Have you ever caught yourself or someone you care about describing this scenario: When you’re in a relationship you have to put your authentic life agenda aside, and be the “relationship you,” until you can’t stand it anymore and you get out of the relationship so you can go back to being the “real you” for a while? This way you can “focus on yourself” and be creative and do the things you love; which works until you want a relationship again, for sex or companionship or both, but to get there you have to lose yourself and sacrifice what you consider the most important.There are lots of versions of this scenario, which I call a split-self or hemisphere effect. The two sides of the brain act like different people with different needs, and both sides can’t get their needs met at once. Another example is having intimate friendships with people, but after a while wanting to be closer than those permit, so you find a “relationship”; then the other friendships, even if not directly sexual, must end once you’re in a relationship. Inside the relationship, you start to feel confined and want your other contacts, but various insecurities or the rules of appropriateness (yours or those of your partner) seem to prohibit that. Then you feel confined and have to sacrifice the relationship in order to have your more “normal friendships.”
We bring these tendencies right into our dating experiences, thus perpetuating them. In those early encounters we introduce prospective partners to our publicist, who looks a lot like us but presents information strategically to ensure that we’re acceptable to this other person who doesn’t know us and is sure to think we’re a total freak if we let on the truth. Typically when we do this we forget two things: the truth will eventually come out, and the other person probably has some surprises waiting for us. Dating is an interesting thing: It’s like a mock friendship. You might act like friends, and spend time together like friends, and say you’re friends, but the actual trust and familiarity are not there. It’s like they are on credit.
Meanwhile, many people don’t have sex with their friends so they don’t “ruin the friendship.” Hence, this thing we call dating—the certified path to a relationship—takes place with someone other than a friend, such as an acquaintance, a stranger, a sex partner, or, as it turns out too often, an enemy.
In the dating process, we’re supposed to do everything we can to present ourselves as acceptable to the other person, conceal all weaknesses and fears, present ourselves as impeccably monogamous, as successful and in perfect health; not mention opposite-sex friends, bisexuality, or our cross-dressing bondage fetish. We all know how judgmental many people are, and more to the point, we know how judgmental we are. Question for you: How long is your list of turn-offs? How long is your list of requirements for a suitable suitor? That will give you an idea.
It’s no wonder why we’re so terrified to be ourselves. There’s one other reason, too, which comes wrapped in a paradox. Most “unpartnered” people you meet are cruising for The One. We’re not seeking “casual” relationships or casual sex; those are allegedly insincere and unfulfilling. We want the supposedly Real Thing, which precludes hanging loose and being real. So instead, we polish up the relationship résumé and put on our most authentic air. The contradiction is that if we’re really looking for The One and not the dreaded, evil, scandalous, disease-laden friendship with benefits, The One is presumably The One who will accept us for who we are; and in that case, no gloss would be necessary.
Characterizing the typically backward, upside-down thinking of the world, you could say that our search for a relationship is often driven by the desire to avoid relationships. The whole process is so laden with unquestioned habits, values, and presumptions, including the presumption that it’s acceptable to lie, it’s amazing that anyone ever gets to know anyone else. But try as we may to avoid it, we do get to know one another, as the old saying goes, for better or for worse.
Then we wonder why our relationships are such a struggle; why we can go so long without a partner; why it so often feels like we’ll never have sex again; why we have to make so many compromises once we’re involved in a relationship.
It does not help that it’s nearly impossible to have a real discussion about these topics. For example, in my experience, every person has his or her own sexual and emotional orientation. We each have specific needs, desires, and tendencies. Yet nearly all discussions of relationship are based on the marriage model of allegedly exclusive heterosexual monogamy, or some certified, sanctified form of queer. There are severe penalties for violating these rules. Often it seems the people who dole out the penalties break the rules the most often.
We need some sanity here. We need to take relationships seriously, and that is going to take commitments to both growth and authenticity that are not generally proffered in our society.
Saturn has just entered Libra, and that’s an occasion to consider the next phase of our lives. The planet of authority, structure, boundaries, and commitments changes signs every 30 months or so, and as it does, we move dependably from theme to theme. Saturn in Libra is about focusing on relationships, and in particular, authenticity and balance in relationships.
For anyone even vaguely conscious, relationships are a focal point of growth. That requirement—awareness—rules out plenty of people. So does the notion of growth. For many others, relationships are where we hang out and avoid progress and indeed avoid ourselves. Which is, you know, fine as far as it goes: But if this is the case, we need save some energy and stop wondering why things go so poorly so often. Why the divorces become so vicious. Why we seem to be on a constant search that goes on and on and on.
At some point in my astrological career, after years and years of hearing scores of relationship stories—most of them from women—it occurred to me: Many people enter relationships as a pact to avoid growth. I considered this for a while, and considered my own life, and I realized why it was true, or why it seemed true. Our relationships are predicated on the idea that a stable, long-term situation is the objective or aim. Therefore, we will tend to suppress anything that threatens the relationship. One of the things that threatens a relationship is when people change. Growth implies change, often in profound and unexpected directions. Within our culture’s one officially certified style of relationship, growth can easily be perceived as a threat. To stay in a relationship, often you have to do your best to stay the same. You have to be the person that your partner expects you to be.
The first thing that Saturn says is, Face reality. Usually by the time Saturn comes along and sets a limit, we’ve been aware of exceeding the limit for a while. Saturn in Libra is like peeling a veneer off of things. Libra works on several levels, and one of them is about presentation. Everything that Libra touches is impeccably presented, and Saturn is coming along to strip off the finish and see what’s under the surface. This is a terrifying prospect to most people. Most of us have so little experience simply being ourselves that we are extremely uncomfortable doing so. It feels unstable, vulnerable, and scary. There is a fear we carry that if I am myself, this relationship will end.
The next thing that Saturn says is, Face your fears. Saturn can point to what we fear the most, and in the case of Saturn in Libra that would be about intimacy of any shade—and if you ask me, sex and relationships are inseparable. Any two people who get to know each other for long enough will at least develop some sexual curiosity about each other. Alice A. Baliey notes in Esoteric Astrology that Libra is one of the most important signs for understanding sex (even surpassing Scorpio in this regard). Anyone who has read (let’s be modest) as many as three books on the history of sex understands that we are nearly all clueless.
We are also a society of sexophobes. Most people don’t even know it. Many people become viscerally, visually uncomfortable at the least mention or suggestion of sex, which of, course, requires perpetuating ignorance. In my office I have a genre of reader mail known as “I am not a prude” letters. These arrive in response to my website’s frank articles about sex and pleasure, or my nude photos. The letters always start, “I am not a prude, but this conversation/photo/article is inappropriate for an astrology website.”
To complicate matters, lots of them consider this some form of maintaining their integrity in a way you would expect from a vegan. In one of the classic “I am not a prude” letters of all time, a reader in Europe recently expressed not only her opposition to my photos but also, when I pressed her for information, her objection to making information about sex available. “Sex is much better and more fun and more creative and more respectful without any ‘education,’” she wrote. “This leaves space for discovery.” As if there is anything but space for discovery in sexuality. (I strongly advise Americans to stop thinking that Europeans are more enlightened about sex and relationships. They just have more nude beaches than we do and lower BMI because so many smoke.)
Our culture has so thoroughly suppressed honest discussion of sex that the mere mention of the topic seems destabilizing, dangerous, or perverse. So it becomes, perpetuating fear and ignorance to an astonishing degree, glossed over by obsession with scandalous subject matter. But we also suppress discussion of relationships, and the reason for this is the mandatory monogamy rule. Permissible discussions about relationships nearly all center around perpetuating the illusion of monogamy. Any real conversation about sex would be driven by curiosity, and we all know that curiosity does not honor the notion of monogamy.
Saturn in Libra suggests putting some discipline into understanding both sex and relationships: and I mean actual understanding, not regurgitating Sex and the City or what you unwittingly ate at your parents’ or grandparents’ dinner table 30 years ago. There are some excellent books out. One is called The Myth of Monogamy, which is based on DNA testing of all kinds of critters. No—ducks are not monogamous; get over it. A new one that’s appeared is called Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. One of the all-time classics is Eros Denied by Wayland Young, available for $5 from any online used bookseller (published by Grove Press in 1964). I promise you this will be one of the most enlightening books you’ll ever read. So, too, will A General Theory of Love, which talks about the neurology of emotional and sexual relationships, what we stand to gain by working with a good therapist, and how therapy works.
Finally, Saturn in Libra suggests that we have to make room for change. People who are alive grow and change, and the same is true for relationships that are alive. For those committed to living up to their grandparents’ 50-year marriage or someday being like that cute old couple you see in your neighborhood, this may be a tough thing. For those who have no sense of who they are outside of a relationship, this might be scary, but in order to be in a relationship you have to know yourself, accept yourself, and love yourself. Of course, this is society’s biggest taboo. When you know yourself, you’re free. You don’t need to depend on others for your basic existence. You discover that it’s your privilege to love, that it’s your body, and that this is your life.
This article appears in August 2010.
