Monday, June 11, 2007 at 12:12am
Putting the sacred back into sex
Column: Love, God and Sex
A recent New York Times editorial by Randy Kennedy talked about a change in the way sex is being depicted in the movies, plays and books. Kennedy writes that there's an attempt to "bring meaning back to human relations" as depicted in movies like "Knocked Up." Kennedy contrasts the desire to portray sex as meaningful with author Jane Smiley's portrayal of sex as "just another of the ways humans communicate, trying to say those things that can't be said." He quotes Smiley as saying that all the ways the characters in her latest novel relate are loving, including sex.
It amazes me that at the beginning of the 21st century, puritanical attitudes about sex clash with hedonistic attitudes about sex. It seems that guilt still conflicts with desire and that a celibacy vs. promiscuity message pervades our society. We're bombarded with sexual messages saying do it, do it, do it, vs. if you do it outside marriage, you're a sinner. And even within the context of marriage, only certain practices are allowed. These conflicted attitudes toward sex lead to a divided society.
And even the reporting about different trends seems to be at odds. MSNBC has a whole website called America Unzipped. According to that website, Americans are truly sexually liberated; fetishes are openly celebrated, ordinary couples are visiting sex superstores, and even ministers are preaching the virtues of a great sex life. Yet in Kennedy's analysis there's still angst about sexual morality. Could it be that the sexual freedom openly promoted for the past 40 years has brought us to another level of asking, "What is it for?" As we know, people always have had sex; otherwise we wouldn't be here.
I'd like to see Mr. Kennedy's views and Ms. Smiley's views come together (pun intended). Said another way, sex is just another loving expression of human connection and it needs to be meaningful. All expressions of human connection need to be meaningful, because all expressions of human communication are sacred. That's because people are sacred.
According to Rabbi Shoni Labowitz, "You can't know God until you've had an orgasm." There are orgasms and there are orgasms. Some orgasms leave you hungry, and some orgasms fill you for days, months or even lifetimes.
I think it's the "fill you for lifetimes" orgasms that marriage has an opportunity to provide, especially if couples are willing to explore pleasure together. In making the exploration of pleasure one of the goals of your relationship, you have to agree that the pleasure in which you indulge will always be loving and will always be meaningful. I'm defining meaningful as being fully present in the experience. And being present means that you're breathing deeply and actually inhaling life. It's superficial indulgence that causes pain. It's a focus on "getting my needs met" that leads to empty experiences. A woman wrote to the America Unzipped expert complaining about her sex life. Her boyfriend was only concerned with his pleasure. She would give him fellatio to get him aroused, and then he would mount her. The expert replied that she should teach him about foreplay. I say dump him. He's clueless as to what loving, meaningful sex is. Rather than teach him technique, he needs to learn to treat her like the goddess she is.
Love and meaning coming together is an explosion of the heart. It's really the middle path between repression and indulgence that the Buddha or "A Course in Miracles" talks about. With an open heart, we explore with awareness, and experiences are experienced fully and completely sensuously, but there's no drama. There's fun.
Marriages that are built on sacred sexual exploration involving love and meaning are stairways to heaven. But love, meaning and sacredness have to come (pun also intended) before the sex. Any sexual exploration carries risks with it. Threats of risk, i.e., doing it in public, doing it for the first time, using a new toy — all contribute to the excitement. It's the level of love, meaning and sacredness at which someone is living that will determine the outcome of any experience.
Of the three attributes I've been talking about, sacredness is the most important. When you know that your partner is a sacred soul, your pleasure knows no boundaries and neither will you.
— — —
Dr. Sorah Dubitsky, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, teacher and healer. She conducts workshops and seminars on love, marriage, sexuality and spirituality as well as offers individual and couples counseling. She is also a fellow at Florida International University's Center for the Study of Spirituality. Her book "A Chorus of Wisdom" is available at Amazon.com and all major online and retail book outlets. Visit her website and her blog, Healing Relationships. Send an email to {email dr.sorah@drsorah.com}dr.sorah@drsorah.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Dr. Sorah Dubitsky.
It amazes me that at the beginning of the 21st century, puritanical attitudes about sex clash with hedonistic attitudes about sex. It seems that guilt still conflicts with desire and that a celibacy vs. promiscuity message pervades our society. We're bombarded with sexual messages saying do it, do it, do it, vs. if you do it outside marriage, you're a sinner. And even within the context of marriage, only certain practices are allowed. These conflicted attitudes toward sex lead to a divided society.
And even the reporting about different trends seems to be at odds. MSNBC has a whole website called America Unzipped. According to that website, Americans are truly sexually liberated; fetishes are openly celebrated, ordinary couples are visiting sex superstores, and even ministers are preaching the virtues of a great sex life. Yet in Kennedy's analysis there's still angst about sexual morality. Could it be that the sexual freedom openly promoted for the past 40 years has brought us to another level of asking, "What is it for?" As we know, people always have had sex; otherwise we wouldn't be here.
I'd like to see Mr. Kennedy's views and Ms. Smiley's views come together (pun intended). Said another way, sex is just another loving expression of human connection and it needs to be meaningful. All expressions of human connection need to be meaningful, because all expressions of human communication are sacred. That's because people are sacred.
According to Rabbi Shoni Labowitz, "You can't know God until you've had an orgasm." There are orgasms and there are orgasms. Some orgasms leave you hungry, and some orgasms fill you for days, months or even lifetimes.
I think it's the "fill you for lifetimes" orgasms that marriage has an opportunity to provide, especially if couples are willing to explore pleasure together. In making the exploration of pleasure one of the goals of your relationship, you have to agree that the pleasure in which you indulge will always be loving and will always be meaningful. I'm defining meaningful as being fully present in the experience. And being present means that you're breathing deeply and actually inhaling life. It's superficial indulgence that causes pain. It's a focus on "getting my needs met" that leads to empty experiences. A woman wrote to the America Unzipped expert complaining about her sex life. Her boyfriend was only concerned with his pleasure. She would give him fellatio to get him aroused, and then he would mount her. The expert replied that she should teach him about foreplay. I say dump him. He's clueless as to what loving, meaningful sex is. Rather than teach him technique, he needs to learn to treat her like the goddess she is.
Love and meaning coming together is an explosion of the heart. It's really the middle path between repression and indulgence that the Buddha or "A Course in Miracles" talks about. With an open heart, we explore with awareness, and experiences are experienced fully and completely sensuously, but there's no drama. There's fun.
Marriages that are built on sacred sexual exploration involving love and meaning are stairways to heaven. But love, meaning and sacredness have to come (pun also intended) before the sex. Any sexual exploration carries risks with it. Threats of risk, i.e., doing it in public, doing it for the first time, using a new toy — all contribute to the excitement. It's the level of love, meaning and sacredness at which someone is living that will determine the outcome of any experience.
Of the three attributes I've been talking about, sacredness is the most important. When you know that your partner is a sacred soul, your pleasure knows no boundaries and neither will you.
— — —
Dr. Sorah Dubitsky, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, teacher and healer. She conducts workshops and seminars on love, marriage, sexuality and spirituality as well as offers individual and couples counseling. She is also a fellow at Florida International University's Center for the Study of Spirituality. Her book "A Chorus of Wisdom" is available at Amazon.com and all major online and retail book outlets. Visit her website and her blog, Healing Relationships. Send an email to {email dr.sorah@drsorah.com}dr.sorah@drsorah.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Dr. Sorah Dubitsky.