Tom Shakti replies to my post "Why I Don't Fuck 'Spiritual Guys'"

Last March, I wrote a piece (originally for Corset Magazine) called "Why I Don't Fuck 'Spiritual Guys'." It definitely caused quite a stir and I received all kinds of comments: people thanking me for exposing these guys; people enjoying the humor; people wondering if I was talking about them; and people downright accusing me of being an angry bitch who couldn't get laid (which was shocking, considering that the latter's names linked back to several yoga retreats--I was expecting a little more "enlightenment" from them).

In any case, meet Tom Shakti, a Sensitive New-Age Guy (SNAG) who was particularly miffed at the piece. In all fairness, I did use a video of him as an example of the type of guy to which I was referring. But he does get a little, shall we say, personal in his criticism of me.

My response? Namaste, Tom...namaste.

Oh, and hey--don't give up. You can always try HippieDates.com.

The Nobility of Sex, a.k.a. 7 Non-Sexual Tips (Plus 1 Video!) to Spice Up Your Sex Life

Photo by Lianne Viau

READ THIS ARTICLE ON ELEPHANTJOURNAL.COM

“The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, and plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.” ~ Audre Lorde

Yup. You asked for it (even if you won’t admit it). Another article on everyone’s favorite topic: SEX!

(End of snarky intro)

I’ve noticed a trend on elephantjournal.com these past few months of authors and readers decrying the popularity of more ‘salacious’ and‘fluffy’ content and ruing the fact that ‘deeper’ and ‘more meaningful’ pieces often get overlooked. I have also seen a number of people complain that all this talkof sex is empty if you don’t also mention love.

The argument goes that all you have to do is put up a picture of a scantily-clad woman, have a title promoting the ‘3 Easy Steps to Being a Mega Sex-Machine’ and bandy about the words cock and pussy and BAM! Instant ele hit.

Now look: as a sexuality writer, I will be the first one to roll my eyes at some of the schlock that gets published. All the tips and tricks to snag a husband, make her come like a volcano or lose weight so you aren’t a flabby troll who can’t even get laid by a blind man can actually be damaging, prey upon our cultural insecurity and push our sex back into the shadowy recesses of shame.

However, when my work (and the work of my very talented ele peers) are linked to these complaints, I have to speak up. To question the journalistic validity of an article simply because there’s a ‘helpful’ list or it focuses on sex or there’s only a video and little writing is not only blatantly arrogant—it’s downright insulting.

I’m truly sorry that every single piece on elephantjournal doesn’t get the kind of attention it deserves. I have read and re-posted some gorgeous pieces that unfortunately got lost in the electronic fray. However, that is the nature of being an artist. We may create many, many pieces, but only one becomes a Guernica or a Mona Lisa.

In my opinion, I don’t think people are tired of hearing or talking about sex. In fact, I think we are actually starving for frank, in-depth conversations about sex. I think what people are tired of is SEX-SATIONALISM—that is to say, the titillating ‘tee hee hee’ that sits on top of our own sexual shame, hunger and insecurity. We get a ‘hit’ when we Youtube search for various ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ and pop-star lesbian makeouts (and no thank you, I do not need to see a busty woman when purchasing an automobile or deodorant). We become sex-crack junkies, opting for the quick fix in the syringe rather than making the more vulnerable choice of asking directly for the sex we want.

Also, many people tired of SEX-SEXSATIONALISM are erroneously suggesting that sex is meaningless unless there is love attached. The assumption is that love is greater than sex and that sex simply for the pleasure of sex is somehow vacant.

Are you kidding me?

First, sex without love simply doesn’t exist. Love is everything. It’s in everything we do. We are love. It is impossible to escape it, whether you are fucking, eating, pooping, walking, crying or writing. Our capacity to allow ourselves to feel it may fluctuate, but the truth of the matter is that love is the ineludible breath of orgasm. Even when we feel dead and disconnected from the world, love is there—we are often too proud to accept it, but it waits gracefully and patiently for us to acknowledge it.

Second, it is my belief that we are confusing romance with love and sex. We have this belief that sex is only OK as long as we do it ‘tantrically’ with someone with whom we are ‘in love’ and to whom we plan on making a lifelong, monogamous commitment. Balderdash. Some of my deepest and most transformative life experiences were one-night stands, bathroom sex and sex with people who were already in committed relationships—all of which were saturated in love. 

I actually think romance and other ‘rule-based’ excuses for sex are poisoning our ability to fully open. They sit on top of our pleasure, like an angry schoolmarm, punishing us for enjoying anything that deviates from a prescribed code of social respectability. To connect to our sexual authenticity, we need to strip sex down to its barest essentials: you, your partner and the sensation at the point of connection. That’s it. I am not tossing off sex with a committed partner. I give thanks every day for the gift of my Beloved. But I had to peel off the layers of what I thought my sex and love should look like in order to recognize and receive him.

Third, having sex simply because it feels good is not only OK—it’s the most noble reason of all. We have somehow adopted the myth that pleasure equals "lack of self-control" and that denial equals "being a good person." Perhaps this is a throwback to the "martyrdom makes you a saint" dogma espoused by many popular religions. However, in my mind, nothing is more noble, innocent and pure than surrendering to the pleasure of our bodies. The pleasure we feel of a soft cat's fur under our fingertips. The pleasure we feel of a ripe fig bursting between our teeth. The pleasure we feel of warm sun against cool skin.

And yes, the pleasure of sex. The sparks of electricity that ripple across the small of my back when my lover licks my ear. The glow in my heart when I connect intimately with another person. The curious bliss of deepening relationship. The playful thrill of adventure. The stirring of the soul in creating new life.

I neither trust nor enjoy sex if I or my partners have other agendas—romantic or otherwise. If you are having sex to impress someone, make your ego feel good, negotiate a transaction (i.e. I will eat you out if you suck my cock), disassociate from life, snag a relationship or anything other than surrendering to the pleasure found in our exquisite and miraculous bodies, then it’s not an act of love, but manipulation.

Now, I cannot help but notice that a great majority of our sex writers at elephantjournal are female and that most (if not all) of those who are ‘sick of sex’ and wanting more ‘spiritually enlightening articles’ are male. This, to me, is an indicator of the taboo surrounding female sexuality and the continuous sexism that blankets the more feminine spiritual paths.

 Audre Lorde says:

“The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives.”

The world of sex is feminine: dark, uncertain, combustible, frightening. It is a spiritual path that pulls us down into the mud of humanity before we can push off the ground into the more celestial (and masculine) realms of consciousness. So when I see my fellow sister-authors (and brothers as well) gather the courage to share their erotic opening with the world (yes, that includes E.L. James, regardless of your opinion of 50 Shades), I want to scream from the rooftops “Write on! Your expression is my inspiration! Your voice is my healing!”

We each have our niche—that thing that calls forth from us our greatest power. Yours may be vipassana. Someone else’s may be crocheting. Mine is sex and orgasm. Perhaps if I wrote about cookie baking or child rearing, you might be able to categorize me in a socially acceptable binder full of women.

I genuinely pay tribute to the vibrant community elephantjournal fosters and the myriad of voices that come out to play. Questioning and challenging are important and encouraged—it spurs personal and social creativity. But writing off other people’s work as cheap or ‘simply trying to make a name for themselves’ is simply disrespectful.

So. For those of you who are tired of reading about sex (but not really) and need a list and a video to satiate your ele appetite, I humbly offer you 7 Non-Sexual Tips (Plus 1 Video!) to Spice Up Your Sex Life:

1. Chew your food slowly. Savor the experience. Use all five senses and allow the flavor to slide over your body.

      2. Express gratitude. When you come from fullness and approval, it expands your capacity to receive.

      3. Do something loving for yourself every day. If you know how to love yourself, you will take nothing less from anyone else. 

      4. Practice service. When you recognize your abundance and allow it to spill over, your joy transforms you into the most attractive person in the room. 

      5. Break the rules. Violate the ‘No’s’ and ‘Can’ts’ in your life and you will be bold enough to do it in the bedroom. 

      6. Surround yourself with beauty. When you know what gives you pleasure, you can recognize it and ask for it.  

      7. Laugh. It takes the pressure off to perform and connects you to the crooked perfection of life.

PLUS! Obligatory humorous sex video!

"I Just Had Sex!" (Cultivating Gratitude and Humor)

View this article on elephantjournal.com

“You think this is just another day in your life? It’s not just another day. It’s the one day that is given to you…today. It’s given to you. It’s a gift. It’s the only gift you have right now and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.” ~ Brother David Steindl-Rast, from Louis Schwartzberg’s TEDxSF talk on “Gratitude”

I’ve recently started attending a weekly Native American tobacco ceremony. From the outside the ritual seems simple: everyone sits in a circle, says a brief prayer for the things for which they need help and smokes the sacred pipe.

However, within the basic framework lies an experience full of connection, humbleness and vulnerability. Through witnessing another in communion with his or her Creator, you realize that each person’s prayer is actually your prayer. To have someone speaking your heart’s deepest yearnings is a swift reminder that we are separated only by the most trivial of differences.

Which makes sense. To walk around as a boundaryless open heart all day, feeling the pain, hope and wonder of each person that breathes near us would render us perpetually incapacitated. After all, we have cubicles to inhabit, student loans to pay off and episodes of Weeds to download.

Hence this weekly sacrament of public surrender is like ambrosia for the emaciated soul. We walk around with our poker faces on, pretending like life is just “fine” and that we have everything “under control.” So simply saying the words “I need help” is enough to sucker punch us in the arrogant gut of our social deception. Yet it is through these cracks in the armor that life’s blessings can fill our cups of longing.

The thing is that most of us carry thimbles where we have room for chalices; so even when can let in a little bit of the good, we fill up quickly and look for ways to manage the excess. One common way is to expel the energy through complaint. It’s a lazy way to avoid doing the work to discover what we truly want, as well as shirks the responsibility for your happiness to someone or something else. It’s easy to be angry at your friends if you throw a party and no one attends—but if you don’t give us explicit directions on how to get to your house, you are setting yourself (and the rest of us) up for failure.

We look for what’s wrong with life. We hold onto the idea that life happens “to” us, as if we are some sad little puppet, rather than becoming active participants in the experience. We have a thousand ways to talk about what’s shitty in our lives and virtually no language for what’s good.

Nowhere do I see more of this than in the arena of sex. It’s an area loaded with confusion, shame and resentment smothered by a lacquer of bravado, victimhood or just plain avoidance. It’s also the place where we are most desperate to be touched and where a mountain of excuses resides to keep us small and safe:

I’m not getting enough

I’m too old/fat/inexperienced

No one knows how to touch me

I can’t last long enough

My partner is blocked

I’m fine, but they have a problem

All the good ones are taken

It’ll never happen for me

The art of receiving what you want is something we are rarely taught and yet it’s the foundation of sexual maturity (and is required for vibrant and nourishing sex lives). First, we must have the courage to admit that we are hungry and that it is no one else’s responsibility but our own to feed us.

Once we decide to follow our desires, rather than live in the world of complaint, we must then undergo the task of expanding our thimbles into chalices. If we want more, we need to grow big enough to hold more.

Again, I take my inspiration from the pipe ceremony. There, the way we are taught to pray is that before you ask for what you want, you must first express gratitude for what you have in your life right now. It changes the perspective, so that your desires come from a place of abundance and attraction, rather than lack and rejection of what is. You mentally and energetically set yourself up to receive.

Think of it this way: each time you say “thank you,” you find your location on the map of desire and widen the net for the universe to bring you more. Conversely each complaint is energy wasted that could have been used to express yourself and surrender deeper into pleasure.

Recently, I was making love and towards the end, I found myself in a state of overwhelm—the energy was high, I was feeling physically exhausted and my mind was flipping out on whether or not he was happy. We’d lost the connection and I started crying and blaming myself for ‘fucking it all up.’

“Do you want to check in with me?” he asked.
“Ok,” I simpered.
 "Well, the first three-quarters of that was some of the most amazing sex we’ve ever had together.”

Oh. Well that changes things.

Because I was approaching our sex from fear-based, life-or-death-stakes mindset, all I could see was the negative: any perceived ‘fuck up’ was going to lessen my value as a human and I would end up dead and unloved in a crappy studio apartment in the Tenderloin (fear-based mind also tends to bring out the drama queen).

Had I been in my abundance and gratitude, I would have stood up on the bed, ripped off my chain & turtleneck sweater and sang “I Just Had Sex!”

Which brings me to my second point: the importance of cultivating humor in sex.

We’re all human. Being able to laugh at ourselves in the face of our sheer incompetence is what makes being alive bearable. Humor takes the life-or-death-stakes view on sex and infuses it with space and permission. As one of the clumsiest people on the planet, I’ve had my fair share of teeth-banging kisses, cum & snot-nosed BJs and mid-coital pussy farts. You just gotta laugh at that shit because we’ve all been there.

You are allowed to make mistakes. You are allowed not to have the answer. You are allowed to curiously fumble into the unknown. In fact, that is where the best sex happens. When your rational mind throws its hands in the air and says ‘Fuck it! I’m just gonna let it all hang out and have fun,’ you go from being a warrior on the battlefield to a child in a sandbox—totally unaware of people’s eyes on you and unattached to what is created.

Play for the sake of play.

And really, why have sex for any other reason other than for fun? Of course there’s also procreation and shared intimacy—but if you’ve lost the spirit of play in the process, then I suggest slowing down, re-evaluating your desires and re-connecting to your own pleasure.

Because ultimately sex is fun—and silly and weird and confronting and undeniably human. We should celebrate that: the slips, trips, bumps and falls as well as the bliss, joy, ecstasy and intimacy.

So no matter how your sex expresses itself these days—whether you humped three people this morning or haven’t kissed anyone in ten years—take the time to be thankful for your sexuality. You are alive, right now, a sexual being on this planet, and you have the unique opportunity to go on a rich and hilarious journey into the heart of your own desire.

Just don’t forget to pack the Gratitude…

…and Humor.