The short answer is avoid it and try to keep the gagging to a minimum when confronted by it in any of your acquaintances. I usually also avoid commenting on it, unwilling to rain on anybody's parade even when their parade seems to be founded on such substance as rainbows.
The longer answer comes from the conflation of "consciousness" and "sacred" that like a virus replicates itself in people looking to connect to a movement beyond themselves. Recently I came across advertisements for a sexuality and consciousness conference in Montreal in the springtime. They promise a "transformational" experience that will lead to more "fulfilling relationships" and "magic." In principle I agree with an attempt to remove "shame, guilt and fear related to sexuality and authenticity." If it works for you, then great. Participate in workshops called "SSSEX" (Spiritual Sexual Shamanic Experience Level 1). Participate and meet other like minded folks who will entrench you even further in ideas you share.
I have several problems with conflating sexuality, sacredness, and consciousness as this workshop seems to do. The first is cultural appropriation. I read recently a well-written blog post by a former yoga teacher which outlined her reasons for halting her yoga practice and teaching. She became increasingly troubled by the aspects of yoga that resembled colonialism. This is not to say that "learning" from another culture is forbidden (that would be even worse), but using another culture for your own purpose is separate issue. The brief time I spent on the Sexual Renaissance page, I noticed immediately the motifs from cultures that have a spiritual reputation such as early South Americans who have a history of Shamanic ritual. Why do have stamp our products, our so-called spirituality with another culture? Do we take from other cultures to lend ourselves credence?
A second issue I have with such conferences is the spiritual aspect pure and simple. I find it suspect to heal bodily taboos with the sacred. To put it crudely, it is just replacing one pile of crap with another. I have not done the research, nor can I say assuredly that I am an expert, but I assume a large portion of sexual taboos and shame have been codified through the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West. One could argue that spirituality and organized religion are two separate enterprises, but untangling the two is problematic on many levels.
Simply put, many people still look to organized religion for spiritual guidance, and often on matters directly related to sexuality. Even one as purportedly as open as the "Shamanic" experience they offer is laden with beliefs about sexuality, ones that could easily - if not already - harden into dogma. (Come on, a playboy tantric sex teacher?)
Furthermore, ladling sex and sexuality with creativity and the sacred ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of sexuality as that which we share with animals - with practically any living creature. It links us with the entirety of the planet not through our human consciousness but in the very absence of it. (And what makes orchid blossoms so delightfully obscene - I have been known to stick my pinkie finger into a blossoms centre with some childish sense of fun).
Sexuality is not sacred. Removing the sacred from sexuality is what will cause the "Sexual Renaissance" they are so desiring. How can we do that? By supporting sexual education in our schools. By not being afraid to teach our children about their bodies from a very young age. Knowledge about their bodies will protect them and give them pause when they explode into a hormone soup during their teenage years. Engaging a new generation of critical thinkers will give them the tools to approach the barrage of hypersexual and often artificially enhanced images with a skeptical eye. To not necessarily believe our senses. To not believe in magic, while wondering at it all.
It is true philosophical skepticism which leads to openness - a kind of secular spiritualism - founded in disbelief.
The longer answer comes from the conflation of "consciousness" and "sacred" that like a virus replicates itself in people looking to connect to a movement beyond themselves. Recently I came across advertisements for a sexuality and consciousness conference in Montreal in the springtime. They promise a "transformational" experience that will lead to more "fulfilling relationships" and "magic." In principle I agree with an attempt to remove "shame, guilt and fear related to sexuality and authenticity." If it works for you, then great. Participate in workshops called "SSSEX" (Spiritual Sexual Shamanic Experience Level 1). Participate and meet other like minded folks who will entrench you even further in ideas you share.
I have several problems with conflating sexuality, sacredness, and consciousness as this workshop seems to do. The first is cultural appropriation. I read recently a well-written blog post by a former yoga teacher which outlined her reasons for halting her yoga practice and teaching. She became increasingly troubled by the aspects of yoga that resembled colonialism. This is not to say that "learning" from another culture is forbidden (that would be even worse), but using another culture for your own purpose is separate issue. The brief time I spent on the Sexual Renaissance page, I noticed immediately the motifs from cultures that have a spiritual reputation such as early South Americans who have a history of Shamanic ritual. Why do have stamp our products, our so-called spirituality with another culture? Do we take from other cultures to lend ourselves credence?
A second issue I have with such conferences is the spiritual aspect pure and simple. I find it suspect to heal bodily taboos with the sacred. To put it crudely, it is just replacing one pile of crap with another. I have not done the research, nor can I say assuredly that I am an expert, but I assume a large portion of sexual taboos and shame have been codified through the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West. One could argue that spirituality and organized religion are two separate enterprises, but untangling the two is problematic on many levels.
Simply put, many people still look to organized religion for spiritual guidance, and often on matters directly related to sexuality. Even one as purportedly as open as the "Shamanic" experience they offer is laden with beliefs about sexuality, ones that could easily - if not already - harden into dogma. (Come on, a playboy tantric sex teacher?)
Furthermore, ladling sex and sexuality with creativity and the sacred ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of sexuality as that which we share with animals - with practically any living creature. It links us with the entirety of the planet not through our human consciousness but in the very absence of it. (And what makes orchid blossoms so delightfully obscene - I have been known to stick my pinkie finger into a blossoms centre with some childish sense of fun).
Sexuality is not sacred. Removing the sacred from sexuality is what will cause the "Sexual Renaissance" they are so desiring. How can we do that? By supporting sexual education in our schools. By not being afraid to teach our children about their bodies from a very young age. Knowledge about their bodies will protect them and give them pause when they explode into a hormone soup during their teenage years. Engaging a new generation of critical thinkers will give them the tools to approach the barrage of hypersexual and often artificially enhanced images with a skeptical eye. To not necessarily believe our senses. To not believe in magic, while wondering at it all.
It is true philosophical skepticism which leads to openness - a kind of secular spiritualism - founded in disbelief.
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