We are living in a time where subjectivity rules over objectivity. People are more eager to seethe in their anger and indignation rather than seek to understand, forgive, and move on. Join New York-based photographer, writer, and sex educator Om Rupani as he points out the common obstacles that prevent couples from going deeper into relationships and sensuality. He also shares his conviction on emphasizing men and women’s differences, and how the joy of life is in enjoying and appreciating and acknowledging our differences. Om believes the most enlightened position is when you can leave your anger and your resentment at the door and forgive. He likewise expressed his strong views on the anti-male cultural bias where disrespecting the masculine archetype and demoralizing men are ruining people’s sex lives.
—
Please note that this podcast contains charged material and may be triggering to some people. The views of the guests do not match this podcast. They’re entirely his own viewpoint. Thank you.
I’m with a guest star Om Rupani to talk about the anti-male cultural bias. I can honestly say this is the most controversial, the most charged, and There might be some viewpoints spouted by Om that you completely disagree with. There’s a possibility of some angst and some feelings that arise, so just be warned. Just know this is one educated, very smart, powerful man’s opinion about how to see this world. You can listen and learn, take it on if you want, or just disagree with it. We also invited some people from the live studio audience to come on the show to add their two cents and it’s a really lively conversation about what’s happening in society between the genders, between men and women, and things you can do to forgive to have the life you exactly want.
I’m very excited to have my friend, Om Rupani, on the show. Om is someone I’ve known since 2007, going on ten years, of having a pretty complex and wonderful friendship. Om is someone I consider a big brother at times I needed a big brother, a mentor in a lot of ways. Om is someone who wanted to kick my ass out there in the world. There’re not a lot of people out there truly willing to kick my ass as well as Om is willing to, so I’m really excited to have him on the show.
Om is a New York-based photographer, writer, and sex educator. He has been teaching workshops and coaching people in the central arts and BDSM for over ten years. His new book, Prerequisites to Ecstasy, deals with the common obstacles. He sees couples getting entangled in obstacles that prevent them from going deeper into their relating and their sensuality.
Welcome, Om. Good to have you on the show.
Thank you for having me.
We’re going to be talking about this concept of the anti-male cultural bias that we both witnessed. I’m sure we have some differing opinions about this. First off, I want to say, I think it’s true. What is to the anti-male cultural bias?
That men these days are basically being treated as being superfluous, being treated as not really worthy. They are being treated like morons. They’re being disrespected. The masculine archetype is being widely disrespected, almost as if it’s gone obsolete. It’s interesting. It’s scary. It’s ugly. It’s destroying relationships. It’s demoralizing men. It’s confusing women. Women don’t know how to use men properly anymore. It’s ruining people’s sex lives. This may be a salvo for feminist power and feminine freedom, but the end result of it is creating actually some very unhappy women. I don’t think women have been ever as unhappy as they are and they have never been as anti-male as they are today.
Women don’t know how to use men properly anymore. Click To TweetI can say with confidence, the women walking the earth, they are the most amazing women, they’re the most educated women, they are the most professionally successful women, they are brilliant. They deserve all the material and worldly success they have gotten, but they are more miserable than their grandmothers were. They’re not happy. They’re not thriving in their relationships. They’re not having good sex. This is a very counter-intuitive thing to say because we are supposed to be in the most sexually liberated phase that we have seen in our lifetime, certainly in the past hundred years, so you would think women must be having the best sex of their lives.
They’re having more sex than their grandmothers. I totally believe. They might be having more sex than their grandmothers. They certainly have more partners than their grandmothers did, but they’re miserable. They’re really unhappy and it almost feels like it’s reaching some kind of a crisis at a boiling point, because I see women over and over reaching the same wall, which is in their twenties, they’ve been promised that this is a life that’s going to pay off and they hit their 35, 40, 45, and there’s panic that sets in which is the relationship does not materialize, the family has not materialized, and their relationship track record is a track record of failure, most often.
I’m going to play the counter for this. Your initial statement was that men are superfluous, men are being treated like morons, men are the lower end of the spectrum. There are a lot of women out there that would say that there’s still the patriarchy, there is still a male dominant society. This is still happening. How would you answer a question?
I categorically deny this entire patriarchy theory. I don’t think men have ever wielded power and oppression over women. We have lived in different cultures at different times, and some of those cultures may seem obsolete and outdated to us as they are. I don’t want to go back to those cultures either. I come from India. India hails from a very chauvinistic perspective that had very defined sexual gender roles in the past and I think we’re done with that time. Even in those times, this theory, this proposition, that men were simply acting like feudal lords over the women who were their serfs, it is bullshit. It is complete nonsense. Since the caveman days, we have loved, adored, and protected our women. Since the caveman days, we have sacrificed our lives for our wives and our children. We have waged war, we have died, we have put ourselves on the battlefield, and our sons on the battlefield to protect the women in our lives. To say that this has been some kind of arrear, just enslave them and use them objects, it is a shitty poisonous narrative and it is entirely false. I don’t buy it for one second. I reject it categorically.
I’m going to play the neutral host. It reminds me of all these CNN interviews I see nowadays where the Republicans and Democrats are basically calling each other idiots. I imagine a feminist or a woman who believes in the patriarchy coming on the phone and totally trying to rip you to sheds. I will play that neutral balance for a little bit, then we’ll go into some heat. The point is that women have felt they’ve been objectified, treated like objects, treated like property. About 100 years ago, things changed with the right to vote, the right to own property, the right to own bank accounts that weren’t allowed to women until the 1910s, and that changed. How would you answer that that women have felt and been portrayed as property when there has been none of that in history? How would you answer that question?
I personally don’t care how anybody feels. We are living in a time where subjectivity rules objectivity, and I’m against that too. Madam, I really don’t care how you feel. There have been great strides forward. I don’t want to go back. Women should have all the equal rights under the law as men do. I’m not against that. Beyond that, that’s it. That’s going to be the end of the conversation on equality.
Anti-Male Cultural Narrative: We are living in a time where subjectivity rules objectivity, and I’m against that too.
It’s the end of the conversation because you don’t care about people’s feelings?
I don’t care about people’s feelings. Equality under the law is as equal as equality can get. It is as just as justice can get. You try to create justice beyond equality under the law, you’re just going to create more mischief. If you find instances where there is not equality under the law, then by all means bring the courts and take action. If somebody is breaking the law, if somebody is paying you unfairly, if somebody is sexually harassing you, somebody is mistreating you, absolutely bring them to task and exact justice from them, but if you feel you have exactly the same rights as anybody else under the law, that fight for justice and equality is done at that point.
What do you think about the ramifications, the effects, of not having those rights and not having that equality until about a hundred years ago? Don’t you think that has a cultural impact on women today?
No. They have to get over it quite frankly. You are a Jew. Did you lose people in Auschwitz?
Not specifically.
I’m from India. My parents had to go from Pakistan to India during the partition. They still have memories of their own family members who were beheaded in the riots. There is enough bloodshed and enough slavery and enslavement in human history to go all around. If you think you have some kind of a special victimhood card that may mean you deserve reparations over anybody else, you are a narcissist and you’re missing perspective. You don’t have perspective enough on what humanity is and just how horrible human beings have been to each other throughout history. Get over it. Get over yourself. You’re not that special in your victimhood.
I don’t necessarily agree with you. I do understand the perspective you’re taking, and I also want to agree that a lot of things you said also around men protecting women and men sacrificing their lives and men being in that role is true in today’s society. More men get work on the workforce, more men die in wars, so that is true, but that’s not quite I’m talking about. I’m talking about this damage, this cultural pain, body-based unconscious belief system that’s happened that we can’t consciously get over it. You’re talking from a masculine point of view. Just get over it, but it’s not that easy.
No. You just made a very poisonous statement. You just said, “We can’t consciously get over it.” If we cannot consciously get over it, put a bullet in your head and be done with the human experience because you’re basically waving a white flag of surrender. You can consciously get over it. You want to know how you can consciously get over it? You want the golden bullet? Forgive. Forgive who you are so mad at. All your religious traditions, I don’t even care which part of the world you hail from or which religious tradition you come from, each tradition has given us this golden gate. Forgive people and move on, and you do have a choice and people are making a choice. They are letting themselves seethe in their anger and indignation because it is a great ride for the ego, to feel “I am right over you.” There is not a bigger high for the human ego than to sit there and say, “I am a victim. You have wronged me. I am right over you, and I’m going to hold this position until my dying day.” You can. It is not the most enlightened position to hold. If you really feel you’re stuck in this thing and you want to move on, forgive people.
If you feel you’re stuck in this thing and you want to move on, forgive people. Click To TweetI’m not arguing with that point because I do think forgiveness, forgiveness of yourself, forgiveness of a gender, forgiveness of a culture, is really important. I’m just arguing the simplicity of what you’re saying.
Forgiveness is simple and forgiveness is the hardest thing in the world. You tell me what your solution is. I’m open to all options. I’m really a broadminded person. I am not dogmatic. I have examined life quite a bit and I’m saying the path of indignation and anger has been tried before. It doesn’t lead anywhere except in ulcers, except in more confrontation, except in more violence, more pain. It’s strengthening and the expansion of the victimhood identity until life will basically crush you under its weight.
I’m more of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and I do see that a lot in today’s culture, so I agree with you in terms of anger leads to separation. Even in America today, we’ve had peaceful marches and that even the left has very destructive demonstrators who want to use force to get their point across.
They’re the same to me, the extreme right and extreme left. I feel very disheartened in this country because it’s not that I don’t expect these elements to be in America, but they are hijacking the conversation right now. Your turn on the news, it looks like everyone is Neo-Nazi or an Antifa member. Most of us are in the middle of saying, “What happened?”
The Antifa is getting as much attention as the Neo-Nazi.
It’s as if this is the true war that needs to be fought right now. No, this is not a true war. Both these people should be held up to the word of the law. If anybody is breaking any law, arrest them, charge them, and get them the hell out of our streets. If you resort to violence, if you’re hurting people, if you’re going there with clubs and hurting, I don’t care which side you’re on.
I do agree with you in terms of men are being treated like morons. One of my taglines is, “Women are getting angrier and men are getting dumber in today’s society,” and my approach is really understanding each other’s human condition, communicating, educating, and learning from each other. That’s my stick. How do you recommend that people find the gap between what women want and where men are? How do you perceive educating both genders, or all genders really is a better way of saying it, so there’s more continuity?
My approach in my classes, in my workshops, people who come to me in my coaching session, tends to be very pragmatic. I ask people, “Is what you’re doing working for you?” if it’s working, you don’t really need me. You don’t need a coach. By all means, live your life as you want, as long as it’s working for you, and if it’s not working for you, maybe you want to try something else and you might want to look at this area. If you are holding a huge resentment towards an entire gender and then you are showing up saying, “Why is my relationship unfulfilling? Why or my sex life is unfulfilling?,” and I’m like, “Here’s a clue.”
You’re coaching a couple where the woman has a bias against male, the anti-male cultural bias. What are your pragmatic steps?
The same pragmatic steps I told you. Forgive men. Of course we have hurt each other. Of course men have hurt women and women have hurt men. Our story goes all the way back to Creation. We’re built that way. We are built to piss each other off and hurt each other, even break each other’s heart. If your forgiveness is not an active element in that game, you will burn out. You will simply burn out. There is no other way. There is no release route because we are all horrible human beings. We are not conscious. We all have triggers. We are all short-sighted. We are all selfish. We are not our best at all times. If you don’t have a mechanism for forgiving and releasing all those hurts with each other, you’re doomed. I feel that impasse right now. It feels like it’s happening at a whole cultural level that we’re at an impasse.
Anti-Male Cultural Narrative: We are built to piss each other off and hurt each other, even break each other’s heart.
A woman says, “I’ve had anger towards men since my father. I’ve had men hit on me my entire life, invade my boundaries, and touch me when I don’t want to be touched, and I’m 35 years old and I want to have a solid relationship and I don’t trust this man I’m with because I don’t trust men.” What are your pragmatic steps of forgiveness? How do you coach people to go from where they are to forgiveness?
The chargiest thing to say is you have to realize you’re as equal as anybody else. True forgiveness happens when you truly in your heart realize that we are all as horrible as the people we are accusing of being horrible to us. None of us are innocent. Good things will start to happen when you realize, “Who am I kidding thinking I am better than other people, and I ‘m so emotionally or spiritually superior that I can hold this club over their head for the rest of their lives?” Get over yourselves. You’re not that great. We are all horrible people. Every person who has harmed us, we have harmed them back in one way or another.
Even if somebody harmed you physically and you say, “I never harmed them back physically.” Take the whole perspective. How many people have you badmouthed that person to? How many nasty talks have you had about that person? What energy field have you held that person in? All of that is an aspect of your vengeance. You’re not innocent just because they slapped your face and you badmouthed them to a hundred people. Trust me, the scale is even out. Most of the time, the person who thinks they’ve been hurt, they do more damage hitting back than they did receiving.
You’re saying the scales of justice are equated. Let’s go extreme. A woman is raped.
That’s wildly traumatic and difficult. You’re picking a very big topic. I’m not saying that if something horrible happens to you, that you should just get over it.
Pick a small topic. This is what people want to know.
Pick a woman being raped, pick somebody losing their child, and pick a drunk driver running over your five-year-old child. This is going to create a crisis in your life. It is going to be a trial out of hell for you in your life. I’m not saying this is a minor event. I’m not saying you should just get over it in two days, but I’m saying even if you go over a period of three, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, the end solution is always the same. You’re going to have to find a way to forgive. In the end, if you take this argument to the nth level, in the end, you also have to forgive God because ultimately you will say, “ I can forgive the drunk driver. He’s just an asshole, but why did God allow this to happen?” I don’t know. Why did God allow Rwanda and Auschwitz to happen? You’re going to have to forgive God. We’re living in his scene, basically. He’s the ultimate Dom. This is a scene and you have to put up with whatever this life throws at you. If forgiveness is not an element on your side, you will suffer deeply.
I see the beauty in that. I’m not saying that’s an easy process, losing a child or being raped.
Tell me what the ultimate solution is. Show me an alternate way to get over it and resume a thriving life.
For rape, there’s the therapy. I’m in agreement with you that it is forgiving yourself, forgiving God, forgiving the other person, and yet your original point was different. The original point, what I heard, was to realize that you’re a horrible person, too, because you’ve relayed your pain around the incident, about the drunk driver, about the rape. I don’t necessarily agree with that point. I don’t know if it’s forgiveness per se, not to dishonor the feelings of angst and pain, but just to get in an agreement with what life’s circumstances are.
I don’t think you will be able to reach forgiveness if you’re in denial. You won’t be able to reach forgiveness if you have not completely filled your brain through and through. It will be very shallow because the pain will come back and bite you in the ass after you think you’ve done forgiving.
I don’t think you will be able to reach forgiveness if you’re in denial. Click To TweetSome comments from the audience. One is, “I do feel that men are being punished now for the actions of past generations or partners that we have no responsibility or ability to rectify for.” I agree with that point. I have this experience with my own relationship that’s the best I’ve ever had. I still am facing the pain from past men in current time.
I don’t buy your premise. I don’t buy the premise that men, as a whole category, have hurt women and somehow we’re getting our comeuppance, and what? Women have been angels for the 50,000 years to men?
I’m not saying that.
We’ve all hurt each other. Why are these men accepting this guilt? This is not helping anything. I don’t think this is the correct perspective. If you feel you have harmed somebody, by all means, take responsibility for your life. Reach out to those people and make amends, ask for forgiveness, clean up your plate, clean up your life. If you feel you have done that to people, clean up your life. To say in some bigwig way that some population of men must have harmed some population of women, and now it’s okay that the entire population of women wants to take it out on me and other people, that’s really not helping anything. If anything, those men had been brainwashed by the negativity around men these days.
My viewpoint from my partner is not to take on her pain with other men, but to one, be an example of a stellar man, and two, hold space for her to process her feelings through therapy, through whatever means she wants to do it in. What do you think about that? Instead of saying, “Get over it,” I’m saying, “I want to be a partner with you, so you can go through the process of your healing.”
Rob, in your case, what you’re doing is totally fine in my book, but I would approach it from a slightly different angle, which is men want to be useful to their women and this is a way you feel you’re going to be useful to your women, and it feels good to you and it’s a good match. If she commends you for holding that space, if she loves you for it, she’s thankful that you’re holding that space for her and you feel useful in that space, that you’re holding that space as a man helps your women transitioning to a happier place, that’s all we want in our relationships, so it works for you.
From an overall cultural point of view, what are one or two or three things, beyond forgiving, which I agree, men and women can do to bridge this gap? What are some practical things that people can do to come back together for each gender?
My anchor is in dominance and submission education and playing. I firmly believe men and women are different and that’s a good thing. If we were the same exactly, nature would have made a superfluous mistake. There’s no point in creating two sexes if the two sexes are exactly the same. We are different, and the joy of life is in enjoying and appreciating and acknowledging our differences. That is something that has gone out of fashion these days, where we think there are no differences between men and women and that’s a good thing. I think that’s a bad thing. I think it’s completely creating duds in our relationship and our bedroom. Enjoy your differences.
Anti-Male Cultural Narrative: We are different, and the joy of life is in enjoying and appreciating and acknowledging our differences.
If a man or woman and to use David Deida’s term polarity decreases or dominant, DS, the roles are congruent, how do you actually increase the play? How to use DS roles to enhance the sex life or enhance the differences?
Emphasize our differences. They’re there. They are being deemphasized these days. Masculinity is being deemphasized, femininity is being deemphasized, and it’s feels like a very clever sabotage. Let’s turn men into women and women into man, put them all in the middle and they will simply not breed. They will go extinct. You could not plan a subterfuge better if you really wanted to destroy a population. Simply take away the polarity. You can see evidence of this. I don’t know whether this is directly related, but if you look at birth rates all through Europe and US, the more educated, the more advanced the cultures, the less they’re breeding, the less they’re having sex. I don’t know whether this is connected. I would guess it’s a good hypothesis.
Do you know about The Butterfly Effect? The book around free porn?
I do not know that. I know that butterfly effect is part of Chaos Theory.
The Butterfly Effect is an amazing book that was recommended. It’s an free audio book on Audible, which I highly recommend, and it’s viewpoint is that the advent of free porn by this guy named Fabian has effected rise in erectile dysfunction, lowering in sexual activity, millennials are having less sex, and also in terms of teenage pregnancy has gone down, which is a good thing, but that’s because guys can’t get it up because they’re moving towards porn instead of confronting women, basically, when it comes down to it.
I know twenty-year old guys who keep a backup of Viagra.
The theory is that’s because of free porn, which is fascinating for me. That’s the effect.
I write about this in my book. Porn is having a negative impact on our society. I very much believe it is reducing our capacity for being with real human beings. It becomes like a little outlet. You can’t relate with real human beings that’s too complex, but still you want to have sex. What are you going to do? Pay for sex? Have sex with webcam girls. I know a lot of men who are spending a lot of money on the woman on the other side of the screen rather than the women they are living. I’ve coached such people with these problems. It’s heartbreaking to watch. The real woman is always going to be more a nuance, more complex, and a more pain in the ass than some chick you’re giving your credit card to who is giving you some fantasy for twenty minutes. You’re not getting reality. If you are getting a real woman, I would say you’re a better match with this woman than the other one, but you’re not getting a real woman. You’re getting a paid performer, so it’s really short-changing your life in a way.
Porn is having a negative impact on our society. I very much believe it is reducing our capacity for being with real human beings. Click To TweetI am going to invite anyone from the audience to talk to Om.
Hi, Om.
Hello.
Hi, Mark.
I want to go back to this idea of forgiveness. There’s an important element here that’s not easy to achieve. The word I would use is alchemize because you’re really transforming one energy into another. It starts one, with your willingness, and then the secondary piece is your ability, so depending on the level of trauma, the level of pain, the amount of process it takes to do the alchemization is significant or insignificant. First step is doing the part where you let yourself off the hook for whatever guilt that you’ve created for yourself or you’ve allowed to come in. What does forgiveness mean? That’s my question for you.
You can answer that question at multiple levels. You can answer that question at a psychological level. Because you’ve asked such a direct question, the most direct existential answer I can give you is forgiveness is soul retrieval.
Our most intimate relationships, our most intimate soul relationships, are with people we have not forgiven. If you could see energy bands coming out of a human being, the biggest energy cords that come out of our systems go towards the people that we have not forgiven. That’s what trauma is. It is a breaking of the soul because this wound is needed to create the next piece of your journey. In the most existential terms, forgiveness is when you’re like, “I want that piece of my soul back. I’m done with this contract. Please give that back to me. Thank you for all the lessons. I’m moving on.”
I want to speak to the part about forgiving God that you mentioned earlier because people are angry at God about the flood. In my family, my spiritual education involves this idea that the higher power, whatever name you want to give to it, has created the pathos and the conflict and karma as a way for each individual to exercise that part of them that needs to come forward. God gives freedom and allows freedom for what we might see as this end towards the evil or darker spectrum and this end for the lighter spectrum, because without that freedom, the development of the soul is impossible. Each individual has to make the effort or not make the effort according to their freewill to alchemize the interaction.
I would say I don’t believe in God as a man with a big beard sitting on a throne. I don’t think God has a personal relationship with us the way many people in traditional religious traditions do. It’s a game we’re ultimately playing with ourselves. There isn’t actually a god on the other side who is waiting for us to forgive him or her. It is our journey. It is a journey of our soul. It is a journey of our faith. To have faith and to lose faith is basically to be mad at God. That’s what happens. When we lose our faith, we basically say, “I don’t trust God anymore. I don’t love God anymore. I don’t believe God is good anymore,” and that is what loss of our faith is.
Regaining that is pretty much saying all is grace in the end. It’s a big part of the soul. That part of it, it’s actually okay if you do a little bit at a time and if you fail at it quite a bit. If you forgive God a little bit today and you’re mad at him again tomorrow, it’s okay. In the long journey, it’s like the Old Testament answer is the right one, like “Who the hell are you to question me?” You have to trust existence at a certain point and say, “If you believe you have an immortal soul, what the hell does it matter anyway?” That’s the simple answer. That’s the answer I give people.
Why it matters is because with an immortal soul, we will begin to reoccupy the planet again later, so if we are not good caretakers of the planet, we will continue to have to incarnate into a less and less habitable ball in space.
I don’t buy your premise either. I know it sounds really logical and it sounds really linear, but I believe the game is much more complicated and much more new onset. I don’t think you can really screw up the entire human experiment. I really don’t. That does not mean we should not aim to be stewards of the planet. That is our game to play, and we should. From the soul perspective, there are other games we are playing at the soul level and we may not understand them entirely. We may not even understand linear time at that level, so our entire framework of causality goes out the window.
Thanks, Mark. Thanks for being on the call.
I want to read a comment from someone. He wrote, “Can I open the door for a woman just because she is a woman, give up a subway seat. I’d do it, but actually worry that it’ll backfire and someone will think I’m demeaning the woman. That’s an everyday but extreme symptom of the problem, tension in everyday life.” What are your thoughts about that?
My thought would be if you are in doubt about engaging a women in any way, don’t engage. Get clear agreements. Open doors for women that you know like it and appreciate it when you open doors for them. Don’t assume any relationship with strangers. It’s certainly not going to help you these days. In the older days, there was a consensus of chivalry. If you did not open the door for a woman and if you did not give up your seat for a woman, everybody around you would give you a dirty look like, “Who raised you?” There was a consensus on how you should be a good man. If we have lost that consensus, then it is up to us to reformulate that in specific relationships. If you’re with a woman who absolutely hates it when you open the door for her, don’t open the door for her. You life will be happier. Don’t assume anything in today’s society.
How do you feel about that? I agree 100% with that and it’s risky. Some women who get really angry when guys open up doors and some women get upset. A friend of mine got screamed at just because of that experience. What do you think of that change? Is that a positive change? Is that a negative change? Is that a neutral change?
Categorically, it is a change. In whose book is it a good thing that if a man opens up the door for you, you yell at him. Whatever logic you have come up with to justify that behavior, it’s ugly and it’s destructive and it is inhumane. You’re being an asshole. We don’t use that word towards women traditionally, but women are being assholes when they treat other human beings like that and it’ll cost you. It’ll cost you spiritually, it will cost you emotionally. Don’t treat other people like that. That’s a shitty thing to do to a stranger when all they’re doing is opening up the door for you and you yell at them. You’re being a shitty human being at that moment.
Anti-Male Cultural Narrative: Our most intimate soul relationships, are with people we have not forgiven.
I had someone tell me a story that was a flipside of that. A man opened up a door for a woman. The woman was in her own world, dazed, just in her own world. She walked through, and then the man yelled at her for not saying thank you.
The man is confused and that’s a bad play, because you are assuming some kind of a relationship that’s not there. I’m saying stop that game altogether. For that man I would say, “Please don’t hold any doors for anybody ever again,” because you are creepy and sociopathic and assuming things about people you have no business assuming. You’re assuming a relationship that’s not there. Apart from that, why is everything getting so complicated? If I see older women or pregnant women or a woman with a baby thing on the subway and if I give up my seat for her, that’s just politeness. I don’t even know. If you want to be mad at me for that, I guess that’s your business. I don’t even have to take that little gesture any further than that. You don’t want my seat? I’ll continue sitting by all means. I don’t need to go any further than that.
Tell me about your book and tell me what your motivation was and what it’s about and, how people can learn from it. What’s the point of it?
My book is called Prerequisite to Ecstasy. When I started my book project, I was struggling with several different topics that I want to write about. I do want to write a book about DS play and protocol, because that’s what I teach. Both of us have a lot of experience with stroking, OMing, whatever you are doing, whatever you want to call it. There’s a lot of old body of knowledge which I want to write about. When I started exploring what is this first layer I should write? The answer that came up is I want to address all the relationship patterns that couples are getting stuck in that prevent them from even seeking a real sensual education. This book is mostly chapter after chapter about all the relationship glitches I see people getting locked into. It is about how to build a better relationship, but is how to be a grown up in a partnership. If you have that foundation, from there we can go and build a great sex life. If you don’t have that, I can’t help you build a great sex life.
I am becoming extremely disenchanted by classes for single people. It’s a scam. People who are coming to classes without partners are actually partnership deficient. Trying to help them is like trying to help handicapped people run a marathon. Fix the sprain on your foot first, and then we will talk about training you for the run. If you are unable to hold a partnership, if you don’t know how to be with a partner, if you don’t know how to resolve your differences, if you don’t know how to support yourself, training you in sensuality is really a fool’s errand. It’s bullshit. It never works. I’m rejecting the whole model more and more. You need to know how to build a relationship. You need to know how to be a decent human being. You need to know how to keep your anger and your resentment, all the other things we are talking about, at the door, and be a support to your partner. If you have that foundation, I can give you great fucking techniques to make your sex life better. If you don’t have that, it’s like trying to build on sand. It just doesn’t work.
You need to know how to keep your anger and your resentment, and be a support to your partner. Click To TweetYou’re saying single people should take workshops, but not works on sexuality. They should take workshops on how to truly be nice and how to build a relationship.
They need to see where they are so deficient that they are unable to form bonds, that they are unable to sustain a relationship. That even goes beyond a romantic relationship. People have just gotten deficient in forming relationships and forming friendships and being there for each other and being accountable, being somebody that somebody can rely on, creating relationships of affection, love, friendship and reciprocity.
The digital age has definitely messed with people’s ability to maintain connection. Also that goes to a whole bunch of things that happens with the concept of friendship in the last ten or fifteen years.
The irony is everybody’s talking about polyamory. You can have three relationships when you can’t even hold one. Let’s see how this is going to work out. “I’m going to have three sexual partners. I am going to have three primary partners.” I’m like, “Have you ever had one primary partner that lasted more than six weeks.” “No.” “I’m going to put money down that your three primary partnerships are going to last very long.” It’s not going to work. Have you ever had one deep relationship where you have gone in too deep and come out at the other end with one partner and resolved your conflict, your differences? Have you expressed your desires and help your partner reach another level? Have we’ve done that with one person?
If you haven’t, I don’t think you’re going to succeed doing it with three, four, five, six people. There’s going to be more skimming of the surface. It’s a great ploy to hide your failure. It’s like somebody dressing up to the nines and going out for the night and pretending they have everything got made, where before and after the party, they were just slumped over in bed eating ice cream out of the can. It’s a front that people are putting up like, “My relationship life is so rich.” I’m like, “If your relationship is rich, show me the one person that you have gone deep with and had richness within, created something with, and been tested with and come out on the other end.” That’s what the real game is.
How do people find you? How do people work with you? How do people order your new book?
I live in New York City. I teach in New York City from time to time. I also travel and teach. My website is OmRupani.org. All the information is there, the upcoming workshops, information on my book. I do private coaching. If you are interested in my work, please reach out. All the information is there.
Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for your honesty and thank you so much for just being you out there in the world. Your viewpoint is really important.
Thank you for having me.
Thanks so much.
I don’t know about you but that was the fastest, dramatic, challenging 40 minutes of my week. I had a good time. Thank you so much.
For more shows, as always, please visit TuffLove.live. If you’d like to find Om, again that’s OmRupani.org. I read his book. I had the ability to go through it and make some suggestions on the initial writing. I think it’s amazing, so please download or order his book. It’s been a great topic, so if you like to make some comments, please go to TuffLove.Live and make some comments. I’m also available on iTunes. That’s it. We’re done. We’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for showing up. Have a great life and we’ll talk to you soon.
I promised you that this was a charged controversial show and it was. It definitely delivered, so if you have opinions, spout them. As always, we ask that you subscribe to iTunes, leave a comment, send us little loving via iTunes, join our mailing list, and I appreciate as always your listening. We’ll be back next week with another show. Until then, go forth. Be free, be happy, get some nookie, and know that I love you. Take care.
Resources mentioned:
About Om Rupani
This is not what I thought I would be doing when I grew up!Podcast: Play in new window | Download
