Where did that libido go?

It’s here, don’t worry.  It never went away – it just transformed, a bit.

Holy hell, it’s been a while since I posted and mused and rambled on and on.  A few updates:  work has been kind to me.  VERY kind to me, as a matter of fact.  I went from being unemployed and desperate to working so much I have to manage my time in 15 minute increments.  Thalia has been partnering with a few different entrepreneurs with various business opportunities and has her hand in a share of the pie.  Gone corporate?  Never thought I’d see that day coming, but seems like I’m on that path.  It’ll be interesting to see if I spiral into patterns of sociopathic tendencies.

Next: My health has been up and down, either doing really well or crashing into misery and an ER visit for excessive bleeding.  Looking back, it seems as if nothing much has changed, and I’m in the midst of chaos yet again.  Oh well…..I guess I could accept that I’m on the Roller Coaster Ride of Life rather than the Merry Go Round of Life.  Reminds me of the grandma character from the movie “Parenthood” (wonderful movie by the way).  “I like the roller coaster better.  You get more out of it.”

And lastly, our oldest, who is 18 and ready to go off into the Army in two days, has a child now.  Thalia is a grandmother, and I can’t tell you how absolutely COOL that is.  Looking at children and aging and sex now is like letting go of even more self-imposed burdens when I look into my grandson’s eyes.  I like hugging our son, and his girlfriend, whenever they worry and fret and fight over what to do with the baby in order to “help him hit his developmental stages.”  Ahhhhh……to be young again? Never.  I like being older, wiser, and with more income and insurance.

And that brings us to sex.  It continues to deepen with me in it’s meanings, it’s mysteries, and it’s erogenous zones.  For instance, I never really cared if anyone kissed or smelled my hair before, but now it’s like electricity that runs through me.  I’ve become ever more sensitive to touch, to scents, to visuals, and to sounds.  But being turned on now rarely just affects my clit anymore.  My entire being radiates, pulses, and becomes soft and inviting.  I am become Clitoris.

I think also I am returning because, to be perfectly honest, I miss writing about my experiences and my thoughts.  I miss the outlet and the ways that I at times awkwardly convey my journey.  I prefer moving to writing because I’m better at it, but I could always use the practice.

My daughter’s first period, and reflections

You bet your sweet ass we celebrated that day.

First things first, my daughter discovered that she started her period at my mother’s house.  My mother – sweet as pie and would give her last cent to the needy without thought – is quirky in the sense that she jumps to conclusions sometimes.  And when she jumps, she jumps REALLY far.  I think back to when I started my period, or when I thought I started, at age 11.  I had a thing for panties that had flower prints on them (like my daughter does now), and so after developing breasts and needing to wear deoderant at first, I remember looking forward to seeing that small spot of blood.  And a few times, I mistook a rose print on my panties for blood.  My mother, bless her heart, saw the same thing I did, and we went to the store together to buy pads.

Sometimes we see what we want to see, eh?

That summer, I found myself having one day the worst stomach ache, and I honestly thought I had to go to the hospital.  My mother was at work, and my grandmother was watching us at home.  I was crying from the pain and from fear.  Grandma called a nurse hotline just to make sure, but there was no advice to go anywhere or to take anything.  So, since she felt like she had more TLC to give at her house, we all packed up and went to her place.

It was there, when I went to the bathroom, that I saw that I had started my period.  It really was not what I had expected.  No small red spot, but a flood of brown thick mucousy substance.  I was sickened, and yes again, scared.  Before, I was excited about starting.  Now, I wanted to go back.  If this was growing up, I wanted no part of it.  It’s disgusting.  It’s painful.  My brothers didn’t have to go through this, the lucky bastards.

I had lived much of life at that point wishing that I wasn’t a girl, BTW.  I helped stuff envelopes with my mother for the ERA.  I heard my mother and her friends talk incessantly about how unfair life was for women and girls, how we are victimized daily, and came to an early conclusion that being a girl means being without hope.  The only way to get anywhere was to be more male.  With my tom-boyish ways, that was relatively easy for me to adopt, but I really did wish I LIKED having a vagina.

There are times when I reflect on my past, and how I coped, and if my painful cycles were a strong correlation with my own self-loathing.  I don’t know, and part of me doesn’t really care. 

But fast forward to several months ago, when I get a phone call from my mother saying that my little girl started her period.  I asked (knowing my mother) was it obvious.  She said she thinks so.  I brushed it off and waited to see if it was actually the case.

And then a few months ago I get another phone call (funny how these things happen at grandmothers’ houses in our family) from my daughter.  She was bubbling with excitement:  “Mom!  Guess WHAT!  I started my period!!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I was getting ready to take a shower, and I looked down, and there was blood everywhere.”

“CONGRATULATIONS, BABY-GIRL!  It’s time to celebrate!”

And with that, we planned a luncheon together.  Just me and her together, to commemorate reaching a milestone in her puberty.  While we were out, she mentioned something…..

“Mom, do you still have painful periods?  Do you still get sick?”

“Not really anymore.  Sometimes I get cramps, but for the most part it isn’t nearly as bad as it was before.  I used to have to stay home for days because of my periods.”

“Wow!  Really?!?”

I nodded.

“Well, mom….I didn’t get any cramps.”

“So I noticed.”  I chuckled.

Since she has started her period, she has yet to experience menstrual cramps, pimples, feeling bloated, etc.  She does get more sensitive, though, but nothing like what I went through at her age.  One of my friends called her a lucky little snot.  My daughter laughed.

I think she’ll be OK.  In fact, it’s likely she’ll be better than just “OK.”

Sexual infidelity and the female brain

Heads up, yo.  Louann Brizendine, M.D. wrote a book back in ’06 amptly titled, “The Female Brain.”  And, baby, it’s a great start!

It describes why we women change so drastically with the different stages in life.  From adolescence, to how our minds work sexually (great few chapters, btw), to how the actual structure and brain chemistry CHANGES after motherhood, to how it all changes drastically again from menopause. 

Overall, it is an affirming book on the sass and intelligence of the female homo sapiens.  For me, it only backs up what I truly believe…..that the value of a woman is not from comparing her to a “default” male standard.  She does no good by keeping her mouth shut, conceding to any sort of superiority or authority to her fellow man, or by dressing according to any arbitrary standard.  She is much happier by flaunting her stuff (in whatever way she chooses, with any degree of covering), and by speaking her mind.

OK….this is what I found most fascinating.  Y’all know about the conventional wisdom of biologically why  men cheat?  Why men desire more than one partner?  And that there is this stupid myth out there that women are more sexually “pure” and less inclined to cheat or have multiple partners?  Well, try this passage from Dr. Brizendine’s book:

Biology has a way of winning out over our conscious minds by manipulatin our reality to ensure evolutionary survival, so a woman’s unconscious brain circuits will choose the best-looking guy, since he will give her bigger orgasms.  Behavioral ecologists have also noted that female animals – from scorpion flies to barn swallows – prefer males with high degrees of bilateral body symmetry, which means that both sides of the body match.  page 84

Hunh.  Go figure.  Women can be shallow, too.  Not just men.  Read on….

Using the body odor of men and the noses of women, Jan Havlicek of Charles University in Prague has hatched a controversial theory about phermones and the female brain.  He found that ovulating women who already have partners preferred the smell of other more dominant men but that single women showed no such preference.  Havlicek argues that his findings support the theory that single women want nurturing men who will help raise a family.  But once the home is secured, they have the biological urge to sneak around with men who have the best genes. page 87 

BAD girl!  BAD BAD BAAAAAD girl! 

Yeah, this sure is controversial.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.  Women are supposed to be nice.  Women are supposed to be pure as snow.  Women aren’t really supposed to LIKE sex as much as men, and aren’t really supposed to WANT more than a single, loving, partner.  And if they do, there’s something wrong in the head.  Biology says differently, though, it seems.

Well, not for everybody, but certainly enough to take note.  And point being – it ain’t good to put Woman into a box.  She is just as human, just as assertive, just as bodily authoritative in evolutionary biology as Man.  She just does it……differently.

It’s been well documented how the females in most every species holds the cards at mate selection, and therefore – if people are smart enough to recognize this – understands and appreciates the inherent biological power that the female has in sex.  I once heard the pop-culture dude Dr. Drew comment that “women are the keepers of intimacy.”  He’s right, too.

And now, with theories abounding of why females cheat and commit even emotional infidelity with another man shoes how women have collateral pro-creatively even within loving monogamous relationships (much like men do).  

Men, are y’all sweating from reading this?  I hope not.  It isn’t intended to “stick it” to you (I can think of MUCH more fun ways of sticking it), but to discuss how women have been pidgeon-holed into a virginally pure tease.  That we often times don’t really make our own sexual decisions.  That we often times don’t really even know what we WANT.  Understand that much, if not all, of that stems from cultural boundaries.  That women SHOULD be somewhat sexually infantilized, and not sexually empowered.

Besides, this only covers the biological urge on procreation.  It’s not by any means the whole picture.  Sexual ethics and empowerment come from other factors that influence pair-bonding as well as for pleasure and bliss.

So the question some of you might be asking:  What does Thalia think of infidelity? 

Ethically, it sucks.  I find it to be hurtful and dishonest.  But the only reason why is because I think in any relationship, honesty and authenticity is paramount and vital.  Infidelity – in the way that I describe – is dishonest.  You put up a front.  You don’t give your all to your partner.  You are, essentially, cheating your relationship by not disclosing your actions, desires, and boundaries to your partner, and therefore it’s in my mind a fraud.

But multiple partners, in and of  itself, is NOT infidelity.  Let’s make that clear.  If both spouses agree on it, it isn’t cheating.  Why?  Because it’s honest.  It’s authentic.  And both really ARE sharing all of who they are with their partners.

Nice tangent, Thalia.  Let’s get back to the point.

My point being, and has always been, feminine sexual empowerment.  Does infidelity prove empowerment?  Nope.  Correlation does not equal causation (Logic 101).  But understanding this as a part of female sexuality shows a picture that ought not to scare us into taking action to prevent it.  That’s entirely up to the individual and how she (or he) wishes to live life.  Empowerment naturally flows from education, however, and resolve. 

Ahhhh, resolve.  It goes hand in hand.  Y’all can know everything about the anatomy of your clitoris, but if you don’t resolve to communicate what you LIKE about handling your clit, how empowered are you, actually? 

Oh crap….time to log off.  I know I had a great climax in mind for this post, but I think I missed it.  Better luck next time.  Ciao!

The ability to move on

Since I was gone:

Our oldest child started having sex (he’s 17).

Our daughter started her period (she’s 11).

I went from being really really busy in my career to having several projects fall flat.  I have a couple of things I’m doing, but nothing like last year.  So, a few chuckles at how life is weird like that, and moving on.

That’s the thing – we move on.  The kids certainly are.  In fact, I remember that turbulent and glorious time in my life when moving on was what I looked forward to the most.  Get to that first kiss.  Get to Second Base.  Get to genital discovery and play.  Get to fall in Love.  Get to That First Time.  Moving on wasn’t just a relaxation technique – it was the #1 priority!

Honestly, there’s a lot we can still learn from our kids.  They look so optimistically at the future, and they can be so excited and infectious with their bubbly attitude, that it’s almost a sin to be a curmudgeon shaking your stick (proverbial) at them calling them out for being lazy, undisciplined, naive, and out of control.  And when it comes to sexuality, that’s where we REALLY can fuck up as parents and grandparents.

What happens when you have children, and you yourself are ashamed of your sexuality, or you create your own arbitrary rules on sex because it might be too “dirty” or “nasty” or “degrading”?  Kids, whether we like it or not, watch us and remember things we wish we never did or said to the letter.  And feelings of shame about our sexuality is one way to mess them up about their own sexuality.

Fear and ignorance traps us.  We don’t want to talk about it.  We don’t want to explore it.  We don’t want to offer equality to those “others” who engage in odd forms of sex (and I’m talking about adult consensual sex here, nothing illegal).  We want to focus on more “moral” priorities like work, health care, education, organic food, Afghanistan/Iraq, and Farmville on Facebook.  Sexuality is best left in the bedroom……where we crash at night after exhausting ourselves all day – OR – we have a 7 minute intercourse moment ending in the dude ejaculating all over her stomach.

Yikes.

Sooooo, SEX.  Let’s put it out on the table.  We see people enjoying it.  Instead of thumbing our noses at sexually explicit material in front of kids, shouldn’t we be explaining WHY these people are enjoying it?  Don’t WE want to enjoy sex to the fullest?  But let’s admit it….sex is intimate, and makes people talking about their sex lives really uncomfortable.  We want to keep it private because we don’t want to admit how certain things are desired or how certain things we really don’t like.  We want to remain in the public eye as a “good girl” or a “Godly man.” 

Porn be damned.

Sting be damned (seven hours of sex is apparently supposed to be mocked, no matter whether the claim was true or not).

All right!  I get it!  But now……it’s time to move on.

Self-reflection can allow us to sit  back and look at how we respond to sexually explicit material.  Pornography demeaning to women? Have you seen how many porn actresses wind up sitting on somebody’s face?  That’s not demeaning….that’s empowerment.  Taking the time to reflect on any artistic medium helps us to see the state of our own minds, and to stop pointing the finger at everything else.

Time to move on.  We want to be happy.  We want to have  a fulfilling life.  We want others to be happy.  Sex is one hell of a potent elixir of creating the kind of bliss that we only read about in romance novels or view on the ‘net in the form of amateur bi-curious porn.

Kids grow up fast, yes. But they don’t have to be afraid.  We have the opportunity to lead by example how to be unafraid of our own sexuality and to be knowledgeable and informed.  It’s natural to move on.  It’s the law of impermanence.  Everything changes.

Point being:  have fun.  Stop worrying about those layers of skin, or that misshaped nose, or that bald spot, or those stretch marks, or that fascination with feet.  You’re not ugly, or stupid, or undeserving of pleasure.  Know yourself, know your boundaries, and when interacting with others sexually, communicate your desires and your boundaries, and respect theirs as well.

We can only do that by letting go, being open to the future, and moving on.

A year of reflection

Thalia is back, well…..at least for now.

I am in the middle of reading the book “Defending Pornography” by Nadine Strossen. A little dated, yes, but some of the material is still relevent. I run into the kind of attitude about porn all the time, and especially around here in redneck U.S. midwest. Give me the prairies and the fields and fields and fields of produce (ok, monsanto corn), but the culture of anti-sex leaves something to be desired.

People are still shy about admitting they not only watch, but highly enjoy, pornography. Many people think of it as a dirty little secret, and some messed-up folks actually believe that “porn” is one-step closer to “child-porn”….which is bullshit. One is a visual representation of a female-dominated sexual experience. The other is criminal due to the subjects not having the ability to give consent.

Time for me to write more about sex sex sex and more sex. Oh, and how truly spiritual and life-changing the sexual experience is. Some people call it “playing with fire.” In all honesty, it’s okay to play with fire…..when you know what you’re doing. There’s value in pyrotechnics, y’all.

A new month, a new whore? Blasphemy!

Nah, nothing different with me nowadays, except I’m busier than hell with outside projects.  If anyone were to ask me if I was dreaming or living my dreams – I’d say that the latter is most true.  Because, seriously, things are actually getting done toward my personal, professional, and spiritual goals.

What I find interesting is that with the theatrical work, the homeschooling group, the meditations, the sexual explorations, and the Dharma group…….I sometimes find myself waking up in the morning wondering if I’m actually dreaming – like a DREAM dream, not just some fantasy.  There are times when I feel like I’m in such a surrealistic potpourri of happenings.  Despite our finances not being outrageously huge (which I never really cared for), things are happening.  And that’s surprisingly weird.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  I think this is awesome.  But it’s just like any play or musical or scholarship that you attain.  Once you get it, you discover that THIS is when the work begins.  It’s liberating, and terrifying, and authentic, and naked, and oh-so-wild.  There isn’t anything tame about this experience.  As far as I’m concerned, this is reality with a capital “R”.

I used to find myself daydreaming every now and then about what life would be like “if….” and then describe a particular wish that I’d have floating around in my head.  I rarely daydream now.  Why?  I don’t have time – life is too damn short, and once I had the first step toward these fantasies, there was no turning back to the little box again.  I had looked out from the precipice, saw the void, and I’ve already jumped out into it.  My feelings now fluctuate between flying and falling.  And there’s no safety net underneath me to catch me.

How utterly strange.  Honestly.  I had assumed that living your dreams would make you feel more secure.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  Liberation doesn’t have boundaries.  Once you tear down the walls, throw down your guard, pull out all the stops, and go at 200 mph, you really have no choice but to live in the moment.  You also can’t be unaware of your surroundings…….even if you TRIED,  you couldn’t be unaware of everything around you and within you.

Well, at least, that’s where *I* stand.  I’ll kiss you on the cheek if you manage to find security in blasting off into space to explore.  Personally, I can’t find any security.

But – honestly – I wouldn’t have it any other way.  What an adventure!

So, when do we stop being considered property?

I nice heated debate has exploded on a discussion forum that I frequent.  The topic in question is direct, but rather loaded:  Does a husband have a right to sex, regardless of his wife’s wishes?  In other words, does a wife have an obligation to perform “Wifely Duties?”

There are two very passionate sides to this debate.  On the one hand, we have a few women who have seen the abuse firsthand what the cultural expectations are of wives who are considered some form of property of the husband.  They have lived it, tasted it, felt the pain personally.  These are female friends who understand that it isn’t just the random asshole who wanted to have it whenever he wanted it – they understand that there is a general attitude of appeasing the male sex drive as the prime directive of the sexual aspect of marriage.

On the other hand, we have a few men who understand that abuse does exist in marriages, but feel attacked for suggesting that men ought to  be considered for their sexual needs.  As much as I understand and empathize with them, this is very much a red herring.  Of course, consideration is part and parcel of a healthy marriage, and being sensitive to each other’s sexual needs is a must if both are considered equal partners.  But this in no way belongs under the argument of whether a man has a “right” to his wife’s body.  And because of this very irrelevent introduction of the red herring, there has been loads of confusion, anger, and accusations flying from both sides.  I find this amazingly depressing.

To be truthful,  it’s annoying that many times when a woman is fighting for her autonomy, we are bombarded with attempts to guilt, shame, or harass us as “reminders” that we should never forget about standing by her man.  Honestly?  That’s a load of crap.  Our autonomy allows us to give MORE and more FREELY of our love, compassion, and understanding.  Take out the “wifely duties”, and you will know for sure that your wife is giving her body and her heart to you because she wants to, not because she has to.  There’s a BIG difference there.

Now, again I ask, when do we women stop being considered property?  And when can our intentions for sexual independence be given the benefit of the doubt?

That day off turned into a month off!

So, after chuckling a bit from reading my last post here at Sacred Whore – my month off was a little out of my control.  My computer got sick this time (not me), and spent a month at a computer shop ignored and neglected.  *sad face*

Now, I guess I COULD have blogged at the library, but there I’m only guaranteed a half-hour, and I like to take my time when I blog.  Shit.

I also COULD have borrowed the time to blog on my mother’s computer, but again, I am limited in it’s availability there, too.  Double shit.

So, I used the limited time to check up on email briefly here and there.  Sadly, I was very much into the groove of blogging when I last visited here, so therefore I’ll look at this as an ample opportunity to get back into the habit again of writing a post every day, or at least every other day.

But, for what it’s worth, Happy New Year everyone!

Taking a day off on New Year’s Day

I’ve been on a small roll lately.  Our computer has been weird and stupid – which seems to be an annual thing for us – and we’ve been hit with a computer virus.  Also, the kids are back home again after a two-week visit with their biological dad.  Combine these with the habit of blogging most every day for a bit and you get ample opportunity to practice meditation and generating bodhichitta through patience and enthusiastic perserverence.

Tonight, Dear Husband and I will be throwing a party with our friends and some family.  So soon I’ll be finding myself immersed in shopping lists and to-do lists and honey-do lists for the man…….but I wanted to take this time to reflect a tad bit on how this year has gone.

I’ve seen some of my romances flourish and falter; my health decline and bounce back; our finances stumble, grow, and then dip again from the medical bills; our garden in the back yard bloom and then wither; Dear Husband’s facial hair grow back; and finally a Dharma group that I’ve been involved in establish itself with a steady group of regular meditators and practitioners.

Much has been said about impermanence, and 2008 has been no different.  It has provided this simple Whore with dozens of curveballs to practice, practice, and practice the Dharma.  I have nothing but enormous gratitude for these many opportunities for me to train the mind – constantly.

And therefore I look forward to 2009 to offer even more lands to explore and more challenges to meet.  More senses to delight in and more g-spots to tickle.  And whatever merit that has been created from the hopefully ever-increasing bodhichitta, I offer it to the great enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.  I therefore dedicate every ounce of my good merit to all of you in the universe.  May you be blessed with great fortune and happiness.

Happy New Year.  *kiss kiss*

Pornography throughout history

Heads up, everyone.  I’m watching a fascinating documentary on the history of modern civilization told through the eyes of pornographers.   It’s called “Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization.”  Sounds ballsy, right?  Well, I can’t pooh-pooh the scholarship from what I’ve seen so far.  It’s incredible.  5 hours of material of erotic imagery and the politics and culture surrounding it all from the paintings in Pompeii to the age of the internet.  From French nude pictures exported to London and then to the United States, to peep shows, stag films, magazines, and the advent of video.  And, from the erotic images in Michaelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” to the many cathedrals in Europe that attempted to shock believers into sexual purity through pornographic images, to the shocking writings of Marquis de Sade…..so far, I’ve only gotten as far as just past the printing press and barely into the world of photographic images on a grand scale.

Watching the documentary, I’m reminded of an earlier post on this blog where I discussed pornography as an art, and I’m more grounded in my opinion now more than ever.  The difference is that porn is a taboo kind of art, where we are skiddish to view it and discuss it amongst our family and friends, and that we continue to this day to share in our Victorian hangovers……somehow sexual imagery is supposed to remain separate from plain view.  That if we were not only to view nudity in all it’s grand form, but images of explicit sexual activity, that we know that WE won’t be corrupted by it, but what about our kids?  Our neighbors?  Our colleagues, or our boss, or our assistants?  We still act as if we need to quarantine the imagery for the safety of other people’s minds.

It’s crazy, isn’t it?  If you really really really REALLY think about it. 

Anyway, just a heads up of what Thalia has been up to.  Dear Husband has been getting into it, but I also think when I mentioned that there was a lot of pussy in this DVD, he felt more enthusiastic to sitting down with me in support as well as his own enjoyment.

Curious google search for our naughty bits

Just because I’m morbidly curious like that, I googled three terms……..penis, vagina,  and clitoris.  Guess which word won out by a long shot:

Penis.

With all the hoopla of internet porn where pussy is sought out everywhere, I was actually quite intrigued to see that there are over 158 MILLION results on google for “penis”, where as there are around 80 million results for “vagina”, and a paltry 19 million for “clitoris.” 

Why the hating?  Or rather, on a more positive note, maybe we should explore why the penis fascinates so many people. 

Is it for business purposes?  You can count the ads for Levitra and Viagra and the odd enhancement drug as part of that, so the pharm companies might have a hand in all this (forgive the pun, please).  But you know, vaginas also have stock in capitalist ventures, too, with douches, tampons, diaphragms, gynecologists, and the whole giving birth thing and the business surrounding that.

So, I don’t get it.  I refuse to play the gender card here, but I’m very fascinated with this phenomenon.  Penis, penis, penis (re: Marsha, Marsha, Marsha) – wherefore art thou, Penis?  It surely must be natural to do a whole lot of dick-waving literally and metaphorically…….

SHIT!  How appropro – not only do you have to work harder to find the clit in real life, but on the ‘net as well.  OH THE BLANK UNHOLY IRONY!!

An interesting anatomy of an “ideal” threesome

I posed a question to a man I know.  I asked him,  “What would you think if you had the opportunity to be with two women at the same time?”  His reply was, “YAAAYYYY!!!”  Then I asked, “OK, what if you had the opportunity to be with a woman and a man at the same time?”  And his reply was, “Ehhhh, I might feel a little uncomfortable.”  I think this cultural phenomemon is still, to this day, weird.

When I asked him why he might feel a little uncomfortable, he mentioned that it’s because he’s straight and that he just wouldn’t feel right being intimate with another man.  And I think (I’m assuming here, so sue me) that the only possible visual in his mind is to have that one chick in between him and the other guy – where one is fucking her from behind, and the other is getting sucked off – and then she turns around every now and then to switch how she’s getting poked.

Apparently, that’s the only way that SHE could enjoy it?  Granted…..that IS fun on some level, but please – that’s not the only scenario that I could conjur up in my sick head.  So, I posited the idea to him and maybe the one woman in the threesome might want to see him and the other man kiss, to stroke each other, to embrace and caress each other.  He reacted as if this was NOWHERE in the realm of a heterosexual male identity.  So, the conversation ended there – after I told him that I think he suffers from the delusion that women are still on an extremely subtle and foundational level considered objects that are to be used for his pleasure. 

He scoffed.  I asked him how likely would it be for him to wish those two women in his first “ideal” fantasy to kiss and fondle each other while he’s jerking off to the visual.  He smiled. 

Yeah, he didn’t get it.  But you can’t fault him too much, you know.  This kind of objectification is so deeply embedded in our culture that many of us are still surprised when WE find ourselves doing it out of sheer habit.   Even I have found it….when I visualize watching two men – straight men – touching each other for the first time in front of me and seeing a new discovery in eroticism in themselves and each other….and I feel like I’ve been caught with my hand in the proverbial “Thou-Shalt-Not” cookie jar.

And I ain’t talking about the cookie jar from the Christian Fundamentalist Kitchen.  I’m talking about the cookie jar from the so-called Sexually Progressive Kitchen.  Despite all our how-to books and Tantra seminars and sex therapists and talk shows and porn mags, we still have this notion that men-on-men action is quarantined only for the gays and the bis.   It’s why women can admit that they’re “bi-curious” but when was the last time you ever heard a dude admit that? 

And it’s not only their buddies that I suspect they’re afraid of……..how many WOMEN say that they wish they could watch their husbands or their boyfriends make out with another man in front of them? 

All right……….besides ME………how many women do you know who have freely said that to their friends and their SO’s?  This isn’t a male thing.   It’s a cultural thing.   Women are still reluctant and aren’t expected to claim the bed as territory for our fantasies that push boundaries.  Pop culture and frat parties are still inundated with the lesbian fantasy of two buxom blonde women fondling and licking each other while teasing the shit out of some lucky guy at the edge of the bed. 

Lest you think, and lest my male friend thinks, I don’t have beef with him in particular.  I just have beef with his POV.  And like I’d said, it isn’t just him that holds it like a bad habit, I do it too.   The only way, in my not-so-humble-opinion, is to go cold turkey into quitting this mindset.  It’s the most shocking, but the quickest and least painful overall to challenging the objectification of women in the bedroom.  And hey, what’s wrong with a little Zen in the form of a strap-on?

On that note…. I have in mind to liberate some men I know. I’d like to invite some young hot stud over to see if he and Dear Husband might hit it off.  *does a high-five with a fellow girlfriend*

RIP Eartha Kitt

So sad.  I was thinking not too long ago of dedicating an installment to her for how vibrant and talented she was.  But I just heard the news that she passed away from colon cancer at the age of 81. 

All hail the mighty wiki:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eartha_Kitt

Much like Mae West, Eartha started making huge waves AFTER her 40th birthday.  It was like she was just warming up to everyone, learning to stand on her own two feet, and then diving head-first into the land of sex kittens and sitting rightfully on the throne there.

R.I.P. girlfriend.

As I place an offering on my altar

I offer up whatever merit accumulated here  to be dedicated to all for the sake of all sentient beings.  My family celebrates Christmas, but certainly not for the reason that this is the time when Christ the Savior was born.  The manger scene is certainly beautiful, but the spirit of giving and generosity is what is emphasized here, and I appreciate that my altar stands ready and waiting for me to continue that particular practice.

Sometimes, it’s OK that other well-meaning folks are confused when I light my candles and incese, fill my water bowls, put some fruit up on the altar, and do a series of prostrations while singing mantras……..it certainly LOOKS like I’m worshipping that Buddha figure up on the center top of the altar.  However, I am not.  I’m practicing.  And that’s all this is, really.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice.

We continue to practice generosity by giving offerings up – and not things that we could do without, but our favorite foods and scents and sights.  We continue to practice acknowledgement of our own impact on the environment and on each other by contemplating on our karma.  And we continue to practice selflessness by dedicating all our luxuries, our fortunes, and our health, to others.  

Daily practice of this generosity in the mind and on our altar, we will be better prepared to give to others away from the altar – where our attachments and our delusions can blind us so easily.  We can be better prepared to give our time, our money, our clothes, our food, and even our very lives for the benefit of others.  THIS is why I do my prostrations, why I give offerings, why I chant my mantras.  It’s a discipline that works.

I remember a Christian pastor that once told me something very enlightening………he once said, “Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Practice makes permanent.”

Now, despite my immediate conceptual argument against the very word “permanence,”  I saw that he was on to something.  Practice makes permanent in the sense that it causes a thought, manner of speech, and/or action habitual and eventually effortless.  It becomes our character, and one could say – our destiny.

So, I write this on Christmas Eve, when I’m preparing a holiday feast for family and friends, and I wish all who grace their fabulous presence here my best health and good fortunes.   I place my offering today on the altar with the thought:

I am but a simple whore.  May you be happy.  Happy Holidays!

“Passionate Enlightenment”

For a good time, read “Passionate Enlightenment” by Miranda Shaw.

No, seriously.  I know it sounds a little like something you’d read on the inside of a stall at a public restroom, but after reading it a few times, I still find myself walking away feeling that much more compassionate and empowered.  Shaw not only outlines the Tantric approach to Buddhism, but she does so from historical female scholarship.  I’m not the only person in the world who has noticed that waaaayyyyy too much religious doctrine had been penned by men, and therefore have varying degrees of testosterone filters installed.  “Passionate Enlightenment” offers something quite unique – a gynocentric POV in Tantric Buddhism (what has been criticized as blatantly misogynistic by other scholars).  And to a loud Buddhist feminista like myself, this is music to my ears.

The flow of Shaw’s writings follows women in Tantric theory, to the women adepts in Tantric circles, to the women founders in Tantric history, and what is outlined in the Buddha-Tantras how to treat a woman (she adamently states that intimacy is a path to enlightenment, very Left-Hand Path here where renunciates might be taken aback at first glance).

An excerpt from the book that brilliantly describes the Spontaneous Jewellike Yogini:

Like the jewel that is her namesake, the illustrious yogini has many facets.  She is a visionary revealer of Tantric teachings received in deep meditatitive state.  She is a skilled rhetorician who dazzles her audience with a sensuous and exuberant vision of Tantric sexuality.  She is a homileticist who motivates her audience to religious discipline, exhorting them that worldly pleasures are impermanent and ultimately unsatisfying.  She is a subtle philosopher who spins and unravels the theoretical intricacies of her position…..

See?  How fucking awesome is that?

Anyway, the book is far more worth than the $15.00 or so that I paid for it.  It is exquisite, daring, and illustrious.  For this moment in time, it is my personal Tantric feminist Bible, and it calls me to courageously access the Bodhisattva to help others in my uniquely womanly way.

Happy reading!!

Not quite so tantric……

Dear Husband and I had two holiday parties to attend this past weekend – one with his family, and the other with his company.  Now, the company party was in a convention center/hotel where we all could feel safe to get trashed with no driving involved.  Just stumbling here and there to get from point A to point B.

I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol.  I love wine, and that is my drink of choice 90% of the time except for the occasional Crown and Coke.  But I can’t have a whole lot before I start slurring my words.  One glass of Cabernet, and I feel warm and toasty.  Two glasses, and my shoes are coming off and I’m hitting on the owner’s wife of the company.  Three glasses, and I lose all inhibitions and usually need a babysitter.

Saturday night, I had three glasses of wine.  Silly Thalia.

I do remember not only hitting on the owner’s wife, but the owner himself AND Dear Husband’s immediate supervisor.  Yes, my shoes came off and I boogied my way through the “We Are Family” songs, the “Yeah!” songs, and the “You Shook Me All Night” songs.  But I also kept kissing everyone and cozying up to them in my Marilyn Monroe-style low cut dress.  And I joked that the owner was trying to get me pregnant – some people thought that was funny.  Most people didn’t and found it a little awkward.

So, let’s just say that Thalia was throwing caution to the wind.

When the party was over (and after I scored the owner’s wife’s phone number, WHOOT!)…….Dear Husband asked me if I wanted to continue partying with some friends at a local bar that’s right next door.  I knew I’d already had enough to drink, and that if I had any more, I probably would be camped out by the toilet.  So, I only wanted to suffer embarassment and not my health, and I declined the offer.  He wanted to go, however, and so I told him to be careful and to call me if he was going to be more than an hour or so.

A couple of hours later after I had crashed on the bed in our suite, I get a phone call from a woman named Carla telling me that I needed to get some jeans and a t-shirt on since we’re all going to Steak and Shake.  The room was spinning, and I was feeling a little queasy, so I knew I was coming down from my drunkenness.  I asked to speak to my husband…..it took a few minutes since she was drunk too.

Dear Husband gets on the phone and asks if I can come along.  I can hear a group of people in the background yelling “THALIA!!!  THALIA!!!  THALIA!!!”  Understand that rarely am I a party pooper.  But that night, I didn’t have it in me, and the suite itself was super-awesome with the king-sized bed, the jacuzzi tub in the huge bathroom, the safe and the bar in the living room area…….I wanted Dear Husband to come back and spend at least a couple hours with me in a little lap of luxury before we fell asleep for the night.

So, Dear Husband heeded my call to come to me despite the protests from the crowd.  He’s a good guy.

Back at the suite, we’re both drunk and hurting, and I swear there ought to be a medical term for “whiskey dick.”  I wasn’t all that sexy either, since I was tired and my speech was slurred, and I didn’t make that much sense when I tried to seduce Dear Husband with my words. 

So, we wound up giggling our way through the sex with our stumbling and bumbling.   About four hours later after we had our fair share of orgasms and had fallen asleep, I woke up wanting a shower, and Dear Husband woke up wanting to vomit. 

The rest of the day yesterday was spent recovering from our hangovers, getting something to eat, cleaning up the house, and then having sex while sober. 

Maybe we were making sure we got it right the second time and that we hadn’t lost our touch. 

Initial thoughts of Obama’s choice for Rick Warren

Well,  I could just sum it all up and say – I don’t like it.  In fact, I don’t like it one bit.  I had written earlier on Sacred Whore that a bad taste in my mouth sits here concerning Obama and equality for the GLBTQ community, and this choice for his inauguration just makes my stomach acid worse. 

While I respect the views of those who feel that Obama used gays/lesbians/bi’s to get elected, I disagree.  He had made it perfectly clear that he has always believed marriage to be between a man and a woman, so did Joe Biden, and so did John Kerry back in ’04.  In fact, rarely have we found a Democratic presidential candidate that truly stood up for full equality for gays and lesbians – it’s for that reason that I have felt tenuous relations with the Democratic party.  Or both parties for that matter.  I just don’t like either of them.  LOL

What gets me is that Obama has spouted the “separate-but-equal” crap since the dawn of his campaign, and yet now he is inviting Pastor Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.  This is the same guy that has been quoted as such:

For 5,000 years, marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion – this is not a Christian issue. Buddhist, Muslims, Jews – historically, marriage is a man and a woman. And the reason I supported Proposition 8, is really a free speech issue. Because first the court overrode the will of the people, but second there were all kinds of threats that if that did not pass then any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships, and that would be hate speech. We should have freedom of speech, ok? And you should be able to have freedom of speech to make your position and I should be able to have freedom of speech to make my position, and can’t we do this in a civil way.

And….

If anyone, whether unfaithful spouses, or unmarried couples, or homosexuals or anyone else think they are smarter than God and chooses to disobey God’s sexual instructions, it is not the US government’s role to take away their choice. But neither is it the government’s role to classify just any “loving” relationship as a marriage. A committed boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is not a marriage. Two lovers living together is a not a marriage. Incest is not marriage. A domestic partnership or even a civil union is still not marriage.

Well, Pastor Warren, pardon my French, but that’s a really fucking stupid argument.  We all know that a Civil Union is not a marriage, that two lovers living together is not a marriage, etc., but heterosexual lovers have the option and the freedom to get married.  Homosexuals do  not have the freedom to get married.  And people like you are standing in their way because of your religious beliefs.

Here’s something else Rick Warren has stated:

Much of this debate is not really about civil rights, but a desire for approval. The fact that 70% of blacks supported Prop 8 shows they don’t believe it is a civil rights issue. Gays in California already have their rights. What they desire is approval and validation from those who disagree with them, and they are willing to force it by law if necessary. Any disapproval is quickly labeled “hate speech. Imagine if we held that standard in every other disagreement Americans have? There would be no free speech. That’s why, on the traditional marriage side, many saw Prop 8 as a free speech issue: Don’t force me to validate a lifestyle I disagree with. It is not the same as marriage.” And many saw the Teacher’s Union contribution of $3 million against Prop 8, as a effort to insure that children would be taught to approve what most parents disapprove of.]

No, you are wrong again.  The GLBTQ community could give a rat’s ass about approval from your community.   It’s the civil liberties that are at stake here, not begging for you to approve of a lifestyle.  In fact, go ahead and preach whatever you want – I’ll defend that right until my dying day.  Preach your disapproval – I’ll support the rights of our Rinpoches to teach us about the living Dharma, too, that says that certain attachments and ignorance (including yours) will ensure that we will continue to return to the samsaric realm of desire, suffering, and delusion.  However, I will not push to legislate my beliefs to limit your attachments.

Oh, and here is the source of Pastor Warren’s comments from Beliefnet:   http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/12/rick-warrens-controversial-com.html

But I digress…..

I dunno.  These are just my initial thoughts.  At the moment, I’m not happy.  Life goes on.

Sex and meditation

I’ve posited before that sex is a valuable tool for contemplation, and I still see it that way.  Both the sexual act and meditation are powerful tools for realization and bliss, and with that potency in it’s cut-straight-to-the-source of non-duality, the practice of mindfulness is of the utmost importance.

We can approach sex with wishes to pursue, to capture, to claim, to possess, with someone – with some other Self.  And during the act, we can find ourselves in the bliss of love and orgasm that the practice offers, but it soon ends, and it’s back to real life again and doing the laundry.

In meditation, we can approach it with wishes to understand our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our habits, our actions – to get a snapshot and claim this picture of our aggregates as our Self.  And while sitting, we can find ourselves in the bliss of the moment of NOW.  We are aware of the stream of thoughts flowing in front of us or through our hearts.  We are aware of the bodily sensations, and we can remain unattached to these karmic manifestations.  However, this also soon ends, and we are left to deal with real life and doing the laundry.

I say this because in both practices – sex and meditation – we can be very unaware of the subtle wish to capture either our own Self or another Self for even a moment.  And both are futile because of the extraordinary fleeting nature of impermanence.  But if we do our sitting and/or our screwing with the mindfulness of emptiness – that all phenomena does not exist inherently on it’s own side – we can continue to touch on our non-dual nature and possibly open the door a little further to enlightenment.

A touch of feminine tantric psychology

I’m consistently drawn to Buddhist Tantra not so much because of how “sex-friendly” it is with it’s thangkas of explicit yab-yum depictions and all, but also because of the esoteric poetry that fully acknowledges how masculine and feminine qualities complement each other.   It’s very easy for the dogmatic religions to outline these same facets publicly and without shame, however they also tend to be quite rigid when deciding which gender should do what.

And that’s a recipe for disaster as we’ve seen.  Hence, I think many of us are hesitant to discuss masculinity and feminity because there is apprehension that such a discussion will lead to defining gender roles.  Most of us don’t like being boxed in when we don’t fit.

Recently, I’ve familiarized myself once again with a book by Mark Epstein, M.D. called “Open to Desire.”  One passage has stood out to me concerning this very topic:

The copulating figures that adorn much of Tibetan art represent the interpenetration or intermingling of the male and female approaches.  In this tradition the active male desire, chastened by the gap that desire creates, becomes empathy or compassion:  the ability to reach into the experience of another and feel what they’re feeling.  The desire to possess or control becomes the ability to relate.  The beholding desire, represented by the female partner, is a metaphor for wisdom, as exemplified by the capacity to be.  This formulation has always impressed me because it reverses the conditioned way of thinking.  Compassion is male and wisdom is female.

What’s important to note here is that we truly HAVE been conditioned to think that men are naturally wise and women are naturally compassionate, based on our patriarchal gender role system where men have taken leadership positions in government and in religion, and women’s caretaking for children, the sick, and the elderly have been seen as the hallmarks of compassion.  In Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, these strengths are quite the opposite – the skillful means and potent strength of the probing nature of masculinity make it quite suited to be the path of compassion (“I understand what you feel”); and the reality of emptiness, the physiological make up of feminity, the unlimited potential (“there is no inherent difference between you and me”)………..such qualities make feminity very suitable as the path of wisdom. 

One could even say that the masculine must learn to understand others, but the feminine must learn from within. 

Give it some thought.

Dedication of merit

In case one wasn’t aware of what I routinely do at the end of each and every meditation session, puja, offering, mantra, or prayer….I dedicate all the merit acquired to the benefit of all sentient beings.  Such a practice is wonderful for continuing selflessness – and especially so since we tend to view giving with strings attached.  Ultimately, we should give freely without hoping to be paid back or even noticed.  Usually the dedication goes like this:

Due to the merits of the these virtuous actions,

May I quickly attain the state of a guru-buddha

And lead all sentient beings, without exception,

Into that enlightened state.

May the supreme jewel bodhichitta

That has not arisen, arise and grow;

And that which has arisen not diminish

But increase more and more.

___________________________________________

Ultimately, we should not even be patting ourselves on the back for being such a noble and kind person.  This isn’t about us, because the self does not inherently exist on it’s own side.  This is about remembering why we do what we do on the path to enlightenment.

It’s about dancing forever on the bridge between you and me, with my heart open to you.