Nov 21st ; INFIDELITY

This meeting’s suggested topic is Infidelity.

This has been suggested as a topic for our consideration and was recently a topic shared between our men at a recent meeting.  Clearly there are some of us who need to talk this out.  Lacking time to think hard on this topic and write a short essay, I provide the following interesting links* to other information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidelity
http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200809/does-being-true-your-heart-imply-emotional-infidelity
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/enlightened-living/200809/emotional-infidelity
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/393/infidelity
http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/infidelity/

* much of the information on the web is directed to victims of infidelity rather than a broader discussion.

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Dec 20, 2010 : SEXUALITY

We will be meeting on Monday, December 20th, from 7:30-9:30pm

Our topic will be sexuality.

Sexuality is a complex issue. It is wrapped up with identity, power, satisfaction, desire, culture, the unconscious and even law. Sexuality is deeply personal, and yet requires connection with another. It is self expression, and yet it is negotiation, two individuals striving to meet their own needs and please the other. It is selfish and self-less.  It is also one of the few journeys that we must take on our own, we don’t learn sexuality from our parents or from teachers, we clumsily fumble our way through it with our peers, figuring out what is OK, what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t. Even in spaces where we can be open and discuss it, our experience is our own, always informed by our own desires and fetishes.

• How have you come to terms with your own sexuality? What were the largest influences on your sexuality?
• How have your partners shaped your desire? What have you learned? What would you still like to learn?
• What is healthy sexuality? What does it look like? What is included? What is excluded?
• How does power play into your sexuality? How does fetish?
• What relationship dynamics work for you? What dynamics kill your desire?
• Do you play the role of masculine of feminine in your relationships? How does this impact your desire?
• What do you struggle with? What feels unexplored and unfulfilled?

I look forward to meeting with you

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Oct 18, 2010 : BALANCE

We will be meeting on Monday, October 18th, from 7:30pm-9:30pm.

Our theme will be balance.

What does it mean to bring our lives into balance? When we get out of balance how do we recognize it, and do something about it? Modern life is full of strong forces that can pull us off our path, or away from our goals. Externally we are forced to juggle multiple roles; worker, partner, son, provider, perhaps father, boss or husband. Internally we struggle to mediate urges, needs, desires, fears, responsibility, freedom, sadness, guilt, joy, solitude and darkness. As participants in society we are bombarded with advertising, pacified by entertainment, bound by law, pressured by peers, and depended on by friends. With all of these pressing in and pulling on us it can difficult just figure out what balance is, let alone achieve it.

It is easy to get spun out of balance, even by the things we enjoy. We can find ourselves staying late at work finishing a project that has captured our imagination, or partying more than we should, or playing video games, or going to bed in the wee hours of the morning after surfing the internet.

• What is your relationship to balance? Where do you have it? Where is it missing?
• Who helps you maintain balance, who pulls you out of it?
• Where are you struggling to find the right balance?
• If you have achieved some measure of balance, what have you learned through this? What helped you get there?
• Where do you feel balance isn’t the right answer, where you find the extreme more useful/productive/enjoyable?

I look forward to meeting with you

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