Containing The Force of Sexual Energy~ Understanding Cultural Influences

 

by Sheri Winston
Author of Women's Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure

                                                                            Art by Gaia Orion

Wholistic Sexuality
A New Paradigm For Our Times ( part 1 )

In order to truly comprehend our sexuality we must understand it as a complex interplay between the evolutionary process and the influences of our environment. Sexuality is one of the most primal forces in our world. Of all creatures that exist the vast majority reproduce sexually, making the act of reproduction the most essential driving force after that of personal survival. Yet, despite its innate and pervasive power the topic of sexuality is a challenging one for many people both now and in the past.

All cultures throughout time have recognized that the powerful and primal sexual drive cannot be left to run wild and needs to be contained in some manner. In sex-negative cultures sexuality is controlled with rigid taboos, strict rules and tough laws with transgressors being ostracized, penalized or even killed. Sexuality is de-sacralized, that is, considered to be profane. In such cultures it is common to find inequities of power between men and women, with feminine power and attributes denigrated.

In sex-positive cultures a flexible container is formed of consensual agreements, respectful communication and honoring ritual that channel sexuality into positive forms. There is more likely to be a balance in power between genders as these cultures honor both masculine and feminine attributes. In cultures that honor sexuality there is an appreciation of the sacredness of the act and of its amazing power to create both new life and spiritual union.

In most Western cultures sensuality, sexuality and ecstasy have been frowned upon, banned, discouraged and shamed. In our current multicultural, multi-influenced milieu these historic sex-negative beliefs still permeate our world while at the same time we are also exposed to a ubiquitous inundation of sexual messages and imagery from every aspect of our media. In our pervasive modern media sexuality is used to sell everything imaginable with its titillating power but provides us with a view of sexuality that is shallow and limited and does little to heal our ambiguity.

Our culture also maintains a mechanistic worldview that tends to separate things into unconnected parts and to compartmentalize aspects of our selves and our lives into isolated fragments tucked safely away in cubicles. Sex is such a volatile, taboo subject that it is especially alienated and hidden for many people.

In some cultures sex was recognized as a path to the sacred Divine, a meditation that can lead to cosmic oneness, bliss and proof of the Divine’s love. For those of us enmeshed in Western culture it may be hard to comprehend sexuality as a joyful, loving and compassionate path of ecstatic spiritual practice.

But our sexuality has the potential to be sacred as well as intensely pleasurable if we choose to re-shape our beliefs and practices into a sex-positive framework.

Babies, Bliss and Bonding or Procreation, Pleasure and Partnering.

Sex has 3 major overlapping functions; procreation, pleasure, and the social functions of attachment and bonding. Of these functions, it is successful reproduction that is the most essential. That sex is also pleasurable is, in fact a subset of making sex work since the drive to experience pleasure is what makes us want to do it. The experience of pleasure is also health-promoting as it releases chemicals, neurotransmitters that reduce tension, de-stress, promote longevity and relaxation. Sexuality is also about bonding, especially in humans due to the fact that our babies are born so immature that they require an extended period of intensive care before they are competent to survive on their own. Hence the need for bonded relationships to ensure assistance in the prolonged and intensive task of successful childrearing.

“Mother Nature” i.e. the forces of evolution is always conservative. She doesn’t waste. If something can be used for more then one function, it will be. The evolutionary design of any complex system has any one thing serving multiple functions and purposes. The evolutionary template for human sexuality and the reproductive system is to make babies, grow, birth and nourish them until adulthood.

Sex is designed to make babies. Sex is also designed to create human bonding for survival. The reproductive system conservatively uses the same equipment to start the babies, grow and birth them, nourish them and to create the bonded relationships needed to support the family. The same hormones that are released during orgasm are released during birth, breastfeeding and when people fall in love. To have a useful model of sexuality we must include the reproductive processes in our understanding.

To be continued...