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Players: Husband and wife.

Activists: Both.

Setting: Home or hotel.

Aim: Use paradoxical approach to get at couple’s inferiority/superiority feelings.

Game Plan: The couple may take turns being master and slave. If they have a twinship transference, either can go first.

If it is an idealizing transference, the idealizing partner should be the slave first, since that order is closest to their present relationship. The taking of turns at being the slave leads to interesting results.

It may begin after a dinner at a fine restaurant, or in the restaurant of the hotel where they are staying. Upon coming back home, the master sits down on an easy chair and looks at the slave sternly. (In this example I will have the man play master.)

“Come over here.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Kneel down before me.” “Yes, sir!”

“Do you realize that you are nothing and I am everything? Do you realize that you are just a slave and I am your master? Do you?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Do you realize that I know everything and you know nothing? Do you?” “Yes, sir!”

“Without me you would be nothing. Nothing! Do you hear?”

“I hear, sir!”

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For the husband it is a transforming experience, lifting him out of his own defensive posture—which might range from whining about lack of sex, to passive but begrudging resignation to little or unresponsive sex, to seeking extramarital situations and satisfactions. By dropping his defensive posture and allowing his own playful self to come out, he learns a more successful mode of relating.

Nude indoor volleyball can be played for fun and enlightenment by most of the couples described in this book.

On occasion, hysterics marry active spouses, hoping that such men will sweep them off their feet and take them away from it all. But the actives are more than likely to be of the narcissistic variety, interested in satisfying their own needs, not their spouse’s. For this reason, many such relationships swing from fantasy to disillusionment.

The games in this section have been designed as a five-part antidote to hysteria.

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If he demurs and does not launch into a recitation of his woes from childhood on, then she might try the playful approach:

“So, here I am!” She tickles him in a place she knows he’s vulnerable. “What do you think? Do you want to play with me? Listen, I have a riddle for you. What’s a zebra?” She sticks out her breasts. “Give up? A zebra is twenty-five times bigger than an A-bra!”

If he doesn’t start laughing and cheering up (he may, for example, become grouchier), the sexy approach may work:

“Hi there, handsome. What can I do for you?” She slides her hand up his leg. “I’m here to relieve you of all your worldly and sexual tension, and I’m ready to fulfill your innermost fantasies. Your wish is my compulsion!”

If the husband is in on this game, he will now find some way to play along. If the game is a surprise, the fairy godmother must keep trying until she finds the key to unlocking his resistance. That key usually turns on an understanding of his particular rescue fantasy (all of us have one). Once it has been found, the husband can be lured out of his depressive posture and into an enjoyable sexual experience—which may also lead to an unburdening of himself in a way he has not experienced before. And this could in turn lead to increased intimacy.

As with other games, this one must be played with conviction and zest. If there is any hesitancy, self-consciousness, or inhibition, that will sabotage the proceedings. Therefore, the active partner must be ready to truly throw herself into her role and enjoy it. This will have a therapeutic benefit on her too, channeling into a constructive groove her resentment about her husband’s depression.

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The interrogator starts fondling the confessor again. “Tell me.”

“I feel afraid of you.”

“That’s better. When do you feel afraid of me?” “I feel afraid of you right now. You’ve got your hands on my genitals.” “That’s true.”

“And I also feel afraid of you at other times.” “What other times?” “I’m not sure.”

The interrogator stops fondling the confessor. “Don’t stop.” “Then talk.” “I will.”

“What other times?”

“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. Please don’t stop. I feel afraid when you’re drinking.”

“That’s better.” The interrogator continues fondling the confessor until the whole truth is told. Then the two switch roles.

This game can last (intermittently, at least) for an hour, a day, a week, or a month, and constantly lead to new truths. By being truthful in the context of erotic play, the couple is enabled to open up in an enjoyable way. This provides positive reinforcement to the difficult task of breaking through barriers. Husbands and wives will be surprised at the things both their partners and they come out with. Of course, there may be some pain to deal with—unexpected truths that are difficult to hear and cope with. Then the couple must stop the game and deal with that pain, perhaps even with the help of a therapist.

Eventually (as with the other games in this section), boredom will dissipate while intimacy and passion return.

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The games are designed to lead to the resolution of sexual and emotional blocks. In a sense, they are an elaboration of the kinds of exercises devised by William Masters and Virginia Johnson as an adjunct to the sex-therapy program they introduced in Human Sexual Response. However, their exercises are aimed at the resolutions of such sexual symptoms as premature or retarded ejaculation, partial or full impotency, partial or full frigidity, sexual phobias, and the like. The games offered here are intended to reach deeper into the unconscious recesses of character formation; the aim is not only to relieve symptoms but to resolve characterological attitudes.

The main difference between the games in this book and the sex games that people normally play is that these games are not compulsive rituals but rather conscious, deliberate enactments with a special purpose. They are similar to the games people normally play in that they address the same fixations that compulsive rituals address, but they do so in a way that is designed to resolve (rather than maintain) them.

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