This is a piece I wrote as a result of a personal dream analysis in light of my recent re-reading of "The Problem of The Puer Aeternus" - I thought I would share it even though it may well be a work in progress - I welcome feedback.
No Strings
The writer is a man in middle age who has worked as a depth psychotherapist for many years. He has done specialist focussed work, both group and individual with a variety of men, including those who have sex with men. He has had many encounters and relationships with both human and non-human beings, both male and female, both temporal/corporeal and non-temporal/corporeal in his life. Each of these relationships and encounters will have informed his position in the writing of this piece…
The expression ‘no strings’ is a common one among men who have sex with men (I use this term to include all men who enter into, or endeavour to enter into sexual encounters with other men, regardless of their perceived or expressed orientation or identity), it has become a general term of usage in the wider society. It refers to (usually) sexual encounters without obligation. It is often an expressed desired arrangement for men who are married (usually to women, but more recently, this could also be to another man), or who have not acknowledged their homosexual desires.
This ‘no strings’ position can manifest in a variety of complex manoeuvres, all designed to maintain distance and lack of connection. Some people, male or female, may have a ‘no kissing’ rule, despite entering into the most intimate of other sexual behaviours, the example is given in von Franz of a prostitute with such a rule. Others, particularly men who have sex with men, will require the most irrational and eccentric levels of barriers, only falling slightly short of full clinical isolation suit, all justified by a pseudo-responsibility about safe-sex.
I once worked with a man who experienced a rash which he described as “looking like someone has thrown acid on me” whenever his own or another man’s semen touched his skin. This symptom disappeared as soon as the man resolved his internalised homophobia and came to terms with his desire, which was not exclusively sexual, for contact with men,
In other circumstances individuals will find an internal manoeuvres which serve the same ‘no strings’ purpose in maintaining a distance between themselves and whoever they have made some kind of commitment to. This may involve a man convincing himself that, because he experiences homosexual desire or because he still finds himself questioning his attraction to his wife, or remembering an ex-girlfriend, etc. etc. he cannot be fully in his relationship with her. It can just as easily manifest as ambivalence about his career.
I had never fully appreciated what the expression ’no strings’ implied until recently re-reading ‘The Puer Aeternus’ by ML. von Franz, and particularly the teaching of the fox about being tamed, and connection, and ties, and the demand of commitment which connection and ties bring –
“"What does that mean—'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To establish ties?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys."
"And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think she has tamed me . . ."
"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."…
…"My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me.
All the chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."
The fox gazed at the little prince for a long time.
"Please—tame me!" he said.
"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time."
A little later he says:
"What must I do, to tame you?"
"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."
So they become closer friends and when the hour for the little prince's departure comes, the fox tells his secret, as he had promised he would.
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose—" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."
Von Franz PP 93- 94
In the current context, the meaning of the following lines is particularly poignant.
“My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me.
All the chickens are just alike, and all men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.”
When we consider that for a long time “chicken” was the term used for young gay men (recently this seems to have been replaced by the term ‘twink’, which is resonant of the name ‘Tink’ given to the fairy Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, that could no doubt make up the subject of another piece…) and many have reflected on the painful paradox of a gay man chasing a “chicken” and in so doing, not noticing the man chasing himself… And of course what they were all ultimately looking for is someone who could tame them. Neil Bartlett’s ‘Ready to Catch him Should he fall” is a moving document of the search for ‘taming’ within the context of recent gay history, his description of the archetypal scene with the gingham table cloth and cruet set is heart breaking in its poignancy.
Of course, some have been fortunate enough to find this connection, these ties, this ‘taming’, but many others have not. Some gave up and left the field to live alone and disappointed, some still repeatedly enter the chase to this day, constantly searching and searching and searching…Perhaps because they have not yet realised that in the current socio-political climate, Gay marriage is now sanctioned by the state, and ironically, the hunting of foxes is now outlawed…
Von Franz explores the dynamic between the developing attachments between the Little Prince and on the one hand the fox who he has the chance to tame, and in return been tamed by, and the rose who he now realises has previously tamed him. The little prince decides he has no choice but to refuse the taming of the fox, now that he has realised his responsibility to the rose. However, this is only a half solution and another denial of the struggle. There is another option, and that is to stay in the conflict and as a result become a more whole human being –
“If the little prince had understood what the fox said, if he had really understood it and had not just repeated it mechanically without apparently taking it in, what would have happened to him? He does suddenly understand why the rose back on his planet is meaningful, for he says, "Oh, I have wasted a lot of time. So that is why she is unique to me! And that is why I have to be responsible for her and not take her as one of the many." That realization looks as though he had understood the fox, but what is lacking?
…what he does not notice is that he has one friend on the planet, the rose, and one friend down here, the fox! If he had really understood, he would not only have made up his mind to go back to the rose, but he should have fallen into a conflict and asked himself what he was going to do? The fox is here on earth and that friendship must last, for otherwise it is meaningless, but now the fox makes him realize that at the same time he has an obligation to the rose. There is again a fatal constellation! He should not have concluded that he has to go back to his rose; he should have fallen into a conflict because now he has a friend on each of the planets. But it does not even occur to him that through the fox he has got into a conflict!
His only conclusion is that he has to go back to his rose.
So the fox's teaching, which really would be something to tie him to the earth, operates just the opposite way in him: it liberates him from the earth and makes him long to go back to the asteroid... It would have meant a conflict if he had realized that he had to say yes to the fox here, and also yes to the rose over there. And what about that? Then he would have fallen into an adult psychological stage where one is constantly in that conflict, with obligations to the figures of the Beyond, that is, to the unconscious, and obligations to human reality on this side.
For instance, if a man has an obligation to his anima and also to the woman with whom he made friends or married, then he gets into the typical duality situation of life where one always has a real conflict and a double pull, and is always torn between obligations to this side of life and to the inner or other side. That would be the realization, or the crucifixion, the basic truth of life, that life is double and is a double obligation. Life itself is a conflict because it always means the collision of two tendencies. That is what makes up life, but that realization escapes the little prince completely or he escapes the realization… One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed . . ."
Von Franz PP 96- 98
What implication does this have for those who are seeking ‘no strings’ encounters? Or, for that matter, those who enter into relationships and find a strategy, usually unconscious, to keep themselves’ separate from the other and therefore never become ‘tamed’? What might it mean to ‘stay in the conflict’ as von Franz suggested? What might it take for such individuals to finally stand a chance to break through into true relationship?
Von Franz seems to suggest that the answer in part, on a psychological level, lies in engaging our inferior function. For a thinker, this would be feeling, for a sensation type this would be intuition, for a feeler this would be thinking, and for an intuitive this would be sensation.
I would suggest that on a practical lived level, it would involve two main issues, they are honesty and integrity. It requires that we begin with honesty, firstly to ourselves, and then to others. Honesty usually involves increased vulnerability. The fox was very honest with the little prince – “please tame me” – there is no pretence or guile in this, and it leaves him wide open – to rejection, humiliation – he is vulnerable. And the little prince does not immediately respond to this honesty and give the fox what he desires – the little prince asks what exactly it means “to tame” – he wants clarification of what is being proposed – and the fox is willing to tell him – he stays with the discomfort, he has to experience delayed gratification and uncertainty. He does not know whether the little prince with go on to tame him or not but he does not become defensive or dismissive – he stays with it. What might it mean for a man who has or desires to have sex with men to be honest with himself and with the men he encounters, and, more challengingly, with the person he is already responsible to?
"The prerequisite for a good marriage, it seems to me, is the license to be unfaithful." (C.G. Jung Letter to Freud January 30th, 1910.)
I’m not sure that the above quote accurately reflects the mature Jung’s attitude. I would like to imagine that, writing later, he would have written “The prerequisite for a good marriage, it seems to me, is the license to be in conflict”
We might do well to consider our knowledge of the example of C.G. Jung’s experiences, as told mainly in the apocrypha. Jung’s ill-fated relationship with Sabina Spielreine has entered the popular imagination via the recent book and film “A Dangerous Method” This is a representation of a classic example of a man attempting to satisfy his needs without either honesty or integrity. He did not acknowledge or honour what was happening, he ‘sleep walked’ into and out of this situation, it has been suggested that Spielreine’s family and Jung’s wife both raised concerns about what was happening, but Jung himself seems not to have consciously processed the conflict he was acting out unconsciously.
On the other hand, reports of the situation with Toni Wolff present a very different situation. It can be inferred from the various sources that Jung’s attachment to Wolff was enacted in public view, she often accompanied he and his wife Emma on public engagements, she joined him and his family for lunch every Sunday (although she was excluded on week days, even when she was at the house). Although commentators have suggested that Jung’s children held negative views of Wolff and that this arrangement negatively impacted both women, and I have no doubt there could be accuracy in these suggestions, it can also be held as an improvement on the previous situation and one which all parties managed to maintain over a prolonged period of time. I am not suggesting that Jung’s solution to the problem is the perfect one, or that it was ideal, but it does perhaps give us pointers towards a more conscious way of living our conflict.
This is just as much a challenge for the person who endeavours to maintain a ‘no strings’ arrangement in their primary relationship without it having to manifest as a conflict of commitment in the ‘real world’. This is what von Franz indicates repeatedly in the book, and specifically in the passage “, if a man has an obligation to his anima and also to the woman with whom he made friends or married, then he gets into the typical duality situation of life where one always has a real conflict and a double pull, and is always torn between obligations to this side of life and to the inner or other side.” And, as she says, “That would be the realization, or the crucifixion, the basic truth of life, that life is double and is a double obligation. Life itself is a conflict because it always means the collision of two tendencies. That is what makes up life.” And don’t forget “One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed . . ."
I remember an incident many decades ago at the height of the developing gay liberation movement. I was having an early dinner before the theatre in an upmarket pizza restaurant with several people, one of whom was the elderly wife of a peer of the realm. One of the party described how he had abandoned his wife and young children to live a blissful (if, as it turned out, brief) cosmopolitan life with his gay lover. The good Lady all but choked on her anti-pasto and firmly rounded on the man, exclaiming that she knew of many, many homosexual men who maintained wives and families and their responsibilities to them very respectably and ‘had arrangements’ for dealing with their homosexual desires, often involving second households and that she had met many of the men who were the other end of these ‘arrangements’, and that in most cases the wives and the ‘arrangements’ were fully aware of each other, and that these ‘arrangements’ were not secret, and most certainly weren’t ‘no strings’, they simply weren’t considered material for common conversation. Now there’s a thought – plenty of strings, but no shouting….
Of course I am not suggesting that living in the conflict will be easy, quite the contrary, as Saint-Exupéry says “One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed . . ." and as Jung has pointed out “Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain.” - Contributions to Analytical Psychology p. 193. It all depends on whether we are able to face the challenge of the conflict with its accompanying pain, or whether we will opt out and continue to insist on ‘no strings’.
