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CAN A WOMAN RESPECT HERSELF IN LOVE AND SEX?
Devorah Tarrow
Aesthetic Realism Seminar
 

3. She Didn’t Respect Herself for her Motive as to the World

In his chapter on sex in the Handbook of Aesthetic Analysis now published in The Right Of, Mr. Siegel explains how a way of seeing the world affects a woman as she is close to a man: If June can go through mighty biological excitement with someone not herself and have an unconscious not friendly to the existence of what is not herself, even in sex June will deeply have a problem....There is a tremendous abstract fight that goes on in sex....June wants to possess [a man] utterly, but at the same time she wants to feel that the world other than herself is in friendly relation with her. This means that she can feel bad after a conquest....She knows she has been loving herself in a bad way. There is guilt in her.... There was that guilt in Gillian Ferraro, who said in quietly in her first consultation that the thing she had most against herself was that she felt she was selfish. 

When we met her, we saw an attractive woman with a careful, scientific mind who was very pained in her life and in love. She was very proud of her struggle coming from horrible poverty in her native land in Central America--caused so much by the unjust profit system of the U.S. 

Yet, she wrote to us, she didn't respect herself in love: she saw she could have a large effect on men, and--as I had done--she would go after pleasure without trying to think of the effect she would have--would it make him and her closer to the world or farther away? She wrote to us about the man to whom she'd been closest:

I would like to answer so many questions and uncertainties regarding this confusing relationship. I was and am ashamed of myself. I still feel dishonest and that my relationship was unreal. I created [Carlo] to have [what I saw as] a perfect man....If this is due to contempt, how can I have faith in myself again? This is why I want to study Aesthetic Realism.
Through her consultations, Miss Ferraro has wanted to know herself, to see both men and women more and more deeply, she has heard the questions that change women's lives.

First she had to see she had a way of seeing the world she didn't respect herself for. In a consultation, we asked her:

Cons. The main question is, Do you think there is a desire to have either respect or contempt all the time?

GF. Now, I am beginning to see that studying Aesthetic Realism, yes. You really want to respect, but at the same time, I wanted to feel superior. I really did!

Cons. There is a fight that goes on. Because in every relationship there is a hope to like the world. Mr. Siegel explains that in "Love and Reality." But you have to make sense of two things--to see the choice you want to make.

 She told us she had met Carlo just after her father died. She was angry with her mother whose pain she said she hadn't wanted to see, and she'd also just broken up with another man: GF. And Carlo was so persistent, calling me, and I was very lonely. I felt at that time, "I can't expect anything from anyone." At the beginning, that's really what I was thinking--I was so disgusted in general.

Cons. So you felt you would teach your ex-boyfriend a lesson and the world a lesson, if you had to do with this man? Did you want to find peace, and he seemed a haven?

GF. Yes! I said to myself I would have the perfect "buddy."...But really I was practically captured into this relationship.

Cons. Now, Miss Ferraro, was there any inter-capturing?

GF. Yes, yes, there was.

 Cons. Women have contempt--they have it for their brothers and sisters--and think they should be able to have it with a man. He'll be on his knees, devoted to us--it comes to be like hell--but do we feel important!

GF. Yes. I feel very bad about this, but it's good to see.

 Cons. You're more courageous now and you should try to be exact about that self-importance. Do you think Carlo felt you hoped to respect a man as much as he deserved? Or did you want to look down?

GF. I wanted to look down.

Cons. So he had a true criticism?

 And Miss Ferraro, with surprised respect in her eyes, said "Yes!"

She was beginning to be clear there was something she had been after that a man could really object to, and seeing this,she could respect him and herself more!
 

Continued: click here for part 4  "CAN A WOMAN RESPECT HERSELF IN LOVE AND SEX?"
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The Answer to Youth Violence
Women's Dissatisfaction--Can It Be Beautiful?
Why Are Young Men Bored?
Can a Woman Respect Herself in Love and Sex? 

Copyright © 1997 by Devorah Tarrow