What It Means to Be Sex Positive

As I was pulling educational materials together for the Carnal-Val event last month, I pulled together definitions of what it means to be sex positive.

This is one of the most comprehensive definitions I've found as stated by the Executive Director of the Center for Sex Positive Culture in Seattle...

Sex-positive is a cultural philosophy that understands sexuality as a positive force in personal development and society. To be sex-positive is to believe that…

Consensual sexual expression is a basic human right regardless of the form that expression takes.

People have the right to accurate and straightforward sexual health information.

It is not appropriate to judge others consensual choices regarding how to have sex, who to have sex with, and how one defines their sexual orientation and identity.

It is equally important to focus on the positive aspects of sexuality, like sexual pleasure, and not just disease prevention, prevention of sexual assault and unwanted pregnancy.

Sexuality is largely socially constructed, and there are few if any essential truths about sex.

As I reflected on this definition, I realized that I have not been practicing sex positivity with myself.

Because I am very literally surrounded by people who explore and encourage casual sex and relationship in various ways, whether they are couples or single, I have assumed that sex positive means being open to casual interaction. I have felt pressure as a sex positive leader to explore sexual openness through ethical sluttiness, especially within the poly relationship that I attempted with Knight.

The truth is that I have lacked a sex positive attitude towards my own natural sexual tendencies because they are very different than most of the people I know. I have doubted myself and tried to tell different stories about who I am in order to fit into other people's ideas of open sexuality. While open-minded exploration of my own edges in order to determine who I am and what I desire is a positive thing, doubting/distrusting myself is not.

Over the summer I explored the possibility of being an ethical slut and pursuing casual sexual and power exchange encounters. While I had conversations with several people, I only had one casual encounter, which was fun but less than fulfilling. In my explorations I discovered that I have no desire to connect with someone sexually if I do not connect with them intellectually and emotionally. I don't experience excitement from encounters with (near) strangers like many of my friends. I don't experience excitement from sexual chemistry alone.

I experience excitement in connecting with people at multiple levels, at having my mind, heart and body stimulated simultaneously. Being sex positive is accepting that that it is all right to only desire deeper connection with my sexual partners.

While I am a lusty woman who can get down and dirty in all kinds of ways, the truth is that sex is a sacred act in my life. I am learning to accept that the fullest expression of my sexuality is intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical. Anything less is not in integrity with who I am or what I desire.

Sacred Sexuality

An aspect of reclaiming the Sacred in my every day life is putting intention towards Sacred Sexuality. Sex is a significant aspect of my creative and loving expression -- as a lover, as an artist and as a community builder. I have long desired to unify my sexuality and spirituality, but have not put real intention toward it.

I desire to relate to my lover(s) and friends from a Sacred perspective, where I express my devotion to them and longing to merge in Oneness with them through acts of intimacy. I seek to experience my sexuality as an expression of love for both the Divine Spark and the unique person with whom I am blessed to share intimate experiences of union in primal hunger, lust, pleasure, sensuality, cuddling, kissing, play and/or sexual fulfillment. I know that bringing the Sacred into my sexual and relationship life will lead towards greater experiences of love.

I desire for the people I love to attain their greatest potential in life and in love. Within the practice of polyamory, when I can recognize sex as an expression of love and longing to merge with the Divine Spark in another, it no longer feels like a threat to my relationship with my lover. It becomes an experience of shared love and abundance. It is a beautiful gift that I wish for my lover and their other partner(s) to experience with one another. When I live from the spiritual perspective that all relationships are Divinely Ordained, and that there are gifts that each person offers another for their potential evolution into deeper experiences of love, then compersion naturally flows for my lover's other relationships. I know that if my lover is drawn to someone for intimacy, no matter how the relationship manifests, they must have a potential gift to offer him for his spiritual development. In light of that, I desire to never again allow my fears to compromise another's (or my own!) expression of intimacy with others.

*

Last night I transformed my experience of longing for Knight into a rich sacred-sexual experience. After writing the blog post, I was considering how much I miss kissing Knight's cock in the mornings, which led me to thoughts about cock worship, which led to a fantasy about a sacred-sexual experience of worshiping his cock as a manifestation of the masculine creative life force. Instead of imagining a typical blowjob, I visualized an experience of spending time in devotion to his cock as an expression of my devotion to him -- both the man and the Divine Spark within him. Instead of having a quick self-pleasuring session with the goal of orgasm, I lingered with the fantasy, exploring it in rich detail as touched myself softly and slowly. My arousal was so intense that even though I did finally release, I am still carrying the arousal with me today.

My body is buzzing with arousal. I carried it with me to the Marsh for my walk at lunch and it was greatly enhanced by the energy I could feel in the nature around me. The wind embraced me wildly. Bird songs filled my ears with songs of desire. I felt deeply connected to the flowers and trees. I slipped into a private place, leaned against a tree, and deepened my arousal by caressing my clit. It may be the most erotic experience I've had with nature.

*
"He who desires perfection of the soul must worship the lingam." - Linga Purana

In Sanskrit, the cock is called Lingam. Lingam means "wand of light." I love the idea of meditating on the cock as a wand of light -- a symbol of light in the man and the Light in the Universe.

I have had a love affair and worshiped the female counterpart, the Yoni, for years. I had a multi-year art and writing project about the Yoni. I have deeply explored the Sacred within the Yoni from a variety of perspectives. And when I am gifted with a sexual experience with a woman, I always experience the Sacred in worshiping her yoni with my mouth and hands.

But as I've written before , I had a much more complicated relationship with the lingam until Knight. It seems that my love and adoration for his lingam continues to deepen.

The difference between last night's fantasy and so many I've had before involving Knight's cock is that this time it was purely about the expression of my devotion rather than about what inspires my own arousal. Usually I fantasize about cock worship within the context of submission to Knight's dominance. I love it when he grabs my head and "forces" me to suck his cock. I love it when he fucks my mouth to the point of making me gag and taking my breath away. But this fantasy wasn't like that. It had nothing to do with force or dominance. In fact, it was more about his surrender to my devotion. I imagined a love-making session that is focused entirely on him and the pleasure to be derived from worshiping his body with my own.

Tonight is our only night together for the forseeable future, due to both the logistics of other commitments and the uncertainty around our unfolding relationship. Rather than take the time for granted by just doing "whatever", I desire to bring Sacred intention to our time together. I am going offer him the gift of my devotion through an experience of cock worship as I fantasized it last night and today. I've done some reading on lingam worship in the Tantra traditions for inspiration into both the symbolic and practical. I hope to share an experience that will be as much a Sacred Gift to him as the cathartic scene he gave me Saturday night was to me.

***Image Source: Willow Arlenea

Grief

When I can transcend the overwhelming experience of it, I find grief to be a fascinating process. I have been grieving the loss of my partner-relationship for 8 days. I am wired to experience my emotions fully. Repressing my grief is not an option. It's not healthy for anyone, but as big as I experience my emotions (which is both a blessing and a curse), it is especially not healthy for me. It will explode in some way if I don't honor it and there will be wreckage. I'm striving to minimize wreckage in my life.

However, being functional and having the will to stop myself from a downward spiral is also vital. I can be swept away by the emotion and create suffering. I had a long-term relationship with the darkness of sadness and madness. Sometimes they still try to tempt me back into their arms. I have to be vigilant about physically getting up every day and spending time in the light. I also have to be vigilant about making connections with other people -- being witnessed and supported. It is so healing to have a tribe that cares for you.

*

Grief travels in waves. When the loss is brand new, they are tsunami waves that threaten to drown. It feels oppressive. It creates a sense of being pressed down into the darkness. It is pressure and it is constant aching. It can literally be difficult to breathe. It is in the body as much as it is in the heart. During this stage I spent considerable time in the darkness of my bedroom, on purpose. Besides the incessant crying, I felt physically ill. I took days off from work. Beyond the necessity of caring for my teenage daughter's and my own basic needs I was not functional. I couldn't think clearly. The stories were looping incessantly.

As time passes the waves become a little less oppressive every day. The pressure slowly releases. There are actual waves with crests and trenches. They become further apart. I can be distracted from the heartache. Time with friends can make me feel lighter and focus my attention on how much love I have in my life. Vegging out on movies between intense processing sessions can immerse me in someone else's story for a while. Working can let me think in non-emotional ways and provide a sense of accomplishment.

*

Some waves are pure emotion. Unstoppable tears. Sobs wracking my entire body. Raw heartache. No words or thoughts provoking the feeling.

There are the waves of shame and regret. I wish I had made different choices. I wish I had never learned to use words as weapons so well and I wish I knew how to stop doing so when I'm scared or feel invisible. I wish I took care of myself and I had more emotional control after big events...or enough consciousness to recognize when I'm on a trip. I wish I wasn't so judgmental and critical. I wish I was more unconditional and patient. I wish I was more graceful when I was disappointed. I wish I had loved him better.

There are the waves of wounded stories. Stories of blame and victimhood. Stories of abandonment and neglect. Stories of shame and not-enoughness. There are the stories we tell ourselves about the other person and run through the filter of our fears from past events. We analyze how they acted, what they said, what their actions meant. We tell ourselves how they failed us or how they made our worst fears come true. I won't tell you my stories right now. I don't want to share negativity or reinforce them.

The other waves are about particular losses. Time spent together. Precious daily rituals. Laughter. Flirting. Touch. Being held. Laying on his chest, hearing his heartbeat as my fingers caress his throat and rub his ear. Uninhibited communication. Trust to the point of sharing those things we are most ashamed of and afraid to be rejected for. I could go on forever. There are a kajillion things I feel I've lost.

The wave I'm in right now that is keeping me from sleeping and compelling me to write is grieving our sex life. We had an amazing and passionate sex life. After 14 months we still couldn't get enough of each other. We flirted all the time. We were uninhibited in expressing our desire for each other. We have significant compatibility around physical affection and sexual intimacy as primary expressions of our love. We were adventurous. We pushed limits together into new and mysterious parts of ourselves. We shared our sexual relationship with our friends and community. Our first few parties together, we had many people telling us how much they enjoyed our energy when we played.

And then there is how sexy and desired I feel with him. He awakened something in me, opened me to a new comfort and confidence in my sexuality. I was in the process of losing more and more inhibition and insecurity with him, allowing myself to express my love and desire through erotic expression. I had more I desired to give, to share, and now instead I must figure out what to do with this tremendous sexual energy that courses through my body when I think of him.

I have been watching movies when I need downtime from emotional processing and intentionally avoiding stories with romantic themes. Absolutely everything reminds me of us. But I watched the musical Nine tonight, not realizing how sexual of a movie it is. While there are no actual sex scenes, there is a ferocity of sexuality in the story and performances. I was turned on. I thought about how much we would enjoy watching certain scenes together. I thought about how much I've wanted to do an erotic dance or strip tease for him. And I realized I can't feel arousal or touch myself without crying. I can't fantasize because I can only fantasize about being with him. Sexual release without him present feels alien. I haven't masturbated much at all during our relationship because I didn't feel the need. I was satiated with what he gave me.

There is light and shadow in my grieving our sexual relationship. It is an alchemy of not-so-healthy yearning (we are both addicted to being validated through sex) and a truly loving desire to merge body, heart and soul. Sometimes sex was about physical or emotional need. Sometimes it was an expression of intimacy and our immense love. But other times we achieved a Divine Spark to Divine Spark connection. (We both professed a desire to explore Tantra and deepen the blending of sexual and spiritual, but never followed through. I keep asking myself if things would be different if we had spent more time intentionally seeing and experiencing the Divine in one another, sexually and otherwise?)

I am no stranger to immense grief. I have survived many losses. It's been less than two years since my mother died. Grief used to be crippling, but I believe I am learning how to navigate grief in a healthy way -- to fully express my emotion but not create unnecessary suffering.

And I believe there is meaning to be found in sharing my grief journeys with others. Thank you for holding space for me to do so.

Sculpted in Flesh and Breath

Our Vibes Lead, Jason, wrote this delicious morsel today about his anticipation of this weekend's event, The Fire Down Below. I just had to share.

"Tick tock says the clock as the latest sexual offering of our cherished kinky Society draws closer to reality. It takes the event drawing within a few days before the first shiny edge of excitement slips under the door of my mundane life and starts going through my closet. "What to wear? What to wear?," and that is how it begins for me… That is when it becomes real. I want to represent the theme of fire. I want to feel sexy. I want to be wanted. Not simple tasks to accomplish.

But then I think of the party itself – when the sexually saturated mixes with nervousness and naïveté - experience and ignorance eyeballing from across the room - some coveting what the other possesses – the loving friends and new acquaintances – the thrill of the negotiation – the joy of the dungeon screams (godiloveyouimps). Yummy yum yum.

And so as the excitement swells, so do I.

I remember all the earlier parties – the bacchanalias – the musk in the air – the reaching hands and clasping fingers – unbidden guttural moans - sudden intakes of breath – eyes full, an Epicurean feast of the senses. I think about all the observation and absorption – the single tails, clothespins and the tiny rippling sound of buckling chrome on leather. The pheromones. The willing mouths and supple flesh escaping into a world made full by gyrating limbs, lustful desires, swelled pants and unleashed pudendum. The facefucks and fistings which follow and the beautiful satisfied smiles of a well nested recovery. I anticipate the displays of dance, song and kink - carrots, prancing ponies and delicious on-stage crudités. I recall the scenes rich with inundating, invading and undulating limbs, the taste of spit, sweat and chemicals, the smell of leather meeting latex. I look forward to seeing you all under the spell of extrasensory passion, projection and voyeuristic pride. I look forward to meeting within the chambers decorated and prepared solely to host the celebration of fuck – where underwear meets underground – watching fantasies realized, sculpted in flesh and breath and the sharing of one’s most secret hopes and desires with hundreds. Rise up children of HEdon and SHEdon – invite Dionysius as your wingman and together we will reclaim the sacred fuck."