Yin Yang
Everyone has seen the Yin Yang symbol. Yin Yang is a fundamental principle in Chinese philosophy, representing a dualistic conception of nature and reality, where everything exists in a state of balance between two opposing and interconnected forces.
The concept of Yin Yang can be used as a lens to explore the world of intersexual dynamics. In the West, we are suffering a crisis of confusion when it comes to male-female dynamics. Men and Women no longer have a template for what their particular roles are in life. Drawing from ancient Eastern philosophy, we can build a better understanding of male-female dynamics.
Dualism
“Duality is always secretly unity.” – Alan Watts
Dualism is the concept that all forces in the universe have an opposing force, providing balance and harmony. However, these forces are never static, there is a continuous interplay going on between them.
As we talked about, Yin Yang is not a fundamental concept in Western culture. However, we have incorporated very similar ideas. These similar ideas have been stumbled upon through science, religion, and philosophy.
For example, Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton’s work was done in the world of physics, but even the world of physics reveals deep interconnected forces.
Order and Chaos
Yin Yang in many ways can be thought of as a dance between order and chaos. Actual dancing is a beautiful representation of the Yin Yang. When a man and woman come together to dance, you see them embody opposing forces in real time. The man leads the woman through the dance and provides order. The woman follows the man through the dance with flexibility, adapting to his movement. When the man spins the woman, he provides a stable point for her to stay attached to while she enters the chaotic state of spinning. If the woman is too rigid or the man fails to provide enough stability, the dance routine fails. The most superb dance routines are the perfect balance between the chaos of the female and the order of the male.
There are many other examples of order and chaos. Life is order that exists within the chaotic and ever changing environment of Earth. Planets are orderly bodies that have arisen from the chaos of the universe. Language is order that has arisen from the infinite number of combinations that can be created with letters.
Next, we’ll explore each side of the Yin Yang separately, highlighting the feminine side and the masculine side.
Yin
Yin, the dark side of the symbol, is associated with the feminine. However, its darkness does not carry any negative connotations. This isn’t Star Wars.
Yin is also associated with chaos. Femininity is in many ways a more chaotic force than masculinity. Feminine traits like indecisiveness, spontaneity, flexibility, and adaptability exemplify a more chaotic energy.
Receptivity
“The male is the giving part of a sexual union and the female is the receptive part.” – Victoria L. White
There are several qualities associated with the feminine Yin, the first being receptivity. Receptivity is the openness to and the ability to receive. This quality of femininity is backed by psychology, biology, and evolution.
Psychological studies have shown women to be more agreeable on average than men. Agreeableness is a personality trait describing someone’s tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than antagonistic. Put in other words, women are more likely to bend their dispositions in order to cooperate with others.
Biologically, the sex hormone estrogen plays on the brain and body to increase receptivity in many different ways. Estrogen works on a woman’s reproductive system, activating mechanisms that make her more receptive to fertilization. Estrogen also alters the structure of the female brain, making her more receptive to sexual advances from men.
Finally, lets look at female receptivity through the lens of evolution. Throughout human history, women have evolved certain traits to maximize the passing on of their genes. Throughout the vast majority of human history, if not all of it, men have engaged in war with each other. Historically, when a male tribe or group was conquered by another group, all of the men would be killed and the women would be acquired by the victorious male group. Women had to evolve the ability to become receptive to this new male group as the only alternatives were rape, murder, or enslavement. So, it is believed that women evolved the traits of agreeableness, receptivity, and adaptivity.
Intuition
“All modern women are the fruit of feminine caution. The result of this whittling away of the impulsive branches of our ancestral maternal tree is a female brain equipped with the most sophisticated neural software on Earth. A system designed to uncover, scrutinize, and evaluate a dazzling range of informative clues.” – A Billion Wicked Thoughts [2]
Intuition is another characteristic of the Yin. It is defined as the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
In many cultures, women are recognized to have a deep emotional intelligence and intuition. This is backed by psychological explorations of the female brain. Women appear to have more brain regions dedicated to processing emotions and they are more likely to build new memories based on emotion. Other psychological explorations have revealed that men are more likely to seek out visual sexual stimuli while women are more likely to seek out mental and emotional sexual stimuli. This is why men watch porn and women read romance novels.
As the quote explained, female brains have evolved a complex system for evaluating male partners. A lot of it occurs subconsciously, on an emotional level. Female brains look at all sorts of cues in order to judge a potential mate’s status, character, and competence. The results of this analysis are spit out as emotions that guide women’s decisions on which men they should be receptive to. This process makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective. Since women invest more than men in child rearing, women need to be much more deliberate about who they mate with.
Darkness and Moon
Another symbolic characteristic of the Yin is Darkness and Moon, reflecting the mystery, depth, and introspective qualities that can be connected to feminine wisdom.
With all of the emotional complexity contained in the female frame, it’s no wonder that men struggle to understand women. Women often struggle to understand themselves. The mystery of the feminine spirit has long confused the best psychologists, including the most well known neurologist of all time, Sigmund Freud.
The famous science fiction novel Dune perfectly captures this mysterious feminine spirit within an all female group, the Bene Gesserit. In the book, the Bene Gesserit are a group of women that operate in the shadows, influencing the galactic order of the Dune universe. They operate in mysterious ways, influencing powerful men to achieve their ends.
Another great example of the feminine mystery manifested in fiction is the character Catwoman in the Batman movies and comic books. Catwoman is a thief that operates in the dark. She is able to meet her ends by manipulating powerful figures, feigning innocence, and spreading lies. Batman is one of the few characters who is occasionally able to see through her mirage.
Earth
Yin is also connected to the Earth. The Earth has the capacity to nourish and sustain life. Similarly, females are blessed with the ability to create new humans and nourish them as they grow up. This miraculous ability has deep similarities with the Earth’s ability to generate and sustain life.
It’s no surprise that a common hobby of females is gardening. Women thoroughly enjoy creating spaces where life can thrive. They have an instinct for generating balanced, interconnected systems that possess the ability to harbor life.
Water
Water is adaptable and fluid like the feminine. As we talked about earlier, psychological studies point to women being more fluid and adaptable than men.
Women are also more physically flexible than men due to the makeup of their connective tissue. This physical flexibility supports women’s incredible ability to contort their bodies in dance and gymnastics.
Women are also more mentally flexible, meaning they are more likely to adapt the ideas of the people around them. This goes back to the evolutionary adaptation that women developed in order to assimilate with the men that conquered their group. Also, since a woman’s physical makeup leans more towards flexibility and less towards strength, women are unable to protect themselves from strong and aggressive men. Therefore, women have to be able to quickly adopt the ideas of the men around them in order to survive and reproduce.
Yang
Yang, the light side of the symbol, is associated with the masculine. It embodies the active, assertive, and dynamic forces of the universe. While the word dynamic sounds like it could be associated with chaos, it is more associated with orderly activity and progress.
Masculinity is associated with traits like consistency, commitment, strength, and rigidity. This is why women have long referred to their male partners as “their rock”. Rocks are hard, strong, and unmoving.
Activity
Yang is all about action, movement, and the initiation of change, qualities often valorized in cultural views of masculinity. Activity is the opposite of passivity, a more feminine trait. According to a global CDC study [1], men are literally more physically active than women and more women are classified as inactive.
In almost all cultures, when war arises, men are expected to fight. Women stay back and support the men from afar. Men are expected to take action, travel to distant lands, and risk their lives for their nation.
When it comes to courtship and mating, men are expected to take the first act of approaching and pursing a woman. When it comes to sex, men are expected to take control and initiate the action.
Logic
Logic is defined as reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity. The logic of of the masculine complements the intuition of the feminine.
Men are largely thought to be the more logical sex. The male brain is more built for problem solving, processing things logically, and following reason. This is why men drastically outperform women in areas like mathematics, engineering, and computer programming.
It would be impossible to count how many times a man has accused a woman of “acting illogically” and how many times a woman has accused a man of “lacking emotionality”.
Light and Sun
Yang is connected to clarity, growth, and outward expression. The sun is a powerful, fiery, dominating force that is difficult to control. This is in great contrast with the moon which is a more dormant, cold body of mass. The sun is closely connected with the masculine spirit.
In most cultures, men are rewarded for being physically and mentally dominating. Women are deeply attracted to the domineering force of the masculine that they yearn to harness, much like scientists yearn to harness the power of the sun.
Also, men are attributed to have much bigger egos than women. The ego is an abstract psychological entity contained within the psyche. It is classified as a very rigid force, that lashes out and attacks when challenged.
Generally, there’s much more pressure on men to grow and expand. Men are judged on their ability to acquire resources, build things, and generate change. Due to these expectations, men have traditionally been the protectors and providers of the family unit.
At a biological level, the sex hormone testosterone amplifies the growth of muscles and alters the male brain to increase sex drive and ambition. Men are willing to work longer hours and engage in much more physically demanding work than women. They are also built to expend more energy.
Due to all of these factors, it’s no coincidence that all of the great conquerers of history were men. Since the dawn of humanity, men have been actively looking to explore new areas and expand their empires. There’s a reason why men are the main consumers of video games. Video games provide an outlet for men’s desire to explore new worlds and fight novel enemies.
Heaven
Yang is linked to the sky and heaven, embodying aspiration, expansiveness, and the quest for higher understanding.
Men have long been obsessed with increasing their understanding of the world and expanding their knowledge. Men will more readily risk their lives to expand human knowledge by traveling to new places that have never been traveled to before such as the Moon. There’s no more ironic real world example of these Yin Yang forces at play than the masculine spirit guiding men to the symbol of femininity, the Moon.
The vast majority of inventions, scientific breakthroughs, and explorations throughout human history have been conducted by men. Expansion and adventure is deep part of the male essence.
Fire
The element of fire, with its characteristics of warmth, energy, and transformation, is associated with the Yang.
Studies show that men, on average, have higher skin temperatures than women. Women often comment on how warm men are and use them to warm up their hands. Women, on average, get cold easier and complain about being cold more often than men. The construction of muscle requires heat and men have far more muscle mass than women.
Men are more ‘fiery’ in temperament as well. Men account for the vast majority of aggression, violence, and destruction in society. Men also experience more feelings of anger and rage than women. These emotions and actions are all associated with the destructive power of fire.
Men even have an odd attraction to fire itself. If you grew up as a boy, you most likely experimented with fire and felt yourself naturally attracted to it. The vast majority of pyromaniacs are men. The masculine spirit is endlessly fascinated by the forces of death and destruction. It’s no surprise that most World War 2 history buffs are men.
Crossover
In the Yin Yang symbol, each side of the symbol contains a small portion or circle of the other. Meaning, the feminine essence encapsulates some of the masculine essence and the masculine essence encapsulates some of the feminine essence.
We see this play out in reality. Men exhibit some feminine characteristics and women exhibit some masculine characteristics. There are also gay men and lesbian women. Men express emotionality sometimes and women are aggressive sometimes.
Yin Yang is a dynamic concept, not one of complacency. The dynamics unfold in the world around us. If you pay attention, you can see them play out in real time.
I hope this article helped deepen your understanding of the masculine and feminine essence and how they interact. The Western world of today lacks an understanding of what it means to be masculine or feminine. Pulling from this ancient Chinese wisdom, we can restore a deeper understanding of intersexual dynamics and build healthier relationships between men and women.
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