Sexuality is a pretty sensitive topic, in most cultures. There are delicate nuances to become aware of, from quite young, about what is right or wrong, acceptable, or condemned.
We learn through flashes of conversation, or words, or gestures what people might be doing or not doing. Some of us have more exposure than others. It seems the adults are involved in something that children aren’t quite in tune with yet.
Many of us learn in a more direct manner about the biology and physiology of human sexuality in school, or from books.
The dictionary defines sexuality as the capacity to have responses or feelings that are filled with desire.
And yet so many people grapple with conflict around their own desires or other peoples’ desires.
We think “I don’t WANT to be capable of having desires! I want to STOP all feelings of desire! And while we’re at it….I want those disgusting other people to stop THEIR feelings of desire! Someone could get hurt!”
DESIRE. There is either too much or not enough of it. Plus it’s dangerous to even mention.
We think bad things happen when there is too much desire, like overeating. Like there is a phantom or ghost who wants to eat and eat and doesn’t get satiated. It’s obsessive, over-heated, crazed, powerful.
Bad things happen when there is too little desire, like numbness, lack of feeling, lack of fun, like loss of appetite, carefulness, fear, solitude.
Socrates said, “Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”
This study of desire and attraction grows the awareness of the flashlight beam pointing towards THAT THING OVER THERE. The feelings surrounding it all can be incredibly fascinating when we look, without so much judgment.
The first time I wrote a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet on someone with whom I was in a love relationship including physical contact, I edited myself the whole way through. I skipped the specific moments that brought out the most rage because those moments happened in intimate situations.
Then I realized that I had done this, and I wrote it freely, with all my petty, mean, vicious, angry judgments pouring forth. I thought to myself, I will just keep this to myself and do The Work on these thoughts ALL BY MYSELF. I will NEVER get facilitated on this.
But then I heard Byron Katie working with people on moments of physical or sexual contact with other people that were very troubling, and I remembered that when I first read Loving What Is, I almost gasped out loud when reading about a woman who was sexually abused as a child with an adult.
I thought, “Wait….you mean Katie is talking about even looking at THIS when it comes to our relationship with reality? But this IS terrible and horrifying and damaging for life, I could NEVER accept it!”
I wrote down my most foul, caustic, violent thoughts about those terrible abusers that mixed sexuality up with power and fear. I wanted to know the truth, for myself.
One day, I was driving by the strip club that is about a mile from my little cottage. I wrote down my thoughts later on this horrible place, that I hoped my children didn’t notice, even though there is a gigantic pair of women’s legs flashing in neon light 24 hours a day.
Then it occurred to me that I had never actually been inside the place, or any place like it, and I was scared of it. My ideas were all based on movies, hearsay and fear. I was mad at the sign…but what was that about?
A couple of weeks later, I went inside.
I looked, with open eyes, and had a very wide range of thoughts and feelings about all of it. I noted my most stressful thoughts. I had thoughts about the dancers, the men, the people who worked there, the person taking tickets…I mean, everyone there had so many problems!
Wow. I also saw beauty, and I saw that I didn’t really know what was going on.
By doing The Work this experience, I got the opportunity to ask more people about their experiences of attraction, romance, lust, and the differences between all of them. I asked people, if I could find them, why they liked going to such places, what they got out of it. It was so fascinating.
I got to facilitate many people through their beliefs about situations they felt disturbed by in their own lives that were similar.
I went for it and got facilitated by actual people on my own interests, attractions, lust, desires…by questioning awkward moments, scary moments, uncomfortable weird moments with other humans, I have grown beyond any boundaries I ever had around this topic.
To get that everyone is doing the best they can, is truly amazing. To get how fear brings on this huge wall of resistance and pain is such a relief.
I’ve never been interested in returning to the strip club, but I also notice, I’ve never thought the sign shouldn’t be there flashing itself anymore. Right now in this moment as I write, I discover I forgot all about it.
Next week there is still space in the teleclass Our Wonderful Sexuality class starting on Tuesday evenings 1/22 Pacific time (6:30-8:00 pm). If you’ve had the thought that you would never want to expose, or write about, or do the work “publicly” on this topic relating to sexuality or anything like it….this is a super safe, open container for questioning your most painful beliefs about it.
We have eight sessions and eight different exercises designed to help you write about those uncomfortable or disturbing situations that you want to investigate. Then we take the stressful thoughts to inquiry!
“We do not know what is outside the walls of the prison of our mind, because we have never ventured there. While our fear projects what is there, it cannot know. Fear cannot leave the prison because it must always guard its inmates. But, if the self collapses, if the walls come down, is it fear that remains, or is it freedom?” ~ Steven Harrison in Doing Nothing.
Love, Grace