The ascetic moralism of religion regarding sex tends to sever it from the sphere of emotions. Sexuality, being repressed, the need for it does not go away, but suffers a degradation and acquires, when it surfaces, an urgency and paroxysm. Much of the modern liberalism in sexuality is precisely such an urgency and paroxysm that does not recognize its origin, is a prolongation of the rift at the heart of the human soul between sexuality and emotion. A man still fighting a ghost who is no longer here.
Tag: Sexuality
Wandering Thought # 64
The most deeply damaging thing one might come out with after reading authors such as Georges Bataille and the Marquis de Sade, is the idea that sexual impulses cannot be controlled, and that we are fated to live in a universe where we either suppress them and become ascetic and puritan morally or where we give them their sway and playful ground thus becoming libertines, and modern. The idea of “control,” which is different from suppression, does not enter the minds of both authors, and why? — because they themselves are the offshoot and a reaction to the morality of suppression, because the ascetic and the liberal are ultimately two sides of the same coin, mirroring each other. Sexuality suppressed kinks the heart, which is why the sexual forms prevalent in the imaginations of both men as seen through their writings is so tainted with darkness; it detaches itself from one’s emotional centers and becomes something cold and almost mechanical. Sexuality cannot be suppressed, but its discharge can be controlled, its form and quality can be given a different shape, and can be branched in one’s heart becoming an expression of one’s emotions and sensuality. Only control can pave the way to a sexuality of ecstasy, of which the former types haven’t got the slightest hint.
Wandering Thought # 45
A man who can only love or hate a woman, or a certain kind of woman, suffers an impotence of will. What leads him to her and what in her cripples him is a certain lack in his emotional and sexual life. His maturity is the maturity of his will, his ability to choose, and be aware of the moment where his choice is made, and his will to go one way or another activated.
Wandering Thought # 42
The power play in sex is one of the most difficult things I had to come to term with. This being said, to make a fetish of the power play, to make it the focal point of the relationship is to miss out on the spiritually interpenetrating aspects that truly form the throbbing core of why two people are together, and what makes them expand and grow together into that which is held above them. The power play is a form of expression, this character or that being suited to this spectrum or that, this essence or that. On its own it does not supersede or form the essence and budding center of the connectivity.
Wandering Thought #40
After reaching his peak in orgasm a man will feel either one of two things: he will be repulsed by himself, the world, and his lover (in case he wasn’t alone), he will feel himself withdrawing from what he just experienced and by effect withdrawing from his world and lover and will hate himself and the world for it. This, by far, is the most widespread reaction, and this reaction is usually kept at bay and hidden, rationalized and left without recognition as men waft themselves out of the moment in one way or another. The other reaction which is much rarer is one where a man will feel at rest and at ease in himself, in his partner, in the world and in what just happened. He will feel that he actually gave something, that something rose out of his soul and flowed outward unifying him in the most ecstatic and happy way with his lover and world. He will feel an openness in his soul. Alas, so much, oh so much is required of us men in order to be able to hold ourselves and arrive at this moment.
On Men’s Polygamous Need
Men’s inability to devote themselves to a single woman and their insistence on a continuously varying excitement is telling in one fundamental way — they have failed in unifying their energies which peak in reason and love. Hence, the need which drives them like a moth to a flame to viewing women as sexual objects that are to be pursued in such a manner is a result of a fragmented and diffuse psyche and energetic flow that are in constant need to discharge in order to maintain their modicum of inferior dis-unity, a way of achieving a certain harmony in the internal economy of the being that enables it to thrive and struggle through life. The sexual act impoverishes them since it is not the crowning point of their energetic alchemy but is a tension suffered by a diffuse and disorganized creature, one that is bored and does not know what to do with itself; the climax is not followed by joy and a certain sense of hilarity and lightness but is experienced with a foretaste of sadness and depression, self-hate and a hate of the “object” used. A man’s inability to unify and peak his energies is consequential in another fundamental manner — he is unable to penetrate and engage his woman emotionally and intellectually; he thus fails to unify himself in her, through her, and through her with all of life. His life is lacking, as he remains motivated by a lack instead of an overfullness and abundance. He needs, and is driven like a slave to his fateful end.
The way into the arms of grace Rumi points at in his verse, “The kernel of true manhood is the ability to abandon sensual indulgence.” Rumi, in his simple manner, wants to nudge the will, not to repress but to attain control and mastery. Being in control means precisely being in unity; a critical edge where the impulses and faculties of the being are brought into harmony, are willed into harmony.
And a tantric verse, to echo Rumi’s, “One who, possessing desire, represses desire, is a living lie.”
Libertinism (polygamy) and its apparent opposite, asceticism’s abstinence, both have repression at their roots — a diffuse being struggling to maintain itself.
Haiku # 41
From her sacred womb
A tree, heavy with red fruits
Burns between her breasts.
Rooted in Love 