SEX : reunion and renewal

How wonderful sex can be, when men and women keep it powerful and sacred, and it fills the world, like sunshine through and through one!

Distingush the various manifestations of love , identifying:
> Eros - the biological sexual passion (impersonal)

>Agape - the love of opening one's heart to another (spiritual and impersonal).

> Amor - the romantic love of another (personal and can be spiritual).

For sex - as distinct from gender (the other half of life) and reproduction (perpetuation of the species) - is a wide-ranging area of our experience.

In explosion of orgasm we can know the dissolution of the self, the bliss of divinity, the tenderness of opening our hearts to another.

A narrow definition might restrict sex to the reproduction activities arising from our polarity of gender, while a wider understanding might allow the sensory and spiritual experience of our energetic interaction with the rest of the world.

Sex is not just about sexual intercourse or courtship; sex involves complex dynamics of empowerment, individuality and pleasure. For the number of civilizations that have repressed and hidden sexuality, at least an equal number have celebrated and normalized it.

Whether or not we are now at a global cultural cross-roads in our understanding of sex, or are tying ourselves up in yet more knotty argument and confusion, remains to be seen/heard.

SEXUAL AROUSAL Within relationships, sexual stimulation is most often induced by the engagement of our imagination and emotions, followed only then by direct physical stimulation, particularly to body areas such as the genitals, ears and nipples, breasts.

Sexual arousal will often arise from a specific set of stimuli. In relation to other people , these will classify us as being attracted to members of the same gender, the opposite gender or a mixture of both.

We are all unique humans and satisfactory sexual relationships often involves a mutual sharing of those aspects of a relationship or those parts of the body which, on stimulation most pleasure. Even more varied are the range of non-physical sensory cues for stimulation - such as sights, sounds, smells and tastes.

While there are certain gender (male/female) tendencies, such as men being more visual and women being more textual, the variety of ways in which we become stimulated diversifies even more when we consider emotional and psychological cues.

Again, there are cultural, historical and hormonal trends where the sexual behaviour of men is generally expected to be dominant and that of women to be responsive. But the behavioural and sensory content of these preferences is infinitely variable - whether we are male or female, we may be aroused by gentle music or floral scents, perfume, strong or weak characters, blue skies or dark evenings.

Each trigger will have been soft-wired into us as we grew up - linking periods of intense pleasure to the hormonal circuitry of our bodies.

HUMAN SEXUAL ETHICS : Global acceptance of our diversity as sexual beings is slowly allowing us to question what might be a set of ethics we develop together as a growing species with a maturity to its biological and destiny.

Ethics of consent, choice and respect are beginning to find a critical mass across the globe. At the same time, any taint of the shame from our experience of sex takes time to be released as we find an equilibrium between freedom and responsibility.

Many of the sexual yogas concern themselves with such an alliance of sexual and heart energies, a uniting of sex and love.

Marriage between a male and female in the true sense is the uniting of sex and love. Without one of these two, love and sex, it is not marriage. It may reproduce another life-form via sex, but without love (of the spirit), it is not marriage.

As we cultivate the ethics of consent, choice and respect in our experience of sex, ,its historical development intertwines with that of love and spirituality, with religious and cultural movements contributing to our working out of what love, sex and spirit mean to us.

Here, there is a continuum of whether or not sex, in and of itself, can ever be considered sacred. At one end of such a continuum is the notion that sexual energy can be a path to enlightenment; at the other, that it is intrinsically tainted with the realm of matter and so alien from the spiritual life.

Distingush the various manifestations of love , identifying:
> Eros - the biological sexual passion (impersonal)

>Agape - the love of opening one's heart to another (spiritual and impersonal).

> Amor - the romantic love of another (personal and can be spiritual).

Each culture and religion has played its part in our global dialogue. That the virtues of the knight who sought above all the 'realization of love that is nature's noblest work' also had as one of his virtues the ethic of courtesy, 'respect for the society in which you are living'.

Global acceptance of our diversity s sexual beings is slowly allowing us to question what might be a set of ethics we develop together as a growing species with a maturity to its biology and destiny.

Will you be lost in the woods?

The human organism is designed by DNA to maintain an optimum of strength and health to sexual maturity - and just a few years beyond. Once it has presumably done its procreative duty, 'tis kissed off, abandoned to steadily deteriorate.

SEXUAL YOGA AND LONGEVITY

Each of our civilizations has held vastly different attitudes towards humanity sex, some seeing it as a necessary evil, others as a path to enlightenment.

The Karma Sutra is one of the most famous and celebrated guides to sexual practice, closely followed by the Chinese classic the Art of the Bedchamber.

The intricacies, ethics, positions and guidance regarding humanity sex are largely shared by both texts, and they both have a bold approach that is neither abashed nor self-conscious.

Each also links human sexuality to spiritual practice and even the development of longevity through the refinement of orgasm and the purposeful development of intention that we can extend our insight into the body, and blend all three with great style.

Meditate on these words : Let marriage be held in honour by all and the marriage bed unpolluted ; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.

Again, SEX : reunion and renewal
How wonderful sex can be, when men and women keep it powerful and sacred, and it fills the world, like sunshine through and through one!