In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays (Original Harvest Book; Hb333) by Anaïs Nin Read Free Book Online Page B

of sensitivity. The hero of
Last Tango in Paris
repulsed them. The sadist, the man who humiliates woman, whose show of power is a facade. The so-called heroes, the stance of a Hemingway or a Mailer in writing, the false strength. All this was exposed, disposed of by these new women, too intelligent to be deceived, too wise and too proud to be subjected to this display of power which did not protect them (as former generations of women believed ) but endangered their existence as individuals.
    The attraction shifted to the poet, the musician, the singer, the sensitive man they had studied with, to the natural, sincere man without stance or display, nonassertive, the one concerned with true values, not ambition, the one who hates war and greed, commercialism and political expediencies. A new type of man to match the new type of woman. They helped each other through college, they answered each other’s poems, they wrote confessional and self-examining letters, they prized their relationship, they gave care to it, time, attention. They did not like impersonal sensuality. Both wanted to work at something they loved.
    I met many couples who fitted this description. Neither one dominated. Each one worked at what he did best, shared labors, unobtrusively, without need to establish roles or boundaries. The characteristic trait was gentleness. There was no head of the house. There was no need to assert which one was the supplier of income. They had learned the subtle art of oscillation, which is human. Neither strength nor weakness is a fixed quality. We all have our days of strength and our days of weakness. They had learned rhythm, suppleness, relativity. Each had knowledge and special intuitions to contribute. There is no war of the sexes between these couples. There is no need to draw up contracts on the rules of marriage. Most of them do not feel the need to marry. Some want children and some do not. They are both aware of the function of dreams—not as symptoms of neurosis, but as guidance to our secret nature. They know that each is endowed with both masculine and feminine qualities.
    A few of these young women displayed a new anxiety. It was as though having lived so long under the direct or indirect domination of man (setting the style of their life, the pattern, the duties) they had become accustomed to it, and now that it was gone, now that they were free to make decisions, to be mobile, to speak their wishes, to direct their own lives, they felt like ships without rudders. I saw questions in their eyes. Was sensitivity felt as overgentle? Permissiveness as weakness? They missed authority, the very thing they had struggled to overcome. The old groove had functioned for so long. Women as dependents. A few women independent, but few in proportion to the dependent ones. The offer of total love was unusual. A love without egocentricity, without exigencies, without moral strictures. A love which did not define the duties of women (you must do this and that, you must help me with my work, you must entertain and further my career).
    A love which was almost a twinship. No potentates, no dictators. Strange. It was new. It was a new country. You cannot have independence and dependence. You can alternate them equally, and then both can grow, unhampered, without obstacles. This sensitive man is aware of woman’s needs. He seeks to let her be. But sometimes women do not recognize that the elements they are missing are those which thwarted woman’s expansion, her testing of her gifts, her mobility, her development. They mistake sensitivity for weakness. Perhaps because the sensitive man lacks the aggressiveness of the macho man (which sends him hurtling through business and politics at tragic cost to family and personal relationships).
    I met a young man, who although the head of a business by inheritance, did not expect his wife to serve the company, to entertain people not attractive to her, to assist in his contacts. She was free to