From the outside, sex can appear merely as a nasty struggle — a carnal and profane experience.
However, it's a more complex story if we look a bit deeper into the human being, underneath the skin and into the mind. We are social creatures, living in a reality infused with meaning, and sex is no exception to this rule. Sex means something, below the surface, that our consciousness is inextricably linked to.
Thus, it may behoove us to explore how sex can benefit or enhance this consciousness and, in turn, how consciousness can spice up our sex lives.
The Tantric sects of Hinduism and Buddhism viewed sex in such a context. They thought of sex as a way to connect with the unity of the universe. According to these belief systems, during intercourse, sexual partners have the ability to transcend earthly bounds to directly experience the bliss which is the nature of absolute reality of the universe.
Sounds like quite the trip. Sign me up.
Image is found on: wakeup-world.com
But even taking a step back from merging with the nature of the pure light of the origin of all things, sex is at least the merging with another person. Whether by movements, rhythms, eye-contact or DNA-swapping, it is impossible to deny the level of closeness that sexual activity requires.
In some cases, this can actually be a very self-conscious experience. But as sociology major, Britanee Hudson, put it, “Conscious sex was the most unconscious thing I’ve done. We were just together. This was us creating our own language. We are communicating in a way that words cannot do, that being next to one another cannot do.”
Hudson continued, touching on how our minds get distracted by social conventions: “There are so many things that we are socialized to think about during sex: how to tuck the tummy in a certain position or control our facial expressions or hiding unsightly hair.
“The sex I’ve had that has been closest to healing or meditation was less about experiencing an orgasm and more about experiencing each other … I didn’t think about how I looked.”
D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover explores the “spiritual power of sex, how it can free us from our usual sense of separateness and bring us a heightened awareness and sense of connection to the world.”
Sex itself is innately a meditative experience that connects us to the pool of collective. More than that, it brings us into the awareness of our body, something that closely coincides with mindfulness meditation. Combining the two could be very potent, raising both the mind's frequency and the quality of bodily exchange.
Likewise, in those moments of ecstasy, we are brought into an alternate state of being. When we give into this heightened state and become fully absorbed in the sensations, there is less mind space to think or analyze like we normally do. Paradoxically, in the safe cocoon of love making, losing a bit of control can feel very freeing.
In the book, “Food of the Gods” by Terence McKenna, he talks about how archaic forms of sexual activity were viewed with the utmost sacredness for issuing a sense of freedom. Sex can be one of the most liberating experiences since it takes us out of our normal state of being into a plane where we can let go and let loose. When we allow ourselves to do so, we not only learn more about who we are as creatures of a species in our primal instincts, but also who we are as individual, conscious beings.
In those supreme moments of vulnerability and nakedness of both the body and the being, sex is not only composed of meaning, but sex also reveals meaning.
As an article by clinical psychologist, Brandy Engler, called "What is Conscious Sexuality?" she said, “Sex is like a Rorschach test. We project parts of ourselves onto it: longings, trauma, feelings and hidden parts of self not expressed in our everyday life. What turns you on right now tells a story about you, both about your history and who you are in the process of becoming.”
Understanding how we have been crafted into who we are gives us the opportunity to decide what we want to become. In the words of blogger Alana Louise May, who radically urges for more conscious sex to alter the world at large, “It is a matter of each of us taking responsibility for our actions and reclaiming our power and consciousness from the grips of our past conditioning.”
Building off this intention, we all have the ability to turn our love making into a higher practice. We can use sex to awaken our consciousness, express our creativity and connect to a higher purpose, as well as create more physical enjoyment in the process.
“Most of us are completely disconnected from our true power as creative, Kinky God Freaks," May said in her blog. "You are the great masterpiece of the alchemical miracle of God's kinky desire. Manufactured of star dust and shit and cum.”
Reach the columnist at ralydfor@asu.edu or follow @ralydford on Twitter.
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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