There is an unconscious, involuntary frequency, that left unconscious, influences people and no matter what we say to ourselves or others, does it’s own thing.
It is very difficult for a woman to be honest about the invisible workings of her call, as it goes against her very conception of herself, that
a) she has desire and
b) she has tremendous influence on her environment.
A great study was done by Daniel Bergner that showed how women’s self-reporting was in contradistinction to the reports of the body. The body demonstrated very high states of arousal at “disgusting” images. And yet, the women reported zero effect.
This is for two reasons: first, women are trained early on to disassociate with the workings of the body, cutting off hunger to be thin, for example. Secondly, we’re taught to believe that an impulse can arise and a thought can be sent in to counter it. “Deny the impulse or send in a counter impulse and the signal/impulse is eradicated.”
I can tell myself that I don’t feel this, I don’t want this, I’m not important, and withdraw my impact on the world.
Not so.
The signal continues to operate, only now without a driver.
Women do a few things to try to “turn it off.” They throw blankets on it—love, kindness, etc—so it’s small enough to fit into a masculine concept of virtue. They try to starve it until the life force becomes the exact opposite of what it is meant to be—a guide to karmic connection and creative expression—and drains energy,
develops into an illness, and has the people around you in a low grade state of tumescence: impotent, confused, irritated, grasping. All because this low-grade, nearly imperceptible signal is scrambling the mind; there is a cognitive dissonance between what is seen and done.
This is the real gaslighting; women feeling something different than what they say and express in the world.
Freud said our work is to make the unconscious conscious; this is a potent reason why. Until women do, they will live with a chaotic interior saboteur.
Erica Jong said that the word of this generation around sexual power is “control.” This is where the battle is fought in women. We desperately want to believe that we can control our impulses, desires, arousal; that we can force these energies into a convenient package.
This will be the work of our time.