by Eric Francis
If you want a revolution, liberating sexual pleasure is the place to start. And if all you want out of life is to be authentic, open-minded, creative and loving, opening up your sexual life-force is the heart of the matter. How do you do this? If you really want to be free, start with self-love. Learn to give yourself deep and satisfying orgasms, release your guilt and shame, and then watch what happens.
Guilt about sex is guilt about life. Guilt about your own sexuality and shame around your pleasure mean that you are struggling for life. Give up the struggle. Just come into yourself and be alive. In this article, I will give some suggestions for how you can practice doing this in some really fun ways.
I recognize that many of us are in some kind of crisis, living in a state of overload or feeling out of control; many of us are looking for direction, and in response, we’re seeking some form of spiritual enlightenment.
Virtually all enlightenment programs teach that love is the answer to everything, and many speak about loving yourself as the essential ingredient to this state of mind. The Golden Rule is to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” but notice that nowhere is there mention of physical self-love and self-pleasuring. Of course, if religion let on that giving yourself great orgasms was the easiest way to find God, love and freedom, you would probably have reasons for knocking on your neighbor’s door other than borrowing a cup of sugar.
And you’d have more creative things to do on a lovely Sunday morning than sit in a dark building hearing about what a bad person you are.
To see more from contributing artist Susan Madsen, click here.
Actually, I think there once was a kind of cultural connection. But it’s ancient history now.
Tho’ just last year a high school girl in our district got suspended for giving blow jobs in the hallway. (Not at my school.) We teachers were pretty angry the guys didn’t get the same punishment. And yeah, I say guyS. They were lined up for it — and they had an audience.
BJs are very popular public entertainment, it seems.
But you know, the “I smoked but didn’t inhale” logic isn’t much removed from “we did it on the back side but not on the front” argument. The whole point is you don’t get “caught” — as in pregnant. It’s okay if you don’t get caught — and you really love the guy — and you’re planning on getting married anyway…later.
Which might explain why so many people bought Bush’s “smoke ’em if ya got ’em” attitude. I’m not saying there aren’t massive flaws in this thinking, but Americans bought the image, perhaps in reaction to Mr. Didn’t Smoke ‘Em.
I was thinking more of the anal sex. It sounded too much like prison sex to me, and then these stupid girls think they are still virginal. I have seen this discussion on a tv talk show in the past.
The girls can tell the future husband they are virgins with a straight face, and I’m wondering what it is they will be expecting, assuming the STDs were not a problem. Their expectations must be totally distorted.
I was kidding about Bill Clinton.
Yeah, sure. Oral sex got very popular (or at least seemed to be openly discussed) among teens since the late Clinton years, but I doubt we can point that all back to Bill. Kids can see lots of it on the internet, their friends talk about it, they use it to avoid intercourse/pregnancy, and then there’s the myth that it’s “cleaner” than penetrative sex (ie, no STDs).
I appreciate what you said, mystes. Doubt anyone talks about that at youth group. 😉
However, I’m also interested in the idea of virgin, as in “self-contained.” Not needing anything to complete yourself, and therefore able to share without compromising your essential self-worth.
There are very few of these sorts of virgins around.
Hey Mystes,
Yes – as soon as I said it I knew real sex really is a vaginal penetration. These young people are no doubt very confused, if not perverted, from the mind games they are playing and having played on themselves.
One young neighbor went to boys school early in high school, and then became a child molester when he got out. He’s now been back to prison 4 times and is 30 years old, a child molester and petty thief. I have cried over what happened with him, and now I’m afraid of him too.
I haven’t read through all the responses and articles here the last few days, so i’m behind.
Gardener/Shanna:
>> and think that somehow they’re still virgins because of this
I think it can be argued that they actually *are* virgins until vagina/penis interpenetration, rupture of the hymen and first ejaculation toward the cervical os. There’s another plexus (just above the coccygeal ganglion) in young women that is facing inward until the interpenile moment. Well, you can call it inward, or upward. Having counseled several young women (all virgins in their 20s, even my own daughter waited till 17) through that gate, I assure you, it is entirely real.
This isn’t to honor other sexual energy/expression. I don’t want to go all Freud on this issue (you know, who said that clitoral orgasms were ‘immature’) but the first taste of prostoglandins fires up some deep movement in the greater endocrine system. Women ‘eat’ that through the cell surfaces within the vagina and are even more sensitive to it within the cervical os itself.
(Jeez. I’ve *got* to shut up and get back to work.)
Shanna,
“They still think they are virgins” – is that what they learned from President Clinton? Anything but an actual insertion might not be defined as sex. LOL
Rick Warren’s church is in the Saddleback Valley in OC. A nice, little (mostly) white suburban enclave. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddleback_Mountains
Snark all you like about this, but as someone who worked with church-going youth for almost ten years, I can safely attest to
a) there’s tons of pressure on guys now to remain virgins until marriage
b) more than half the kids are already having sex (Fe did a piece about this a few months ago)
c) lots and lots of them use oral sex and a significant minority experiment with anal sex
d) boys and girls…girls and girls…boys and boys…mostly hetero, tho’
e) and think that somehow they’re still virgins because of this
f) it’s still about not getting pregnant
g) most are very sincere about wanting to be different from the cultural standards they see in the media. it’s not a prudish difference, either. it’s adolescent idealism
h) they’re painfully confused. lacking a clear counterpoint to the exploitative and crass use of sex as power in our culture, they try to adapt their own core beliefs
i) but their bodies are still on, on, on!
j) the dilemma is genuine; and no, they’re not all neurotic and robotic
k) the best youth workers know this
l) we can never forget healthy sexuality is healthy spirituality — and there’s more than a few ways to define both
VL writes… Saddlebacking indeed
It’s an old Latin American trick, usually so that the family could still claim ‘virginity’ (read: marketability) for their catholic daughters. and no, the boys are *born* fucked in that dispensation, so never virgins per se. (I’m only half kidding)
It’s not *quite* so bad now, but even 20 years ago, loss of a hymen out of wedlock could get you quite the beating.
Came to LatAm via Italy and Spain, which had of course, given up these nasty habits in the 19th century.
Saddlebacking indeed (Isn’t that the name of Rick Warren’s church?)…does this mean that the guy is still a “virgin” also, or is there no emphasis on guys keeping themselves for marriage? Does it make a difference if the guy is ass-fucking a virgin female or a virgin male?
It was supposed to be: Ick. Time to go wash off the memory.
Hail the Simple… (you are related to Half de Witte, I surmise) writes: “I think Michel Foucault has a slightly more nuanced view. . . Being told you’re naughty, being coerced to confess: aren’t those just further incitements to pleasure, in way?”
Well, one could call it ‘nuanced.’ Given the MF’s generalized addiction to crash-n-burn sex, one could also call it theory-fetishing one’s own erotic disorders. I preferred his Les mots et les choses period, but probably only because from 78-83 I was up to my nosehairs in the *ineffectual* solipsism of that cohort. And its not that I take any exception to semiotic/semioanalysis in general. It is an excellent tool for uncovering Sunyata. But you have to be able to undress in front of that. Foucault simply put on his leather catsuit and called it ‘naked.’
Like watching Hillis Miller encourage a generation to a walking, breathing suicide, it wasn’t all that much fun. It isn’t nuance, it’s neurosis, and I recommend reading the HoS series as a case history more than a credible view of sexuality.
Ick. Time to go wash off the m
vlynn, (I like that) YES is awesome. I dance for hours to that stuff.
Good grief.
Saddlebacking.
Here ya go. I still manage to learn something new every 15 minutes. This gets the prize for this morning. Ass-fucking virgins who don’t use condoms. What shall we think of next. Man I feel like I’m missing out. We never did this in Quaker summer camp.
http://saddlebacking.com/
Yes, yes, the repressive culture, etc. I think Michel Foucault has a slightly more nuanced view of the situation in his first volume of “The History of Sexuality.” Being told you’re naughty, being coerced to confess: aren’t those just further incitements to pleasure, in way? Of course we all know ways in which that goes horribly, horribly wrong, and admitting that there’s no one at the wheel (nasty organized religion, for example) makes it much harder to sort out.
I am all for sex-positive and masturbatory fun. I also think that pleasure will out, no matter what attempts to box it in. (Google “saddlebacking,” for example, as Dan Savage’s brilliant readership has termed it.)
those too vlynn [lynn is my middle name from matriarchal side and welsh/english lands]! but mostly yesterday strung throughout day… need air today *wink*… okay, now i am dressed and ready for cold bugs up nose!
kristinb~LOL…we’re heading out for a hike in the sunshine too!
I did think your “Ooo’s soon” had to do with orgasms though…:)
Wave after wave of positive energy emanating from the planetwavers!
forgive me if rambling herein… consort woke me up about 3am mst saturday 2/14… sleeping, thinking straight hasn’t been much in place since… maybe bike ride in sunshine will jar system into alignment?! toodles
too funny! and too true!
“The Golden Rule is to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” but notice that nowhere is there mention of physical self-love and self-pleasuring. Of course, if religion let on that giving yourself great orgasms was the easiest way to find God, love and freedom, you would probably have reasons for knocking on your neighbor’s door other than borrowing a cup of sugar.
And you’d have more creative things to do on a lovely Sunday morning than sit in a dark building hearing about what a bad person you are.”
“Banning pleasure is a brilliant business plan.”
reminder, the sun is shining, time to leave the laptop Ooo’s soon…
No orgasms…you mean, no orgasms ever?!
I’ve been an avid partaker of orgasms since about 12 I guess…when my self-fondling and exploration was prolonged for some reason. I remember I was listening to a YES album at the time, just lying on my bed, sun streaming in the window and warming my skin…building up…(what was this sensation?) and then the orgasm itself…(what the heck was that?!!!)…and then the fun of coming anytime I’ve wanted to since. I can’t imagine anyone thinking an orgasm was negative in any way.
I have had partners that didn’t like it when I masturbated during intercourse, but sometimes that is the only way to come. Talking with them about it, it mostly centered on “Why can’t you come normally? Masturbating is for when you’re all alone” and I suppose I could have wondered if something was wrong with me if I wasn’t aware of the mechanics of my female body. I think what they were really trying to say is, “You’re making me feel like I’m lacking in the lover department!”
Luckily, I’ve had lovers that encourage orgasms! I can’t imagine these poor folks who feel a stigma attached to sex in any way. I can’t imagine not having orgasms…they are good for “whatever ails you.” Nurturing, expression of joy, reliever of tension, comforter, healing…everything goes with an orgasm.
Oh gosh, you’re causing my throat to feel constricted. Very sad…