2013-06-19T07:45:36-04:00 Barb Sibbald http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=barb-sibbald Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Barb Sibbald Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1647679 2012-07-04T16:30:49-04:00 2012-09-03T05:12:07-04:00

Barb Sibbald http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barb-sibbald/
The 50 Shades of Grey books have so far sold 10 million copies in 37 countries. These books nurture and free our inner goddess (to borrow the lead's alter ego) to consider the possibilities. What if we could put the play back into playing around? And perhaps more importantly, what if the players took their roles more seriously?

The leads, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey (haute-romance monikers if I ever heard them) know how to play in the bedroom, the "play room," the elevator, the car, the boat, the plane and the meadow. Their sex life is imaginative and vivid. They know how to flirt, how to tease, how to get their way. And, oh, it is amusing and oh, it is fun, and oh, it is filled with oh, oh, oh.

OK, this isn't high literature. But I don't imagine that was the author's intent. It's a romantically charged erotic fantasy. Christian? Ah, he's the quintessential romantic hero: tortured and twisted and wildly handsome. Plus he's a billionaire. And he's in lust, er, love with Anastasia. And she's going to fix him (good luck with that!). They have sex at least twice daily, which can't last -- at least not in real life. Their obsessive-compulsive relationship isn't healthy, or realistic. But verisimilitude isn't important; what's important is fueling our romantic fantasies.

The erotica totters on its spike heels toward S&M, but never arrives; this is not the Story of O (by Pauline Rèage). Rather, the dominant/submissive model is Christian's preferred modus operandi. He even provides his subs with a contract replete with safe words so they can escape if the activities prove overwhelming.

Anastasia doesn't sign, but she does agree to play around... and she has a lot of fun, mostly because Christian is a hot lover. He knows what to do and where and how (without being asked) -- plus he's uber romantic: flooding boat houses with flowers, obsessively worrying about what she's feeling and thinking, flying across the country to see her, endlessly email-flirting. This is a rollicking fun read, which, by some reports, is stimulating people's love life.

There are certainly lessons to be gleaned: lessons in how to flirt, and how to withhold pleasure (to maximize pleasure). There are lessons about how to fight, and the fun of make-up sex. There are also lessons about how to ask for what you want (even if it is a spanking!) and how to make sex playful.

Admittedly, these shenanigans could intimidate some couples, but judging by most media reports, the effect has been just the opposite. Women find the books are sparking their libido (the sex scenes are very graphic) and men are loving that. Google it and you'll see what I mean. I heard a female caller to a May 30, 2012 CBC radio show remarking that "a friend said it changed her sexual life, doing things she wouldn't do. It's definitely done the same for me." And a male caller said: "It's been a distraction. I see things from a different point of view; I aspire to be a better lover."

Now that's sexy.

The above is written by Barbara Sibbald's psychologist persona in The Book of Love: Guidance in Affairs of the Heart, a self-help novel.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1566029 2012-06-05T13:57:59-04:00 2012-08-05T05:12:28-04:00

Barb Sibbald http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barb-sibbald/
Sooner or later, you have to get back to some semblance of your "normal" life, your pre "I'm-in-love" life, and back to pursuing your career, seeing your friends and family, and so on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact it's essential to the health of your relationship.

Some call the initial blush fusion, a time when you meld together and lose yourself. It's that joined-at-the-hip stage. This is what most people seek, because in giving yourself, through the other person and the wholeness you form, you come to understand yourself. Plato talks about this in terms of eroticism: two sides of a sphere come together to form a complete sphere. You fall in love with something unrealized in yourself, something you desire.

The love may or may not last, but in order to keep growing yourself (and what is life without growth?), you're going to have to separate to some degree. I think of it in terms of having a child. From the moment you give birth, there are incremental steps toward separation. The biggest and most emotionally painful leaps come in adolescence. The child must separate in order to grow and establish her own identity.

In the context of love, we must re-establish our own identity (perhaps a new and improved identity under the wash of a new love). The essential second step of love is delimitation, from the Latin, delimitare or boundary. This is where you draw lines between yourself and the other to define who you are. In other words, you keep your separateness.

Without this, there is a danger that you will become so incorporated into the "us-ness" of couple-hood, that you will stop growing as an individual. Inevitably, this inertia spreads to your relationship and it too withers and dies. This demise is often masked by a sort of mercantile exchange (you do "x" and I'll do "y"), but this exchange allows you to only function as a couple, not to live with love.

Delimitation is fraught with difficulties. Our popular culture fosters a belief, from fairy tales to films, that fusion is the ultimate goal of a relationship. Without this fusion, couples often feel their love has died and they await the end. Or in an attempt to delimitate, one partner may significantly limit access; in effect, they close off, sometimes to protect themselves, sometimes out of neglect, but rarely out of desire to do so. Communication is the key to moving from fusion to delimitation.

The trick is to delimitate and at the same time keep connected. To instill separateness, but not to separate. In genuine love separateness is respectfully maintained and nurtured.
Progress in relationships is fraught with danger, but essential nonetheless. Remember that change is the essence of life.

Barbara Sibbald (www.barbarasibbald.com) is a two-time novelist, editor at a leading health journal, and an award-winning freelance journalist. The above is derived from The Book of Love: Guidance in Affairs of the Heart, a novel (General Store Publishing House), Now available as an e-book.]]>