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Was I then mistranslating spiritual and emotional longings as physical
ones? Depressives, of course, seek to travel, as though they could
leave their selves behind at the airport, shed the cocoons of their
natures and fly free. Was I similarly transferring the persistent
aches at the back of my neck and in my skull to my stomach and loins,
and fantasising that, in other people’s arms, I might find
contentment?
I still cannot answer that question. I am sure that there is some
validity in such an analysis of my pornographic fantasies and frustration,
but then, I have found such calm and contentment through my new life
and a multiplicity of sexual partners that I cannot think myself
entirely misguided.
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It was play, I think, the self-esteem and freedom and companionship
of play, the acceptance of naked, unguarded me, body and soul, which
I craved as much as any caresses or specific sensations. My marriage,
my home, even dutiful sex were all ill-fitting garments which cribbed
and confined me. I wanted to shuffle them off,
to stand naked before
my peers and be acknowledged by them. Nakedness, ingestion, penetration
and so on were figurative no less than literal desires.
I have no patience with the arrogant of my generation who presume
to despise those who married as virgins and know no other sexual
partners but their spouses. Perhaps, had Tony and I been such people
and had we lived in the sort of extended family which provides purpose
and so satisfies emotional needs, we might have been happy, gradually
uncovering the mysteries of sex with one another and becoming intimate
in the truest sense.
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