This time we talk about territory and sexual attraction. Let’s dive in:

Andrei (A): There was an exercise that I did with my coach that somehow struck me and I was just amazed by how powerful it was. In the exercise I morphed into an animal in the wilderness, an animal in the forest. Every wild animal has a territory, so my coach asked me to defend mine. Doing that, while impersonating a wild animal, was so powerful. The whole experience made me realise how strange it feels for me to defend my territory. And it really made me think.

Marina (M): Seven or eight years ago, I went to one NGO’s first birthday party. It was really a long time ago. One guy I was flirting with was there. I noticed that, when he was not around me, I was keeping an eye on him, what he was doing. It was like he was my territory. I think this was really funny. Although I’m not supposed to be a hunter, I’ve got this: it is my territory. Although we were just flirting, I noticed this behaviour.

A: I remember a story a friend of mine told me from a long time ago, when he was married. He was 19 years old. There was a situation where his future wife somehow felt threatened by another competitor. This other girl somehow flirted with him. The girls kind of got into a fight. The future wife said: he’s mine! You should just back off! It was really nothing because the other girl was just, you know, being nice. I remember what you told me last time about the friendship between men and women. They’re not really, let’s say one hundred percent, without interest.

M: So, yeah, for me, it’s very simple. Friendship is possible when sex is impossible. One of my closest friends is gay. I have just a few male friends. With one of them when we met for the first time, he was in a relationship. And that’s how I always perceive him, like he is in a relationship. So I’m not interested in him. Of course, there were periods when he was not in a relationship, but this point of view, this perception of the human being was already there. I have never seen him as a sexual object. And I think it’s the same for him — he has never seen me as a sexual object.

A: Listening to you makes me think about the whole marriage thing. There are a lot of people who are kind of traditionally oriented: they want a family, because this is the tradition. And they really believe in this. Then they get married, have a family, have children, and so on. And I hear stories that a happily married guy was cheating, officially or not officially. These stories are circulating also unofficially: you hear that someone had a thing with someone else. I think this has been happening for like forever. It was always like this, it was like this for our parents, for our grandparents and so on.
I think this is a powerful part — this sexual attraction and everything related to it. Ignoring it is not really the way. I think exploring it is much healthier. Even if you are sharing it, I think it’s quite powerful. Maybe this is a part that needs to be reinvented somehow. And I feel that the traditional approach isn’t working. Yeah, it’s really nice, but it’s not bulletproof on this part.

M: For me, if you need someone else sexualy, although you are in a relationship, you have some needs not met and you need to dig deeper into that. If you discover the need, you could find the problem. Yes, maybe you will find out that having sex with other people is not what you actually want. Of course sometimes when you see someone really attractive, that simply is why you’re attracted.

A: Yes, sometimes we are just physically attracted and that’s quite primitive, just like defending the territory — that wild part in us. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the balance between our wild side and the mind.