The Forbidden Pleasure

Tryon Edwards once said: “Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end”. The ideal one is where the baker does not display this kind of bread in the store. Well, ideal things do not always happen. Knowing the bread is poisoned, there is a hungry consumer that decides to take bites of the bread. After his second or third bites, he does not want to finish it. Another consumer is a very hungry one that keeps enjoying the bread until it is finished.

There are reasons why some pleasures are classified as forbidden. I believe the purpose is to avoid death at the end as well, though it does not always relate to the loss of life. However, a recent study done by Truong et al in 2013: An unforgettable apple: Memory and attention for forbidden objects showed that when individuals are forbidden from everyday objects, our minds and brains pay more attention to them. Imagine how difficult it can be when the object now is a pleasure, something we are look forward to enjoying it. 

 When men lay eyes on a woman who successfully had their undivided attention, I might say they are stupefied for a moment. Louann Brizendine in one of her book, The Male Brain, indicates that when men encounter this situation, they are practically oblivious to everyone but the woman. Suddenly, all they could think about was how to get her attention. Without being consciously aware of it, men were following the commands of their ancient mating brain. Since the process is rather “autopilot”, it is difficult for men to prevent this from happening in their mind. Now it depends on how much they let their logic involved here. It is when they decide how far this unconscious process takes them through, that is still considered acceptable, in relation to what they value most in life.

One easy example is to start being aware of each other’s relationship status. I bet when men are attracted to a woman, they will find out her relationship status – with or without the woman knowing it – so they can adjust what to do next. Ideally, only if both men and the woman are available can the process be developed further. However, knowing one or both are not officially available, sometimes the process does not necessarily end. Men’s ancient mating brain can try to unconsciously deceive them by blurring the definition of available and acceptable that encourages men to find out further whether she is “available”.

 That is why some men are tempted to start building interaction with the woman though, where she is obviously taken. The way they build interaction varies from a very obvious one – clearly show (only) to the woman – that makes her wonder does she make herself clear enough regarding her availability, to a very subtle one that requires a very detailed woman to notice such cues, which can also leave her wondering. In the latter, the woman can wonder the same, but before that, the more fundamental confusion is usually whether it is a cues or he is just trying to be nice.

During the initial stage of the interaction, men's logic continuously reiterates the consequences if they keep moving forward, but somehow they see this as 2 independent things: what they feel and what their logic try to warn them. This can be quite catastrophic if men let the process lulled them, where at the beginning it may seems nothing wrong. It is never easy though, as when the ancient mating brain’s desire is not fulfilled, men can start what Louann said as getting a primitive biological craving.  

A married man that seems to value the family most can feel so excited texting a woman using various emoticons, arranging their next meet up, where he just had the 13^th wedding anniversary and maybe after kissing his wife goodnight. Or a newly-wed man can engage in a whole day virtual chat with a woman and close the chat with sending her a song “Something about Us”. Or another man that requests something to a woman, but he aborted it because he does not want his fiancée know.

                The above examples show how the unconscious process manifests in men’s behavior through different ways, sometimes neglecting the fact of being off the market and all the consequences behind. The dangerous part is when they start to develop feeling to the woman. It starts when they experience a feeling of excitement called lust, then sometimes it is mistakenly called as love, where actually it remains just a lust. Even if it is really a love feeling, I believe this is not what they anticipate when they started the interaction with the woman. Some men can finally confess the feeling to the woman that they love her, even if they base the confession on the lust feeling – but yes, sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between lust and love. Others decide not to confess anything, where they see no points of confessing something forbidden.

Recalling the poisoned bread analogy, now it depends whether men want to play the hungry costumer that decides to step back, or a very hungry one who continue to the next behavior manifestation. If they decide to step back, they will have to conquer all the craving inside and listen to the logic. Congratulations for understanding the existence of forbidden pleasure.  If they decide to continue, help yourself, but ask your conscience to consider this: You could have broken no heart, but you decided to have 2 hearts (or 3 including yours) broke at once.