business suit was often considered suspect. It was a good thing, for men to embrace their inner feminine and women to embrace their inner masculine. They became less fragmented and more whole in the process. They became less dependent on each other. Men could, indeed, change diapers, and women were completely capable of employing the mouse traps. Men became more loose and feeling.
Submissive housewives became more independent and directed. In terms of social roles, men and women became more similar. But this was an improvement for everyone. This 50/50 stage is only a second and intermediate stage of growth for men and women, not an endpoint. Side effects of this trend toward sexual similarity can be seen as a major cause of today’s unhappiness in intimacy. The trend toward 50/50 has resulted in economic and social equality, but also in sexual neutrality. Bank accounts are bubbling while passions are fizzling out. Men are less macho while women sex and violence continue to increase on TV and in the movies. Women are more in control of their economic destiny while they go in increasing numbers to therapists and doctors to cope with stress related disease. Why is this happening? In my workshops and conversations I hear independent and successful women complaining that many of today’s men are complaining “wimps,” too weak and ambiguous to really trust. Sensitive and affectionate man are complaining that many of today’s women have become “ballbusters,” too hardened and emotionally guarded to fully embrace. Is this the ultimate expression of human sexual wisdom and evolution, or is there another step to take? To answer these questions, we need to understand the nature of sexual passion and spiritual openness.
Sexual attraction is based on sexual polarity, which is the force of passion that arcs between masculine and feminine poles. All natural forces flow between two poles. The north and south poles of the earth create a force of magnetism. The positive and negative poles of your electrical outlet or car battery create an electrical flow. In the same way, masculine and feminine poles between people create the flow of sexual feeling. This is sexual polarity. This force of attraction, which flows between the two different poles of masculine and feminine, is the dynamism that often disappears in modern relationships. If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee; otherwise, you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed. Each of us, man or woman, possesses both inner masculine and inner feminine qualities. Men can wear earrings, tenderly hug each other, and dance ecstatically in all parties. Women can change the oil in the car, accumulate political and financial power, and box in the ring. Men can take care of their children. Women can fight for their country.
We have proven these things. Just about anyone can animate either masculine or feminine energy in any particular moment. (Although they still might have a strong preference to do one or the other, which we will get in to a moment.) The bottom line of today’s newly emerging 50/50, or “second stage,” relationship is this: If men and women are clinging to a politically correct sameness in even moments of intimacy, then sexual attraction disappears. I don’t mean just the desire for intercourse, but the juice of the entire relationship begins to dry up. The love may still be strong, the friendship may still be strong, but the sexual polarity fades, unless in moments of intimacy one partner is willing to play the masculine pole and the other one is willing to play the feminine. You have to animate the masculine and feminine differences if you want to play in the field of sexual passion.