This book is a guide for a specific kind of newly evolving man. This man is unabashedly 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, co-operative, 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 to magnifying 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, modern 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 sexual 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 1960s, 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 are 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 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, as time progressed, 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 emptying the mouse traps. Macho men became more loose and feeling. Submissive housewives became more independent and directed. In terms of social roles, men and women became more similar. This was an improvement for everyone.
But 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 balancing while passions are fizzling out. Men are less macho while 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 dis-ease. Why is this happening?
In my workshops and consultations I hear independent and successful women complaining that many of today’s men have become “wimps,” too weak and ambiguous to really trust. Sensitive and affectionate men 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 the woods. 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 to in 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 even in 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 one partner 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.
This is true in homosexual as well as heterosexual relationships. Actually, the gay and lesbian community is acutely aware that sexual polarity is independent of gender. But you still need two poles for a passionate play of sexuality to persist in a relationship: masculine and feminine, top and bottom, butch and femme—whatever you want to call these reciprocal poles of sexual play.
It is up to you: You can have a loving friendship between two similars, but you need a more masculine and a more feminine partner in the moments when you want strong sexual polarity.
It doesn’t matter if both partners are men or both are women. It doesn’t matter if, in a heterosexual relationship, the man plays the feminine pole and the woman plays the masculine pole. It doesn’t matter if you change every day who plays the masculine pole and who plays the feminine pole. For sexual polarity, you need an energetic polarity, an attractive difference between masculine and feminine. You don’t need this difference for love, but you do need it for ongoing sexual passion.
For some people who have what I call a more balanced sexual essence, sexual polarity doesn’t really matter. They don’t really want much passion in intimacy. They don’t want a loving tussle full of sexual inspiration and innuendo. They would rather have a civilized friendship full of love and human sharing without the passionate ups and downs. And for these people, this book will be irrelevant, possibly even offensive.
This book is written specifically for people who have a more masculine sexual essence, and their lovers, who will have a more feminine sexual essence—since you always attract your sexual reciprocal. These people can’t help but be attracted into relationships based on difference, for better or for worse.
Your sexual essence is your sexual core. If you have a more masculine sexual essence, you would, of course, enjoy staying home and playing with the kids, but deep down, you are driven by a sense of mission. You may not
know your mission, but unless you discover this deep purpose and live it fully, your life will feel empty at its core, even if your intimate relationship and family life are full of love.
If you have a more feminine sexual essence, your professional life may be incredibly successful, but your core won’t be fulfilled unless love is flowing fully in your family or intimate life.
The “mission” or the search for freedom is the priority of the masculine, whereas the search for love is the priority of the feminine. This is why people with masculine essences would rather watch a football game or boxing match on TV than a love story. Sports are all about achieving freedom, such as by breaking free of your opponent’s tackle or barrage of punches, and about succeeding at your mission, by carrying the ball into the end zone or remaining standing after ten rounds. For the masculine, mission, competition, and putting it all on the line (indeed, facing death), are all forms of ecstasy. Witness the masculine popularity of war stories, dangerous heroism, and sports playoffs.
But, for the feminine, the search for love touches the core. Whether on soap operas, in love stories, or talking with friends about relationships, the desire for love is what appears in feminine forms of entertainment.
The feminine wants to be filled with love, and if the bliss of real love is not forthcoming, chocolate and ice cream—or a good romantic drama—will do. The masculine wants to feel the bliss of a life lived at the edge, and if he doesn’t have the balls to do it himself, he’ll watch it on TV, in sporting events and cop shows.
Even happy and fulfilled men and women find it enjoyable to watch sports and eat ice cream, of course. I am just trying to make a point: Even though all people have both masculine and feminine qualities that they could use in any moment—to kick corporate ass or nurture children, for instance—most men and women also have a more masculine or feminine core. And this shows up in their regularly chosen entertainments, as much as in their preferred sexual play.
Think about it. Would you rather that your sexual partner was physically stronger than you, or would you prefer to feel your lover’s physical vulnerability? Which would turn you on more, to pin your partner on the bed below you or to be pinned below your partner? To be swept off your feet by a sensitive and strong lover or to feel your lover surrender,
swooning in your arms? You may want both at different times, but most often which turns you on more?
Or, does each of these alternatives turn you on just the same? That is, are you just as turned on by a sexual partner who is physically weaker than you as by one who is stronger, or exactly the same strength?
Most people, about 90 percent in my experience, seem to have a definite preference. They definitely either prefer that their partner kills the cockroach crawling toward them, or they’re fine with doing the crunchy job themselves, perhaps with sporting fervor. Most people clearly favor watching a romantic love story on TV to a bloody boxing match, or vice versa. They might be able to enjoy both at times, but their core becomes more emotionally involved in one or the other. If you have ever seen a group of masculine people watching a Super Bowl game, you know just how emotional the masculine core becomes while beholding a good mission of people living at their edge and giving their gifts—or getting slaughtered for failing.
So, about 90 percent of people have either a more masculine or a more feminine sexual essence. Passionately, lovingly, and fiercely, they would like to be ravished by, or to ravish, their intimate partner, at least some of the time, in addition to having a loving friendship. This holds true for homosexual and heterosexual people alike.
About 10 percent of people, men and women, heterosexual and homosexual, have a more balanced essence. Boxing matches and love stories equally make them emotional, or not. It doesn’t really matter to them whether their lover is physically stronger or more vulnerable than them. Sexual polarity just isn’t that important to them in relationships anyway.
Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, if you want to experience deep spiritual and sexual fulfillment, you must know your natural sexual essence—masculine, feminine, or balanced—and live true to it. You can’t deny your true sexual essence by covering it with layers of false energy for years, and then expect to know your authentic purpose and be free in the flow of love. This book is a guide to shedding pretense and living true to your core, specifically for people who have a masculine sexual essence and their feminine essenced lovers who have to deal with them.
In a well-intentioned effort to provide equal opportunity and rights for men and women, many people are inadvertently squashing their true sexual
essence. They don’t have to; it’s certainly possible to provide equality while also living true to your masculine or feminine core. But most people don’t. So they suffer.
Most people are forgetting that the sameness that works in the office does not work in intimacy for about 90 percent of couples: those couples composed of partners with masculine and feminine essences rather than balanced essences. If sexual passion is to flow in these polarized intimacies, masculine and feminine differences should be magnified, not diminished, in moments of intimacy. When these polarities are lessened due to family and work obligations, sexual attraction is diminished, along with spiritual depth and physical health.
Stressing your masculine or feminine essence into a falsely balanced persona affects virtually every part of you. Many people with true feminine essences manifest a whole range of disturbed physiological symptoms as their feminine energy “dries up” due to running excess masculine energy through their body, year after year, in order to fit into the masculine style of work. And many people with masculine essences, seeking to fit in with the feminine style of cooperation and energy flow, disconnect from their sense of life purpose and inhibit their deep truth, afraid of the consequences of being authentic to their own masculine core. Hence, the frequent complaints about too many ballbusters and wimps.
Furthermore, when you deny your true core you deny the possibility of true and real love. Love is openness, through and through. And true spirituality is the practice of love, the practice of openness. A person who denies their own essence and hides their true desires is divided and unable to relax into the full openness of love. Their spirit becomes cramped and kinked. Unable to feel the natural ease and unconstrained power of their own core, they feel threatened and frightened. This fear is the texture of their inability to open fully in love. Such a person is spiritually handicapped, obstructed at heart, even though they may have achieved a safe relationship and a successful career.
So, as a culture, we have advanced in terms of personal freedom, sexual equality, and social rights, but we have remained spiritually thwarted and afraid. For the sake of individual autonomy and social fairness, with only good intentions in mind, we have erroneously begun to deny, smooth out, and neutralize our masculine and feminine differences. In doing so, people
often end up denying their deepest core desires, which are rooted in their true sexual essence. A lot of people today think they have a balanced sexual essence, but in most cases they are actually suppressing the natural desires which spring from their real masculine or feminine core.
It is important to admit what is real if you are going to really deal with your life. The Way of the Superior Man focuses on many of these issues which we often sidestep or deny. For example, if you truly have a balanced sexual essence, then you are just not that sexually distracted by anyone. But if you are, for instance, a heterosexual man with a true masculine sexual essence, then you will be more or less constantly sexually attracted to feminine women you see all day, at the workplace and on the street. To married women as well as teenage girls. As long as they shine the feminine light, you will feel the pull. How do you turn this potential sexual problem into a spiritual gift?
If you have a masculine sexual essence then you would probably admit, if you were being brutally honest, that your intimate relationship is just not as important to you as the “mission” in your life—but you still want a full and energetic intimate relationship, perhaps quite badly. How do you deal with this often misunderstood dilemma?
To answer questions such as these as clearly as possible, I have chosen to write this book as if speaking to the most common case of a masculine sexual essence: a heterosexual man with a masculine sexual essence. As I’ve said, there are many other possible arrangements of gender, essence, and sexual preference. You could, for instance, be a heterosexual woman with a masculine essence married to a man with a feminine essence, or a homosexual man with a masculine essence married to a man with a feminine essence, and the principles in this book would still apply to you. But I trust the reader to make the appropriate adjustment in wording for his or her own unique case if it is different from this most common one.
I suppose the book could have been called, “The Way of the Superior Person With a Masculine Essence,” but the whole thing would become unwieldy if I tried to unfold every possible permutation of “he” and “she” and “masculine sexual essence” and “balanced sexual essence” and “feminine sexual essence” in every possible heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual relationship. In the end, I opted for simplicity. You can add the permutations yourself. If you or your partner has a masculine sexual
essence—regardless of anatomy, gender, or sexual preference—this book will help you clarify your life and enable you to give your deepest gifts, personally and at work, sexually and spiritually.
The Way of the Superior Man is a book written explicitly for people who have already achieved respect for other genders and sexual preferences, and who consider men and women to be social, economic, and political equals. Now, we are ready to move to the next stage, grounded in this mutual respect and equality, but celebrating the sexual and spiritual passions inherent in the masculine/feminine polarity.
It is time to evolve beyond the macho jerk ideal, all spine and no heart. It is also time to evolve beyond the sensitive and caring wimp ideal, all heart and no spine. Heart and spine must be united in a single man, and then gone beyond in the fullest expression of love and consciousness possible, which requires a deep relaxation into the infinite openness of this present moment. And this takes a new kind of guts. This is The Way of the Superior Man.
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* David Deida, 1995. Intimate Communion. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications, Inc.
