The Friday Sex Blog [Childhood Sexuality]

Hola mi Gente,

It's supposed to be a great weekend. Personally, I've spending he bulk of my free time looking for a place to live. Again, if you know of anyone renting a studio or room, please let me know.

Have a great weekend!

Raising Children as Sexual Beings

And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear.

-- William Blake (1757–1827) Songs of Innocence

Throughout most of Western history, children have been brought up as innocent, asexual beings. But the fact is that children are most certainly not asexual. All the sexual organs capable of providing pleasure are present and children are sexual creatures from birth. Of course, I’m not proposing that theirs is the same sexuality we know as adults, but it is nonetheless a form of sexuality.

Freud was almost burned at the stake for essentially saying the same thing. 

The baby playing with your breast is at least sensual if not sexual. The two-year-old who crawls into bed between Mommy and Daddy is sexual, albeit not in the same capacity, nor the explicit sexual intent of an adult. The five year-old girl who dresses up and sits on her father’s lap kissing him and asking him if he will marry her when she grows up, is sexual. The seven-year-old, who is masturbating, probably to orgasm, is sexual. The eight year-old prancing around in blissful innocent nakedness is sexual. These are all examples of children passing through learning stages on the way to evolving into adult sexual beings. Many would find what I just wrote disturbing and I would refer those to my previous postings on sexual repression. The fact remains that some of the above behavior is a mimicking of Mommy and Daddy and some from natural bodily curiosity. Whatever the case, it is all sexual though not necessarily with the adult’s awareness or emotional capacity of what sexuality means.

The major problem in childhood sexuality has always been the adult’s own hang-ups, discomfort, and embarrassment with sex. There is the tendency to ignore children’s sexual questions and behaviors, a tendency to believe that we don’t have to answer children’s sexual questions because they couldn’t possibly know what they are asking. This serves to deny the child’s sexuality because of the adult’s own uneasiness. The consequence, of course, is that the child gets the message that she is asking an improper question that her parent disapproves of, therefore the child will stop risking her parent’s rejection or anger, keep quiet, and wonder silently to herself.

Meanwhile, the child feels embarrassment, shame, and, worst of all, remains ignorant of sex, many even reaching adulthood experiencing excessive sexual inhibitions, the inability to orgasm, or the experience of an unwanted pregnancy.

Modern neurological research has shown that our physiology is like a feedback loop. In other words, our bodies are wired for touch and relationships. This is why Eastern philosophies stressing that we are not at all separate sacks of flesh, but part of a web of reality are so on point. Cuddling, demonstrations of affection, kissing, etc., all actually have a direct impact on a child’s brain structure. For any interested in learning more about this I recommend the elegantly written A General Theory of Love.

Physical contact is essential for children. In many ways it’s even more important than food. Studies have long shown that children in orphanages, for example, who received adequate nourishment but were not held, cuddled, kissed, and caressed, could not thrive and often became ill. But in our culture, it is common to discontinue physical contact as the child grows older, especially with sons. Then, after marriage, we’re supposed to miraculously respond emotionally and physically without inhibitions. This is true of both men and women raised in household in which contact was taboo and emotional unavailability was the norm. What was initially natural for them as children was conditioned out of them as they grew older.

Many of us were raised in families in which touching was expressly forbidden and so we pass this down to our children. Others may be terrified of any sexual fantasies causing them to maintain an emotional and physical distance in an effort to repress unacceptable sexual feelings. Believe it or not, sexual feelings for our children are normal and begin early. Many mothers, for example, report having such fantasies at least occasionally.

There’s a considerable difference between sexual fantasies and obsessive ideation or acting out on them. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Acting them out will be extremely detrimental to the child, to say the least, while having fantasies is harmless. It has been my observation that repressing such thoughts often result in increasing the likelihood of acting out. This is why I always say that repression is not morality. Once we push aspects of our sexuality into the shadows, they emerge later as overwhelming and largely subconscious compulsions.

There is no reason to keep children from knowing that sex is an enjoyable, pleasurable activity; that sex is for fun first and for babies second. It is ridiculous (not to mention developmentally detrimental) to deny the physical side of a loving relationship. It is important for children to see their parents embrace, kiss, cuddle, and act affectionately toward one another. In our culture, however, this does not mean making love in front of the children, though if you’re a parent you’re probably aware of the fantastic ability young children have at opening up doors at the most inopportune moments. It might be good to let your child know that you make love in the privacy of your bedroom; that during that time you would rather not be disturbed and any questions or problems can wait until afterward. 

To treat sex with dignity and love rather than shrouding it in mystery and shame is an excellent way of instilling a child with a healthy sexual attitude. Children’s sexual exploration is like all other areas of exploration. For the child it is the primary way of learning about her environment and how to make a place for herself within it. Exploration can include a girl urinating while standing up like a boy, wearing make-up like mother, playing doctor with other boys and girls down the street, and later on even exploring sexual feelings with a girlfriend.

Physical and playful relationships with two or more girls or two or more boys is a more common than we like to admit and a natural part of the growing up process. It does not mean that the child is heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Each child will have the chance to grow into its sexual orientation later in life. This experimentation is a part of the developmental process for many children and not a cause for alarm or worry. One should work hard not to have the child feel ashamed about the expression of budding sexual feelings.

As adults, we do the most harm when we bring our own guilt, shame, and sexually dysfunctional baggage to bear on our children’s’ upbringing.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Friday Sex Blog [Religious Sex]

Hola mi Gente… 

Today  is Friday and it's all about sex here. LOL

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Religious Sex

… Her truth, her altar,
… where the stuttering
of my lips
offers prayers
from an unknown religion
to forgotten Gods.

-- Edward-Yemíl Rosario, © 2008

According to The Big Three (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) the erotic impulse – the world of Eros, the body, and human sexuality – is the domain of the devil. From this perspective, the physical is sinful, bestial, a distraction from all things spiritual. Human sexuality, according to this view, is an obstacle to the high hallowed pursuit of God and everything that is good and ethical. From the moment we are born, we are told that the more we open to the erotic impulse, the more we listen and open to the needs of the body, the more we embrace and enjoy our sexual natures, the further we stray from moral rectitude and emotional well-being.

I write my Friday sex blog mostly because I argue that the opposite is true. I submit that the erotic impulse, honored and liberated from the shackles of guilt and organized forces of suppression, is a legitimate and powerful path toward a profound psycho-spiritual awareness. The sex blog is a call to stop trivializing the erotic/ sexual world as we so often do, as if sex involved nothing more than sensory stimulation, ego gratification, and the pursuit of an orgasm.

Some might see my assumptions as radical. That there is more to sex than the giddy pursuit of carnal pleasure may be hard to accept in the aftermath of the sexual explosion of the 60s and 70s. It was an era when reliable birth control, combined with an awakening feminism, political consciousness-raising, and the movements for gay, lesbian, and bisexual liberation released us from some of our legacy of sexual oppression and fear. However, I also argue that it is precisely our failure to recognize the depth of the erotic impulse that is at the root of our current dissatisfaction with our sexual nature.

Once we began to shake loose the shackles of repression, we were as the proverbial children let loose in candy store. In the time of so-called free love, we seemed to want nothing more than to consume as many erotic experiences as we could. We were, after all, sexually starved beings emerging from fifteen hundred years lost in a wasteland into a world of lush jungles bursting with exotic fruit. I was there, and it was an exciting time in the cultural history of Western sexuality, and an important first step in freeing ourselves from the repressive world on the 50s – the white-picket-fence, clean and tidy, sexual suburbia of post-war United States.

Released from decades of sexual repression, we had more sex in more ways (with your mouth, your ass, with a vibrator, within groups, or with people of your own gender), than ever before. But even as we feasted on erotic delights we also discovered, even as we celebrated breaking down the political, religious, and cultural inhibitions, that there were limits to the path were on. The new synthesis, to borrow from Hegel, had created a new antithesis. The crest of the wave was moving faster than the base and there were rocks up ahead. Jumping into the sexual realm, we found ourselves confronted with a landscape we could not have expected and did not know how to interpret.

As much as we would like to trivialize energies, we must realize that whenever we play with erotic energy, we engage both emotional and archetypal forces that have their roots in the very heart of who we are as human beings, in how we define ourselves and relate to the world around us. Entering consciously into the erotic world raises issues and feelings, for example, around usually unfulfilled desires rooted in infancy – desires to be held and nurtured. It touches our prenatal memories of being at one with another human being, around ego boundaries, and the blurring of personalities, and around surrendering control. The erotic impulse always raises all the issues related to intimacy – the desire to be close to someone else, the fear of becoming lost or smothered, and all the past yearnings, wounds, and disappointments we have experienced. Being sexual brings us face to face with issues of our perceived worthiness to receive love or pleasure, as well as when and how we want, or don’t want, to extend these ways of caring expressions to another.

Going deeper, the emotions released by deep erotic experiences, we were perhaps confronted with anger, passion, even rage which we may find embarrassing or disturbing. We find ourselves dealing with issues of power, and of trust. Going deeper still, erotic experiences takes us down to basic feelings about the balance of chaos and order, and even to an experience that many describe as a direct contact to the Divine.

As a sexual philosopher and explorer, I believe my perspective is very different. I see the sexual experience as path for exploring the very meaning of life. I see the attempt to pursue awakening only through a disembodied mentality as wrongheaded and culturally biased. Perhaps it’s a consequence of a spirituality dominated by male spiritual teachers who defined an embodied feminine way of engaging the world as inferior.

Sex is a matter of energy. Once you have learned to experience orgasm as an energy event outside the sexual context, you take responsibility for your own well-being in sex. You realize that the true source of your pleasure lies not so much in your partner as within yourself.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Friday Sex Blog [Celibacy]

Hola mi Gente,

It’s Friday! Hope you have a great weekend.

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Celibacy

The only sexual perversion is celibacy.

I will submit that celibacy has become the last sexual perversion in America. Sure, medically speaking, celibacy is relatively safe, non-harmful, and carries no risk of a sexually transmitted disease. But as a former colleague who is a sex educator stated recently during a discussion of abstinence: “It’s safe, but is it sex?”

It’s an important question, more important than it may seem at first.

Essentially, celibacy is self-denial, an inhibition of sex. And as I have said repeatedly, repression is a poor substitute for morality. Furthermore, when we push sex into the darkness, it claims more power over our preconscious intentions. This is why abstinence-only sex education is an abominable failure -- it goes counter to one the most powerful of evolutionary forces. Essentially, to deny sex, is to deny your humanity.

For the purpose of this post, I will define celibacy as sexual abstinence or the state of not being married. These two dynamics are closely related. Celibacy is encouraged by various institutions namely governments and religions for different reasons.

At one time celibacy was the only recourse for women who chose not to submit to a marriage that would place them in a position of servitude. Others, out of necessity, used celibacy to protect their reputations. Conversely, those in arranged marriages took advantage of the religious suppression of sex as an excuse not to have sex with their spouse (known as agenbioisis -- a couple living together without sex). Most people chose to remain celibate during the absence of their lovers. Others chose it out of fear of intimacy or trauma resulting from being sexually abused. Many more were forced into celibacy due to a lack of available partners. This was true at one time, for example, for male Chinese immigrants in California.

Throughout history, governments have imposed celibacy on people as a way to control population, disease, and for economic reasons. the US military during WW I, for example, urged by fanatical moral reformers and concerned over the potential loss of manpower to venereal disease, encouraged the celibacy of their troops by using propaganda which portrayed sexually responsive women as spies, prostitutes, and disease carriers. Military police were stationed in areas where local women and sex workers frequented. Sexually well-adjusted and/ or responsive women came to be viewed as whores with many being arrested en masse. Ironically, those who were less responsive were viewed by the men as the spoils of war. It should go without saying that none of these attitudes resulted in a culture in which respect for women and their sexuality were valued.

Religious homosexuals who have wanted to remain in a favorable standing with their church have chosen celibacy.

Abstinence is often viewed as character building. However, it can also be seen as a form of sexual repression with definite negative consequences. The occupants of convents and monasteries were often notorious for their sadistic inclinations and, as with the accusers during the European and Salem witch-hunts, delighted in the sexual exposés of others sexual exploits. More recently, the MeeseCommission, charged with defining obscenity, resulted in the accumulation of the world’s largest repository of pornographic material. They probably had a good time.

Aside from serving as a divine justification to burn men and women like me, religious celibacy also serves of focusing the adherent’s attention on a god, looking only to Him or Her for love and approval. This may bond an individual to the church but at the same time destroys any chance they have of learning to look upon others for nurturance, support, and unconditional love/ acceptance. 

Christianity has waged an enduring and influential war against sex. In some sects, the extreme has been the norm. The eighteenth century Shakers, for example, imposed many social restrictions on themselves to avoid erotic stimulation. They weren’t allowed to have pets for fear they might mate before them, nor were they allowed to touch, speak, or walk with someone of the opposite sex.

The only form of sexual release they were allowed was that of ritual dancing (in private) which led some into an altered state of consciousness (which was why they were called “Shakers” -- they shook uncontrollably).

Others practiced celibacy as a way to achieve altered states. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, early Christians who formed the philosophical foundations of the Catholic Church, were influenced by this manner rather than the more usual practice of self-flagellation as a means to do away with sexual feelings. St. Augustine was also the major figure involved in transforming sex from something sacred to something sinful.

The Victorians took celibacy to completely new different heights. They believed that the only justified orgasm was one that was achieved in order to propagate the species. This meant that any type of sex other than penis/ vagina was viewed as unhealthy as well as sinful. During this time, it was also believed that fellatio and cunnilingus could cause cancer and anal sex? Well, let’s just say that anal sex was the worst kind of offense. Suffice it to say that I would have been considered a heretic had I lived during Victorian times.

Certain mystics use celibacy for psychological and spiritual reasons (I totally disagree with spiritual reasons for celibacy, but that’s another post). Mystics often use celibacy to reach “higher” altered states of consciousness. Religious leaders use celibacy as a way of developing a high level of concentration.

There is no documentation on the long-term physical effects of total abstinence, but there should be a concern about the atrophying of the love muscle (the pubococcygeus), which serves to control the spasms during orgasm. There is also some evidence showing that it may not be possible for a woman to orgasm after ten or twenty years of not using this muscle properly. 

In other words, use it or lose it!

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Friday Sex Blog [Censorship]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Every summer, I live (and often die) on the performance of my beloved Mets. I will say that these are a tenacious bunch; we need more hitting, however, if we’re going to make any noise this year…

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-=[ Unnatural Acts]=-
Censorship in America

There’s nothing more natural than the urge to express our sexuality. Almost as reliable as that urge is the societal urge to censor these expressions. I have written before about the more than 2,000-year Christian war against sexuality. I believe sexual censorship is mostly founded on the fear of the power of sexuality to liberate us. At the risk of being slammed let me add, while I'm at it, that some of the most repressed individuals in this regard are often Christianized people of color.

In any case, who reading this can honestly say they have never had a deeply moving experience during sex (any kind of sex)?

Let me start off by noting that numerous sexual activities between consenting adults are restricted and carry extreme legal punishments. Until 1961, all fifty states had criminal laws against various forms of consensual sex between unmarried adults. While it is true that many laws were repealed during the seventies, as recent as 1997, twenty five states -- half the states in the union -- still had laws on the books criminalizing unmarried cohabitation. Fornication, defined as sex between unmarried couples, and “sodomy,” defined as oral and/ or anal intercourse, were (and some cases still are) illegal.

What does this really mean? In eleven states around the country, married couples who engage in oral or anal sex in the privacy of their own homes are committing a criminal act, usually a felony. In Rhode Island, an unmarried man and woman engaging in anal sex can receive anywhere from seven to twenty years in prison. In Michigan, two women were sent to prison for enjoying oral sex in the privacy of their tent in a state park. In South Carolina, “the abominable crime of buggery” (not defined in the statute) is punishable by five years in prison. You might think that these are old laws that remain on the books because they haven’t been questioned and you would be wrong. In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples engaging in “sodomy” don’t have a constitutional right to privacy, upholding Georgia state laws in which consensual oral or anal sex between same-sex couples is a felony.

Today many sex educators are leaving the educational system because they are under a tremendous amount of pressure not to talk about sex. Imagine that: not being able to talk about the very subject in which you hold expertise.

For the most part, “sodomy” laws are used to discriminate against gays and lesbians in housing, employment, and child custody cases, but they can be used to discriminate against straight unmarried couples as well. Considering the Supreme Courts resistance to upholding sexual privacy at the federal level, the best tactic for fighting oppressive sodomy laws is at the state level.

Sexual expression becomes a crime when the materials produced are legally classified as “obscene.” Obscene materials are exempt from First Amendment guarantees of free speech. The legal definition of obscenity and the manner in which this definition is interpreted, determines what sexual materials we have access to and what materials we can create.

The Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity, the de jure law since their Miller v. California ruling, allows states to regulate sexual materials according to their own community standards. These regulations must be restricted to works that “taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex,” that portray sexual conduct in “a patently offensive way,” and that “taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Only materials found by judges or jurors to meet each of three standards of obscenity may be deemed obscene.

Yeah, I’m shaking my head too…

These criteria are astonishingly vague. For example, the dictionary defines “prurience” as “an inordinate interest in matters of sex.” Wow! That’s very specific! Who or how one determines if a photograph has serious scientific value, versus merely scientific value is a road map for First Amendment violations.

If you think this doesn’t affect you adversely, then you’re probably doing a good imitation of an ostrich defensive measure (burying its head in the sand). Sexual censorship is used as a wedge for the sexually repressed to create intolerance and disinformation. One good example is the dismantling of sex Ed courses. “Abstinence-only” sex Ed, courses that teach only sexual abstinence, actually put teens at risk sexually. Teens attending abstinence only sex Ed calluses have been shown to engage in high risk sexual behavior at higher rates than their peers and are more prone to STDs and out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

In addition, any writing or material depicting sex in an honest manner can be censored, not because of the sexual content, but because perhaps the ideas in the material are dangerous to the status quo.

Yes, Virginia, this is the 21^st century and we’re still acting like juveniles.

Love,

Eddie

Resources

American Civil Liberties Union - Non-profit offering educational and legal services to defend First Amendment rights.

National Coalition Against Censorship - grassroots anti-censorship group fighting for freedom of expression.

Electronic Frontier Foundation - Nonprofit protecting civil liberties online.

Feminists for Free Expression - Anti-censorship organization

The Spectrum Institute - Nonprofit membership organization dedicated to protecting the rights of single adults and domestic partners with or without children.