Sex and Buddhism

November 3, 2011 2:06 PM

Trying to use Buddhism to (1) figure out what to do about my relationship, (2) determine the appropriate role for sexual activity in my life, and (3) change my life in general. Am I doing this right?

I can’t seem to integrate my sex life into the rest of my life or figure out what to do about my sexless relationship. I’ve been dealing with this for several years, and I’ve written a few AskMe’s about it, and yet I can’t seem to make any changes. I got tired of this paralysis and started reading about Buddhism in order to try and find some perspective, but I don't know if I'm really getting it.

The background: I’m a 37-year-old gay male. My partner and I have been together for eight years, and we have a good deal of love but zero sex life. It didn’t start out with great sex and then peter out; we have just never had a good sexual life. It's never been there. My partner is gay but has no interest in sex. We are not at all sexually compatible despite several years of couples therapy (still ongoing) and my partner’s discovery a few years ago that he has low testosterone and subsequent daily use of a topical testosterone gel. It’s just never going to happen with us sexually. Even if he did get horny, I have no real desire to have sex with him, he has no desire to have sex with anyone, period.

We have an open relationship, which means I get to play around. It’s don’t ask/don’t tell; he prefers not to know what I do. The thing is, I’m not totally okay with this anymore. In fact, I wound up getting to a point where I was being sexually addictive -- I moved from skulking around on Manhunt (which I was sort of okay with) to hanging out in certain restrooms known for sexual activity (which I hated doing but couldn't seem to stop myself from doing). I finally got disgusted with myself last spring, so I went to a Sexual Compulsives Anonymous meeting, but it didn’t seem right for me.

Instead, I’ve managed to successfully refrain on my own. I’m happy about this; as of today it’s been 191 days since I’ve done something that is against my values (i.e., hung out in a restroom or had casual sex with a stranger). My only two sexual encounters in that time have been experiences that I consider within my “permissible zone”: an experience on a business trip, and an experience with a friend that I nevertheless kind of wish hadn’t happened.

The thing is, now I’ve gone from being a sex addict to being pretty much celibate, and it’s no fun. Don’t get me wrong, the celibacy is working much better for me than the sex addiction. I’m not disgusted with myself anymore, I feel like I'm in the driver's seat of my own life again, I’m more aware of my desires, I am making more deliberate choices instead of impulsively drowning in empty sex. So it’s definitely an improvement.

But now I just jerk off 4-5 times a week. It’s something I do as a preventative measure -- to relieve an itch -- rather than something that’s enjoyable in and of itself. It's getting old.

I don’t seem to know how to integrate sex into my life in a fulfilling way.

So I’ve been turning to Buddhism to try and find a way out of this. I just read “If the Buddha Got Stuck” by Charlotte Kasl, but it kind of seems like "fake" Buddhism adapted to modern Western middle-class life. So now I’m reading “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron. And I don’t know if it’s helping. I don’t know if I’m “getting” Buddhism.

Here’s what Buddhism seems to mean: I should be celibate; sex is just a desire, and we can choose not to indulge our desires, we can just sit with our desires, and we’re all going to die anyway, and nothing is permanent, so our desires won’t satisfy us except temporarily. Or something.

Is Buddhism is about avoiding sensory pleasures, because life is about suffering and we’re all going to die, so just stop acting out on your desires and accept the life you have? Okay, so, that means I need to just accept that I’m never going to have relationship sex ever again for the rest of my life? Really?

Or is there a middle way, one between unfulfilling celibacy and unfulfilling sex, that fits in with Buddhist philosophy?

My partner said that if I want, I could go on “dates” with people instead of having sex with strangers. I don’t know if I could do that, though. It would feel like cheating even more than anonymous sex does. And I would know that deep down I’d be looking for someone I could leave my partner for. I feel like if I like someone enough to keep having sex with him, I will wind up wanting to spend more time with that person. So I will wind up not wanting to have sex with the person again because of those feelings.

I don’t really know what to do here. I had hoped that Buddhism would somehow help me change my life. But I can’t seem to figure out what that means.

Does Buddhism mean (1) I need to realize that life is suffering, so I need to just break up with my partner and suffer terribly for a while until things get better? How is that Buddhism? Isn’t there a lot of ego in trying to make your life better, when Buddhism is about egolessness?

Or alternatively, does Buddhism mean (2) I should accept my relationship the way it is, and accept that this dissatisfaction will be with me for the rest of my life, and that’s okay because I’m going to die someday anyway so I might as well sexually “die” metaphorically now?

Or finally, does Buddhism mean (3) that whatever I decide doesn’t matter, so don’t even worry about it and just accept my life the way it is? Which seems more like (2), to be honest.

When people write about using Buddhism to change your life, is that really Buddhism, or is that a fake Buddhism adapted to the modern middle-class West? I thought Buddhism was about accepting the circumstances of your life, not trying to change them. But my circumstances do not seem an enjoyable way to live.

I just don’t get it. Should I be trying to change the circumstances of my life, or just change how I look at my life, or both? How can Buddhism help?

posted by chameleon to Human Relations (2 answers total)

Accepting your circumstances doesn't mean not taking action to change them in ways that seem possible and appropriate. Quite the contrary.

Buddhism (which comes in many flavors) is something you practice globally, in every aspect of your life; trying to apply it to a single interpersonal question, as kind of a "what would Jesus do" thing, sort of doesn't make sense. Likewise saying "I shouldn't try to make my life better because it would be egotistical" or saying "desires are bad to have so I'll try to crush them and get disappointed when I don't act like I don't have any, even though I am not a monk." What's the compassionate approach, both for you and your partner? Is it good for you or him, for example, to try to make him spend his life with a dissatisfied partner? You have to make the decision. What you seem to be proposing to do is to say "this is what Buddhism made me do," which is only a good way to resent Buddhism.

Here's a piece about Buddhism and sexual ethics. Note the lack of talk about celibacy.
posted by Adventurer at 2:30 PM on November 3, 2011

I think you should be trying to change the circumstances of your life, and to pull in TBYNM's comment, you are not compatible with your current partner. So you also need to change how you look at life, too. Accept that you cannot change him, and accept that if you want to be happy, that you may need to be with someone more compatible. Not saying that your current partner is a bad person or anything, but just not what you need. Trying to tie Buddhism into this is going to be difficult, as there are different interpretations.
posted by bolognius maximus at 2:32 PM on November 3, 2011