Jealousy, Part Four

Jealousy is complicated not only by confusing feelings but also by the impetus to behave in ways unnatural to our own core, golden, untouchable self.  Jealousy (the feeling) is complicated by jealousy (the behaviour).  Often, people do not even examine or admit their jealousy (feeling) but, rather, demonstrate jealousy (behaviour) that they believe to be perfectly natural behaviour such as baking a cake (a little too angrily) or shutting a door (so loudly that the windows shatter).  The jealous man who becomes a little more violent towards the woman he cares for (because it's easy to take out his anger on her; she loves him and she won't fight back) is a classic example, one that was taken for granted back in the North American 20th Century.  (In fact, watching any movies from the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s will demonstrate how women slap men's faces in petulance just as often as men slap women down to the floor in a jealous rage... And there was a time when a man's slap on the face of another man signalled a duel to the death.  Obviously, people solve problems by hitting when the maturation process is stalled).

But what about the jealous woman who does not hit the man she loves?  She feels her jealousy rising: she knows that a woman from his past has resurfaced.  She knows that, in their former relationship, that other woman had no limits to her experimentation process.  She knows that the woman's no-limit ideas about experimentation really turned him on, at the time.  She knows that, being an open-minded man that he is, he might entertain the idea of dining with that woman while she's in town, just to catch up.  She doesn't like that possible scenario, and so she feels like bringing his attention back home.  She puts herself into unfamiliar situations in order to traverse the landscape of the human heart over to where he exists.  She puts herself into unrealistic situations in order to prove that she, too, can experiment.  She puts herself at risk, therefore, straying far from her normal boundaries and behaviour.  She puts herself at risk for his sake, for the sake of keeping him away from the adventurous woman.  It is jealous behaviour.  It is behaviour that arises out of the anxiety over losing him (a fictional worry, of course, since in this case he has no intention of leaving).  It is jealous behaviour arising from jealous motivation.  And it puts herself at risk.

If this woman believes that the Dom she courts still has feelings for an ex-lover, she might find herself involved in a (self-positioned) contest with this invisible ideal -- an ideal that she feels she needs to exceed in order to win his full attention.  "To be as good as, or better than, the other woman," goes the contest.  It's flattering to the Dom to have a girl who tries so hard, obviously.  More to the point, if the Dom can put his ego to one side, it's dangerous if the girl's motivation is not clear.  And, if her motivation isn't clear, and if she's doing something to compromise her safety, then that means her sanity is in question.  She's not behaving like a submissive; she's behaving like a reactionary jealous woman.   And if she's not behaving like a submissive but, rather, a reactionary jealous woman, then can her Dom fully believe in her submission at all?  Or can she, herself?   The reverse also: can a jealous Dom be trusted in his domination if he makes decisions based on jealousy?  Can either Dom or sub conduct a sane relationship without talking about this?

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In other news, I want to call attention to a blog I have just discovered.  Conor's Corner is the name of it, and it is such a pleasure to read.  I enjoy it frequently, the common-sense approach and the great care with explaining ideas that, often, people just take for granted.  This will be another standard entry in my reading list.

Jealousy, Part One

I've spent so much time working on this assignment, and it's nowhere near finished.  Instalment one will be turned in, though, on Tuesday morning.  It's a lot of information.  I have so many people to thank for helping me accumulate all this good information; but I have Klaudia and Sir Tony to thank for helping me process all this information.  The process has been gorgeous.  The process is as enlightening as the subject matter.  I feel the caring; and as I get to the source, I feel it even more.  So, besides jealousy arising from an anxiety over the possibility of losing someone, regardless of whether it is a feeling, a motivation, or a behaviour all of its own, I have separated nine traits so far that help characterize jealousy when it is in action.  Sometimes the behaviour of jealousy cannot be distinguished from other feelings and other scenarios; sometimes the mask is very clever indeed.  But as I study it, the separation of traits becomes a fascinating study.  And it is a study that I wish to capture in photograph, and so I have been doing so.  The first trait I captured was silence.  Jealousy is a dangerous form of silence.  The picture of a woman with her back turned to the camera, with her body language and not her words declaring, "I will not tell you why I am angry."  This is the biggest dilemma because, ultimately, communication will be the antidote to feelings of jealousy: and so, to withhold communication is to pour fuel into the already-blazing flames of jealousy.  She turns her back and will not say what made her angry; but it was only a tiny little detail.  A very small thing, possibly: the kind of detail that topples geographical boundaries.  But she is in pain and surrounded by shadows; and the wounded retreat to solitude, in nature.

Another trait: loneliness.  It comes from the solitude of retreat, sometimes, but also it is important to realize that jealousy contradicts feelings of belonging.  This contributes to loneliness.  Those who feel as though they belong do not feel the pangs of jealousy.  (Those who feel like they belong in a group, or belong to a special lover, or belong to their one and only... etc.)  And it is tragic to imagine how those who feel the jealousy in the first place are those who are already self-alienated.  The jealous one is already lonely, in other words, regardless of whether she is invited to belong.  The jealous one already does not belong in her own mind, regardless of whether her lovers or her friends claim or disown her.  Persuading her that she belongs is not the antidote to jealous feelings: such persuasion is easily denied and easily proven to be false.  It takes a lot of understanding and a lot of care to figure out that the argument flows deeper -- has a source more profound -- than what is immediately visible.  The antidote to loneliness is not company, and the antidote to jealousy is not persuasion.  The source is darker, more mysterious, and was dug long before the lover looked askance the first time.  The antidote will, eventually, be long, difficult communication, increasing comfort zones and defining clear boundaries concerning acceptable behaviours and tolerable limits.  But it will work for the long term only if ........