I plugged all the text of A Course In Freedom into Wordle.net

This is the image I came up with. Click on it to see it full screen.

Rush Limbaugh, and his ignorant, overstuffed shirt commentary about Sandra Fluke has finally ignited a fire in the womb of American women. I believe we may be seeing the beginnings of Woman Spring.

I personally have heard enough of the moral and religious views of sexually repressed males who insist on humiliating, suppressing and controlling female sexuality. There’s been a war raging against women – and it’s not going to just blow over.

What are guys like Limbaugh so afraid of anyway? Why are they trying so desperately to hang onto old-time religious views of women and sex?

And here’s the big question. Why can’t women do what they want without someone with “conservative values” looking into their business?

You see Rush, contrary to what your mommy and daddy taught you about morality, religion and sex, the bottom line here is that men and women are equally entitled to freely enjoy sex and pleasure. It’s none of anybody’s business, much less yours.

There is no valid modern day argument against pleasure. There is no universe, other than a completely out dated one, where it makes sense for humanity to continue to humiliate, diminish and control females and their sexuality.

The brainwashing of Americans against women, and more specifically female sexuality, may finally be showing signs of cracks. Perhaps this time we will rally around sexual liberty and true equality for women. Just maybe, this spring will be a Woman’s Spring. We have to say no this moral war on women.

When it comes to casual sex, are men and women really that different?

For starters, most people would argue that men and women are different when it comes to sex. But here is the inescapable conclusion I have come to over the years: women want sex as much as men do – however, they require different conditions for casual sex to be appealing. This has been both my observation and my experience.

Conservative values, and religion specifically has attempted to destroy sexual pleasure for men and women – but it has focused its wrath specifically on female pleasure. Women are whores if they are too sexual. Women are sluts if they explore their deepest sexual desires. These labels have become mental, emotional, and orgasmic prisons for many women – especially when it comes to “casual” sex.

For example, in a landmark study from the 1980’s, when random women were solicited by random men for casual sex – women turned the men down 100 percent of the time. Men on the other hand only turned down random solicitations by women 25 to 31 percent of the time. But the 1980’s were still the dark ages for female sexuality.

Back then, our thinking was stuck in the idea that women were not naturally promiscuous – and so that’s what was being studied. When researchers saw female promiscuity in nature, they just assumed something was wrong with those females.

But what happens when we change the elements of the study ever so slightly – updating it to the realities of current science?

Psychologist Terri Conely explored this question in a groundbreaking 2011 study. She refined the question of casual sex for females by suggesting that a safe, physically attractive random lover had the potential to give her a positive sexual experience. Under these conditions, women were just as likely to accept sex with a random partner as were men.

So what does this mean? It’s taken us two thousand years to understand something that the writers of the bible perhaps understood implicitly – that pleasure drives female sexual behavior – and therefore in order to control female sexuality, it is female pleasure that must be controlled.

A kiss is just a kiss, unless you are the pope. Last month Benetton was forced to pull one of the images from its “Unhate” ad campaign down, after Vatican lawyers threatened to sue them in an effort to block distribution of the “offending” image.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

The Vatican contends that image offends “not only the dignity of the Pope and the Catholic Church, but also the sensibilities of believers,” their statement said.

That is about the only thing that the Vatican and I agree upon. The statement acknowledges that followers of Catholicism are “believers.”

There it is in black and white.

Believers are not necessarily rationalists. Nor are believers independent thinkers. Believers believe. They accept as true the religion of Catholicism and the godly status of the pope – regardless of endless mountains of concrete evidence to the contrary – including this very campaign.

I mean, the fact that the ad came out at all – and that the pope who supposedly regularly talks to God – didn’t get a full update from God, tells me that the pope full of crap.

If I know anything, I know production. And I know that an ad like this takes a long time to work through the approval chain, and then execute. God had plenty of time to give the pope a little courtesy “heads up.”

But what is so “undignified” about two guys kissing anyway? All these nutty religious leaders play dress up pretend all the time. Is a kiss on the lips such a far stretch?

And who knows, maybe God likes the advertisement, or at least, unlike the Vatican, has a sense of humor.

After all, it is kind of funny to watch the pope get his papal-panties all in a bunch over two adult men kissing.

I graduated from Syracuse University. You can imagine my dismay, when Sunday night, I received an email from the Chancellor. She said she had fired long time assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine.

The reason? Child abuse allegations from three men who claim that Fine molested them as children. Not surprisingly, Fine has denied the accusations. However, it was the third man coming forward that prompted police to search Fine’s home this weekend for evidence.

I’m glad the Chancellor took immediate action. It is warranted.

What makes these types of crimes against children so egregious is that they happen behind the good name of a university – like Penn State or SU – which are implicitly expected to maintain a safe space for children to learn in. And that is exactly why men like Fine and Sandusky are able to hide their activities in plain sight. They can abuse behind the squeaky clean, power-machine of a great sports university. They start to believe they can’t be touched. And for both of these men, for a very long time, that was true.

Here’s the problem: rape accusations, especially from children, are treated like second class crimes because they are difficult to prove and prosecute. The only reason the Syracuse case is coming to light is because that young man made a tape recording of the conversation that he had with Fine’s wife – in which she admitted to knowing “everything that went on.” He turned that tape over to the Syracuse University police department, and to ESPN who, this weekend, broke the story.

Child abuse cases and rape cases are often given to rookie detectives because they lack hard evidence, and are so often a case of he said/she said. Little kid vs. big, well known, respected, vaunted, authority figure. No blood, bullets, or broken bones. No CSI-like story lines. Just massive emotional trauma. More experienced detectives don’t want the trouble.

But why Syracuse, and why now?

Because abused and molested children often feel powerless, frozen, empty, ashamed – alone in their pain. They feel helpless to fight against their power wielding abusers. However, when the Penn State story broke, making national news and bringing down a sports dynasty, helpless and hopeless men suddenly believed they too had a chance against a Goliath.

It takes time, perhaps decades, for a young boy to feel safe enough within himself, and gain the strength needed to look a molester in the eye – withstand the pressure – and say unflinchingly “you did this to me.”

As details continue to emerge from the Penn State, Syracuse University debacle, there may be further cases emerging over the coming months, as those who have been shamed into silence realize that somebody, somewhere, is willing to take their somber story seriously.

Humans harness the power of feedback loops everyday.

We have the ability to take feedback from our environment, resonate with it in an emotional way, and translate that into action. This is called adaptation. Our ability to adjust to an ever changing external reality is essential to our psychological well being as well as our physical survival.

Humans have another curious ability – denial. We breakdown our own feedback loops. We can look at change and “just say no” to what we are seeing.

Denial mixed with blind self-importance leads to flat out disregard for reality.

For decades I have been hearing people claim that they are capable of keeping themselves safe by thinking “good” thoughts. The idea is, if I think good thoughts, then good things will happen. It’s a simplistic view of the world that is very sweet, but is best suited for infants.

More disturbing is when I hear otherwise intelligent people argue that “there is no AIDS” or STI’s or cancer. Disease deniers believe if they elevate their consciousness to the supreme level of their defacto cult leader, or god/goddess purity, then they will be protected from “dis-ease”.

A good cult leader makes his or her living expounding the value of denial. She or he often openly disregards reality and convinces everyone around them – anyone who will listen – that their irrational beliefs are right, true, just. If you agree, you are part of the enlightened tribe. If you don’t, you are doomed.

This type of thinking is a standard Category III myth construction. It boils down to “You are either with me, or against me”. Many followers lack the psychological fortitude to withstand the pressure of a leader and therefore ultimately succumb to cultish, group-think.

Over the years, I have seen well intending but delusional “spiritual” leaders and followers loose touch with feedback loops from the outside world. Critical thinking is trained away. In spiritual circles, this is often the explicit goal: to listen to Spirit, God, Goddess, Allah, Jesus, Yahweh, the Universe, exclusively. I have watched many thousands of people destroy their lives in pursuit of the mythological ideal that the world needs saving.

This ideal is flawed however. The world doesn’t need saving at all. It’s a mess. It’s always been a mess. And, as long as there is any life at all, it will continue to be a mess. Just when we think we have it all figured out, life changes again.

We can either adapt ourselves to reality – or deny it. Either way, there is no person, religion, cult, or ideal that can possibly contain the ever changing nature of this life.

Listen here to one of the Intimacy Forum’s first interviews with top intimacy experts…Thank you to the amazing dynamic Lawrence Lanoffand Tahil Gesyuk for this insightful discussion on the Art of Intimacy & Connection…

Intimacy-Fourm-Interview_Lawrence-Lanoff

2nd Chakara_Sex Center Meditation

Here is the link to our last call. Enjoy!

I want to share a little secret that I have this week. I love my own sexual energy. Really. I totally accept and love it. My sexual energy makes me feel alive. You might even say I’m in love with my own sexual energy. It makes me smile. It makes me happy. It kinda makes me high.

The other night I was in a bar having a burger when the bartender and I began talking. I could tell that she’s a sensual, sexual woman and I was certain that she gets hit on by drunk guys a lot, so we just began talking about that. I was curious how her boyfriend deals with her energy and the attention she receives. She said, “not very well.” The subtext was that she felt totally ashamed of her sensual energy and her desires – and the fact that she gets hit on. She kept talking about being a good person – as if being sensual in anyway is bad.

After a while, I asked her to step outside with me for a moment. I wanted to teach her my little secret. I told her to feel the pure feeling of her own sexual energy for just a moment. The pure sensation of it. No story. No shame. “Just giving yourself permission right now to feel the pure energy – without voices, judgement, fear, shame,” I said.

I asked her to listen to her own sexual energy like she listens to a friend in need because – for most all of us – our sexual energy is a friend in need. The kind of listening I’m speaking of is an open, open minded, empathetic listening. One free of the residues of thinking. Just pure feeling. Pure sensation. Openness. Relaxation.

Within about a minute or so, her body began vibrating. In this case I did a simple loop with her. We began feeling in the back of the heart, flowing down the back of the spine, down the back of the legs, down about 10 feet into the earth, back up the front of the legs, flowing through the perineum, g-spot, clitoris, up the belly through the front of the heart, to the throat, forehead, to about a foot above the head, then down the back of the head, back of the spine, back of the heart, completing the loop, and beginning again. the whole loop can be done in a matter of seconds.

It’s a very simple exercise, but within two minutes she was getting high off her own sexual energy. Pure, raw, open, she began to cry, then laugh, then cry some more. “I don’t know what to do with all this energy,” she said. I told her to relax into it, like relaxing into a hot bath.

It’s an honor to feel our own sexual energy in its simplicity – without it being in reference to anybody else. It all comes from you anyway – your brain, your central nervous system, chemistry, your body.

This is exactly how I surf my own sexual energy. I can bring my awareness to it and feel it whenever I want – independent of any one or anything else.

Sex is neither good nor bad, it simply is. Just like electricity or any other natural power, sex is a hugely abundant resource that is to be loved, nurtured, coaxed and honored by ourselves first and foremost and then, if we choose, shared with a partner.

I suggest that we loose the label of good / bad regarding our sexual energy all together since that label – no matter how it’s used – creates shame and guilt, blame and self judgement, especially in comparison to others. You don’t judge your lamp as being a slut because you can turn her on whenever you want and flow electricity through her body. Why not grant yourself the same freedom?