Full Exposure: Opening Up to Sexual Creativity and Erotic Expression by Susie Bright Page A
Authors: Susie Bright
Ads: Link
realize that celibacy is not for the rejected and burned out. Rather, it’s a prescribed way of life for those who want a closer understanding of spirituality and self-awareness that is not clouded by a genital-oriented fog machine. Celibates want you to see that life without sex is the preferable choice, not the damned choice; and if you can’t see the nobility of it all above your own wound-licking, you’re morally no better than a nonpracticing whore.
Celibacy is a choice to remove oneself from the demands of the body, much like fasting or voluntary sleep deprivation. You will yourself to rise above your body’s yearnings and to seek a divine, or at least profound, wisdom in that altered state that you aspire to dwell in. Many people call that state an experience of being closer to God or to the essential truths of life and nature. I’m afraid I still call it an altered state, and like all levels of consciousness, more than one ticket will get you there.
I have never been celibate. Of course that doesn’t mean I haven’t slept alone. I’ve just never taken a vow or made a long-term plan to remove myself from my fantasies and refrain from sexual engage-ment. Yet my experiences of sex in relationships—rejection, infatu-ation, commitment, disillusion, reawakening—and the substantial time alone in between relationships, dramatically altered my original visions of romance and sexual fulfillment.
My solo fantasy life sustained me: the thoughts that came to me after relationships had passed, how I touched myself alone, and what I wrote in my diaries that no one ever read—these moments became like oracles to me, telling me things that I would never hear from a lover’s lips. I’ve listened and responded to my body, but that is not the same as being a slave to it.
It’s temperance that is missing in debates about celibacy; we already have quite enough pledges and avowals at both extremes. I found the most revolutionary advertising message of my life in that chocolate bar commercial that says, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” What a reassuring and brilliant ideal! But can we take it? We live in a culture that insists that people must either like nuts or detest them—that they are either nuts or normal. The candy bar ideology is far ahead of its time, and I only wish that such a spirit of acceptance would proceed just as fast in the noncandy aspects of life.
One thing that celibates and sex fiends share is a fascination with the temptations of the genital regions. They see the penis and clitoris as everything from magnets to little operatives with minds of their own. They imbue the cock and cunt with power and prestige. But as a sympathetic “sex fiend,” I have to say that I see my pussy as powerful not because I find it uncontrollable or the key to my pleasure, but because it is such a strong symbol of creation, of my womanhood, of my pleasure and my unconscious. Still, it is of little use to me unless my mind attends to it.
If I really wanted to stop being sexual, I would have to stop thinking, because it’s quite irrelevant what my clit is doing if my brain is still functioning. There is no mileage to be gained by vilifying my genitals as opposed to any other part of my body. As some celibates have discovered, you can have an orgasm without touching anyone at all—but some other noncelibates discovered that same fact through intense yoga training or a good hit of LSD or just sitting in the sunshine one day when all of a sudden, boom! Pleasure and creativity are coming at us all the time; it’s just a matter of being re-ceptive.
Some celibates are in favor of masturbation, or even take a Tantric approach to celebrating ecstasy and celibacy simultane-
ously. Their spiritual calling sees celibate chastity as a particular way of being a sexual person, not to be equated with asexuality. But why is the message so insistent that celibacy puts one on a special wire to nirvana?
Celibacy is a choice to remove oneself from the demands of the body, much like fasting or voluntary sleep deprivation. You will yourself to rise above your body’s yearnings and to seek a divine, or at least profound, wisdom in that altered state that you aspire to dwell in. Many people call that state an experience of being closer to God or to the essential truths of life and nature. I’m afraid I still call it an altered state, and like all levels of consciousness, more than one ticket will get you there.
I have never been celibate. Of course that doesn’t mean I haven’t slept alone. I’ve just never taken a vow or made a long-term plan to remove myself from my fantasies and refrain from sexual engage-ment. Yet my experiences of sex in relationships—rejection, infatu-ation, commitment, disillusion, reawakening—and the substantial time alone in between relationships, dramatically altered my original visions of romance and sexual fulfillment.
My solo fantasy life sustained me: the thoughts that came to me after relationships had passed, how I touched myself alone, and what I wrote in my diaries that no one ever read—these moments became like oracles to me, telling me things that I would never hear from a lover’s lips. I’ve listened and responded to my body, but that is not the same as being a slave to it.
It’s temperance that is missing in debates about celibacy; we already have quite enough pledges and avowals at both extremes. I found the most revolutionary advertising message of my life in that chocolate bar commercial that says, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” What a reassuring and brilliant ideal! But can we take it? We live in a culture that insists that people must either like nuts or detest them—that they are either nuts or normal. The candy bar ideology is far ahead of its time, and I only wish that such a spirit of acceptance would proceed just as fast in the noncandy aspects of life.
One thing that celibates and sex fiends share is a fascination with the temptations of the genital regions. They see the penis and clitoris as everything from magnets to little operatives with minds of their own. They imbue the cock and cunt with power and prestige. But as a sympathetic “sex fiend,” I have to say that I see my pussy as powerful not because I find it uncontrollable or the key to my pleasure, but because it is such a strong symbol of creation, of my womanhood, of my pleasure and my unconscious. Still, it is of little use to me unless my mind attends to it.
If I really wanted to stop being sexual, I would have to stop thinking, because it’s quite irrelevant what my clit is doing if my brain is still functioning. There is no mileage to be gained by vilifying my genitals as opposed to any other part of my body. As some celibates have discovered, you can have an orgasm without touching anyone at all—but some other noncelibates discovered that same fact through intense yoga training or a good hit of LSD or just sitting in the sunshine one day when all of a sudden, boom! Pleasure and creativity are coming at us all the time; it’s just a matter of being re-ceptive.
Some celibates are in favor of masturbation, or even take a Tantric approach to celebrating ecstasy and celibacy simultane-
ously. Their spiritual calling sees celibate chastity as a particular way of being a sexual person, not to be equated with asexuality. But why is the message so insistent that celibacy puts one on a special wire to nirvana?
Similar Books
