Perhaps it is a little early for this topic, as spring is not yet within reach. But since it has turned out that way, I would like to write about sexuality. For a contented sexuality we humans seem to be denied to really act in spiritual depth and intensity. Why is that so?
"Don't make me think of my parents!"
We learn about our biology and about fertility in the mechanical sense when we are young. Since we cannot and must not watch the adults sexual act, it is very difficult to learn by observation. Films are very inappropriate, because what is shown there is not authentic. People only pretend to unite sexually. Let's not talk about pornography either.
It's hard to say if the children's disgust with their parents' sexuality is something innate or educational. I tend towards the latter. But I don't want to exclude the possibility that the genetic dispositions also play a role and that your own blood relatives don't seem particularly attractive, so to speak (disgust is already an evaluation and not simply avoiding a thing by not thinking). But I think this disgust is rather something that concerns older children who start to evaluate their parents' sexuality from their own puberty. I don't think that young children already feel or even think this.
Children's curiosity for sex
I once heard a rather amusing anecdote from a mother I met in my son's kindergarten and who told me about her son, who had asked his parents to be allowed to watch his mother and father sexually unite and possibly conceive a child. At that time he already knew that babies were born through physical union. I found myself highly entertained and surprised by the request of a five-year-old and had never heard such a thing before. It triggered fascination.
Learning skills
Sexuality could be seen by men and women as an art form or as learning virtuosity in the field of music, creative art, and even craftsmanship and technology. Basically, sexuality is only a part of human action and could and does be treated the same way. I would like to put forward the thesis that anyone who feels able to learn a handicraft or arts in full goodness and quality can also transfer it to his sexuality. This requires an intensive and curious interest in developing oneself masterfully in it.
It also includes the budding love for a material and the other components to work on it. For those who want to make this comparison ridiculous, there is nothing I can do. But if you want to understand, you will understand.
Men in particular have always shown that they are willing and able to devote themselves to their passion, spend a lot of time with it, find satisfaction and collect great experience in it. If men and women were to behave the same way in their sexuality, many more people would certainly be happy in their relationships.
For people who are in the prime of their adult years, the sexual prelude to their relationship is of great importance.
We feel immediately if there is something that we perceive as a lack and no matter what we try to do about it, it does not help much if there is no real sexual interest of the man or woman. I mean that passion that doesn't have much to do with sex drive. We all have to get over these sex years more or less, there are unfortunately no really good initial years, apart from making exceptional experiences.
But I think we agree that after years of sexually frustrating experiences, there are those that are not. We can see that maturity has something to do with quality. We have learned, suffered and argued and we have endured sexual pain and frustration, we have confronted ourselves with excessive and too low expectations.
Would a fine recipe book of sexuality have been of use to us at the beginning of our libido?
Perhaps. In cookbooks, an art is described in epic depth and breadth that must first be learned. You can cook according to a recipe, but only the constant experience with the used food and spices will make us masterly cooks. Driving like a racing driver can only be learned after countless curves and a connection with the vehicle and the technology. We only learn the luminosity and quality of watercolours if we understand something about the theory of colours, the composition of canvases and the behaviour towards each other, of course in practice.
Why don't we treat our own bodies in the same way? Why don't we see them as a spiritual material that can be handled with caution, but at the same time with a willingness to experiment? We have to treat our brushes and paints carefully, we have to wash out the poor ones. We take care of the brush hairs, we cannot leave the tubes lying around open.
Who are the playmates? Who to play on and what to practice?
I would like to tell men something about this: As a woman, I personally never thought that I had to study male anatomy, that I had to be the initiator of physical action, speaking bluntly: to put my hands on his sex organ. My often unconscious request was that it should be the man who should learn to read me. The female anatomy is much more complicated than the male anatomy. We women do not come to ejaculate by laying on hands like men, especially not in interaction with men. It is therefore advantageous for the man if the woman already knows herself so well that she knows what her pleasure is and that she can show the man the spots and lead him, promise the greatest ecstasy.
The biggest dislike in me was always when I had to do mechanical actions that the man liked or to see my head in his lap, it made me so uneasy that I preferred to avoid it. As a prelude it is completely unsuitable and certainly not when everything is over afterwards. A woman needs more time, more attention than a man.
The other way around, it felt right. It may sound as if there is a disadvantage for the men here. But that is not the case at all. Quite the opposite.
When the man plays on the woman like on a violin.
I know. No new comparison here. But a fitting one.
She has to help him learn the notes, hit the tones and pluck the strings. Some pieces of music begin softly and quietly and rise to high notes. The violinist must be tireless and patient, because even the slightest mistake and the tone disintegrates, a scratching sound can be heard. That means to start the passage anew.
Sometimes, man and woman think they have already reached the end of the score. But the man who has given the woman at least one climax (or better several) knows that this is not necessarily the finale yet. There is a point of greatest resistance for the woman here, which the man can only overcome if she is already warm and soft and has had smaller or larger orgasms. If she believes that the man's touch can no longer be endured and that she basically wants to push him away, but that he still remains in spirit and wants to encourage her devotion, then she will succeed. When reluctance and will meet, this is the place where the woman happens. People experience such climaxes together when surrender is not demanded as immediate performance.
If the man as a player and virtuoso is not disappointed by this, if he does not achieve it, if he does not feel personal vanity, if his efforts are not always successful, but accepts it as an experience and expression of a piece of music or an image, which only on this day cannot be finished or perfected, a harmonious sexuality can develop between him and the woman.
If the woman is not ashamed of her devotion or lust, of her ability to have multiple orgasms and to want more, but not to know how this should happen, if she really trustingly places herself in his hands and pain becomes insignificant because it merges with pleasure, this is helpful to the man.
In this way of living sexuality, the man clearly acts as the giver. He holds himself back, he does not pay attention to his own climax, he is not out to come quickly.
Isn't it amazing how much trust we can develop in each other through sexuality? Especially when we meet each other as strangers and sex makes us known to each other, this is a chance to see a part of the relationship as a successful start and to transfer this quality to other areas of life.
Ask the men
Why it should be the greatest pleasure for a man to carry a woman beyond the imaginable for her, one has to ask the men. They should share this knowledge and give it to their fellow men. It would be desirable if this did not produce envy, but a lively interest in having similarly beautiful experiences.
Men usually do not talk so openly about sexuality. They write books and some books are very worth reading. If you have a good tip, please submit it here.
Curious, empty of experience and unintentional
It may sound paradoxical, but to awaken wild femininity, it takes a man some very long and patient attempts, a deliberate plan of curiosity, a sexual challenge that is not a competition, but a struggle with oneself and one's own needs starting from the man. If the man in this role of the climber does not reach his goal or wants to get there too quickly, if he actually wants to see his own desires fulfilled, this spiritual act will not succeed. If the woman wants to create this artificially, if she already sees herself there without having given herself completely to it, she will not succeed either. It is like a kind of unintentional intention to pursue. Not too strong and not too weak. Always a "first one", a blank canvas.
picture source: David Louis Hughes [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons
Nothing sacred to it yet everything is sacred
We don't have to canonize this sexual act or elevate it, it is already in itself a spiritual affair, if we, for example as with food, show ourselves grateful inwardly for being able to experience and taste and feel it. Since we humans are carried by consciousness, it is only logical that we want to connect some spiritual elements with food, shelter and sexuality. We want to distinguish ourselves from the instinctual and the animal because we can simply do it.
But just like preparing a tasty meal, tidying up our living space every day, working, walking, we can also adopt a certain spiritual attitude in sexuality, which expresses itself in gratitude, without making it too holy.
Sexuality is not the way to have a better relationship with one's loved ones. It is one of the many ways we go every day. In doing everyday tasks and actions, the focus can always be on quality. When I begin to treat these seemingly routine and banal things in such a way that they are beautiful and valuable to me again and again, I may succeed in achieving a kind of lightness and effortlessness in sexuality as well.
It is possible that this is for advanced learners and that people at the beginning of their sexuality (which includes the twenties of a human being) are not yet able to see through it. At least, I was not. Therefore, I share my insights joyfully and would like to give hope for a fulfilling sexuality to come.
Uncage the "beast"
But why should we succeed at all in becoming wild and forgetting ourselves completely? What is the desirable thing in the sexuality between man and woman, which causes them to the greatest possible heights and wild behaviour? Why should this strengthen the relationship? Why does this have anything to do with trust?
Well, actually quite simply: If I, as a woman, place myself in the hands of a man like that, then this means that I have already been able to build up a degree of trust that gives access to this door in the first place. It's my most intimate place, it's the most private face and behavior I can show to another one. If I am not afraid of this unleashing my inner wild woman, there I can meet what is inexplicable.
This means that whenever I said "No", the man reacted to it and did not intervene any further. Whenever I said "Stop", it was stopped. Whenever I showed my feelings, laughed or cried in bed, he did not show himself insecure, troubled or irritated. He took my feelings, my caution, my reservations seriously.
If you are a man, have you ever shown so much empathy and patience towards a woman?
If so, you know it's worth it for you.
Once the door to the wild woman has been opened, it is through the previous acts of trust and fearlessness of the man. His complete "disinterest" in his sexual organ.
To be able to experience this is not quite a matter of course. The woman shows the man her unconditional trust once she has become ready to jump over the shadow, the fear of her own greatest lust. It's really an overcoming to let oneself go like that and not to worry about what one might look like. It certainly contradicts every film scene in which you see beautiful and relaxed faces - an extract of tenderness - yes, even that - but it's not everything and you can't portray it in a film without appearing pornographic. You shouldn't try it either.
So sex can be something very binding between man and woman, a kind of foundation stone for a very friendly relationship, which can also mature in other areas. This doesn't necessarily mean that you have found the man or woman for all occasions and ideas or ideals. Most of us continue to carry great shortcomings and windy ideas around with us. But there is no doubt that learning to play on the female body can have a deepening and trusting effect.
Spirituality, in its deepest core, is nothing more than connectedness.
Following the Tao, sexual energy is the strongest force in our organism. That's why we fear it so often. However, if we learn to cultivate this power and use it for ourselves, it enriches our energy balance.
"Cultivation" is probably an important key word here. As mentioned above, cultivating something can mean refining it. This may contrast with the urge, but to use this urge and not become its victim is what gives you pleasure.
It makes sense to create a menu sequence. Dividing it into a starter, a main course, and a dessert, like a play that includes an entrance, a main action, and a finale, just like the artist's canvas on which the base of the colors is applied, a bright yellow to make the colors painted over it shine even more. Even a sauce only becomes really tasty when it is reduced to its essence for a long time.
Haste, impatience and greed are only in the way.
But to guide this greed, to be its ruler and not to be carried away by indiscretion, transforms greed into something good. For without this greed it would truly not be an art to control oneself. It would merely be a rather moderate act; without needing special skills.
The reason why, for example, in religions sexuality was and is seen as something harmful and obstructive is probably due to the fact that, unlike wine pressing or the production of wood and metal art, we are not accustomed to sexuality as a creation. We emphasize what does not succeed too much. We cultivate sexuality too little. Because we are deficient, it seems that it is better to abstain from sexuality. Because it is too distracting, too disturbing to create culture or to live peacefully together? Priestly celibacy is justified because it has been proven that sexual energy can be extremely destructive. For some people, avoidance is a necessity and the oath to be abstinent is a protection from too much emphasis on sex. I have nothing at all against such a vow.
Everyone should know for himself how much his sexuality advances or impedes him.
Just never use it as a means to an end.
Let it be fun and courageous.