269/444 Healing from Infidelity: Non-sexual Physical Intimacy 1, Sensuality Intro
2012.06.01
Growing up in Columbia, MO we had the chance to be the location for the filming of Animal House. But our chancellor at the University of Missouri didn't think it would reflect well on our university so she passed on it. Nobody really remembers where it was filmed now. I'm guessing Oregon.
I bring Animal House up now because for the longest time my understanding of sensuality consisted of the banter between Otter and Mrs. Wormer while standing by the cucumbers as she taught him the difference between sensuous and sensual. She claimed vegetables were sensuous and people were sensual. The banter occurred just before Mrs. Wormer engaged in an extra-marital affair with Otter. Because, at times, we are prone to ignore our senses, our sensuality, at times, gets rediscovered and enjoyed in the non-bill paying, non-laundry doing, non-childcare world of an affair. Our goal is to bring sensuality back into your marriage.
Sensuality is an important part of who we are as men and women. Though, we're often so distracted our senses are seemingly disembodied in an alternate universe on someones fingernail (that's another Animal House reference in case you are wondering).
According to the American Heritage Dictionary from dictionary.com the meaning of sensuality is, “Relating to or affecting any of the senses.”
Taste. Sight. Smell. Hearing. Touch.
In his book Sexual Anorexia, Patrick Carnes said, “In our culture, many people tune out much of what they’re sensing. We’re generally so focused on the task at hand that we miss most of what’s happening around us…we simply don’t pay attention…sensuousness requires stopping and paying attention.”
Carnes goes on to say, “If we’re so busy that we can’t pay attention to ourselves and the world around us – to be sensual in other words – we won’t notice our partner either.”
Though it can be amatory, sensuality does not have to be connected with sexuality. And since sensuality is experiential and has to do with ‘stopping and paying attention’, we are going to guide you through the senses in the next few posts. We'll suggest ways for you to stop, pay attention and experience them as a couple. Because really, how often do you stop and pay attention together?