If we make the choice to take the mantle of our power and sexuality, and take on a practice to liberate our sexual impulse from our pro- gramming, we will discover several primary areas of conditioning:
We have the idea that sex without love is profane and yet we do not believe the same about love without sex. We pump up feelings of romance and attachment as a means of avoiding the power of sex. We tell ourselves we are adding when in actuality we are diluting or obscuring the knowing of this force on its terms.
There is a raw and true intimacy of human-to-human contact rooted in nonattached connection. We come to see an underlying cultural addiction to attachment, possession, and grasping that is an extension of our ego rather than the ego-dissolving force of raw connection.
To have true self-possession, to take ownership of our thoughts and feelings and experiences, neither blaming nor exalting another—this is the great challenge of the sex impulse. Admitting to the unimaginable power that lies inside of us also points to the unimaginable responsibility that is required of us.
For this reason, we often attribute our experience to our partner rather than knowing it is generated from within, regardless of our partner. It may be daunting to consider the fact that we are the ones to choose how turned on we get. Instead, we will say things like, "I am pleasing him or her," or we will contort ourselves to look a certain way, or we will say, "He or she gave me a great experience." Learning to see all experiences as being generated from within is the entryway to unconditional sex.
The beauty of the sex impulse is that it heats up and activates the sediment that lies within. Rather than the spiritual approach— allowing the sediment to merely settle—the sex impulse stirs it up in order to get it out.
A sensation that often collects around the sex impulse is shame. This is not because sex is in any way inherently shameful but because we use shame to cover our sexual impulse and keep it down. What lies beneath that shame is the vulnerability and the innocence of sex. If we continue to practice we will burn off all of the layers of obscuration and repression and can live in its pure innocent expression. We may carry cultural ideas that we are dirty, lowly, or animalistic for engaging in sex. The instruction is to feel all of this. We are liberating sex from shame, and the way out is to continue feeling until it resolves to a clear, tender vulnerability.
In sex, more than anywhere else, we are able to see how the pure quality of exchange contorts into commerce. Here, we can see the implicit and explicit understanding that there is a tit-for-tat relationship in our sex, operating according to credits and debits. We can see greed operating in the form of subtle—and not-so-subtle—demands.
This is the result of two things: one is that we have kept the sex impulse scarce so people feel they must get theirs while they can. A daily practice helps to open this gripping hand. The other cause is that we have built up so much tumescence that we are not able to synchronize our nervous systems with our partners'. As a result, there is no distinction between who is doing what to whom.
The sense of commerce can go even deeper, making us think we are engaging in the act for the other's benefit and so they owe us something outside of that situation; maybe a payoff like love or a relationship. Again, we are not taking responsibility for our volition or desire and we lost out on the strength that would come from owning those aspects of our experience.
Transgression greed is the result of dishonoring the transgressive tendency that exists within each of us. It is totally counterintuitive. The impulse is to punish it and to apply control, whereas the skillful response is to open further to it. If we want to tame the impulse, give it a wide and approving consciousness to move inside of. Of course, this must be done with agreement from our partner, but the impulse itself can be absorbed into our consciousness.
It is a simple shift in where we send our transgressive tendency. When it is disapproved of, it is cut off from consciousness and often takes on a harmful life of its own outside of our awareness and our capacity to steer it. When the tendency is held in the context of normal human behavior, it can then be drawn up into consciousness and become assertion rather than aggression. This is a vital distinction to operate skillfully. The greatest cause of cultural neurosis is a lack of assertion among its members. The greatest cause of trauma is when repressed assertion becomes aggression.
Powerlessness manifests in different ways depending if we are the actor or recipient. If we are the actor, it manifests as the feeling that we are incapable, unskillful, and clumsy in such a way that we are riddled with self-consciousness. We may become overly focused on technique or pleasing our partner and lose the connection that would allow the power that would make us skillful in flow.
If we are the receiver, powerlessness shows up in the inability to break from discursive thought, to get into our body and out of the mind that keeps busy judging self or others.
At any point in the experience, we might check out and feel the powerlessness of "This is happening to me." The key to remember is that something can only happen "to us" provided we are not choosing it. It is important to remember we have made the agreement to practice because working with this part of the mind will have profound implications in terms of feeling power in our lives.
Here, we are working with a key ele- ment of safety—an internally generated sensation that ultimately devel- ops resilience. Begin to notice how lack of safety or choice occurs when we become passive; where we want something we do not ask for.
One of the most challenging things we confront in sexuality is how hungry we are and how little connection, love, contact, and sensation we can actually receive. We may cover it with devouring voraciously, or we might begin to perform, or "end" by going into climax. We may check out or get irritated. We may start to fantasize, even if we are fantasizing about the present moment.
We may add in love and romance or sexiness—all to cover the sensation, to block it. Are we able to simply receive? Do we feel we need to move or affirm our partner? Can we allow ourselves to sink in?
As everything is magnified in the arena of sexuality, one of the things we can become starkly aware of is our flimsy grasp on a deep sense of self. A full self can draw pleasure from experience. This is, in fact, the contribution to the experience. Where we lack this self-possession, we put performance in its place.
It can show up in the form of over- or under-expression of movement, sound, or facial expression. What is most notable is the experience of seeing ourselves through the other's eyes or focusing on the appearance of the other and performing to get a result.
Authenticity does not try to turn itself or its partner on. The effort is so much extra on top of the process of giving over to the flow of turn-on. The flow cannot happen in the face of control. We cannot be genuinely turned on and performing at the same time, even if what we are performing is "abandon," "submission," or "being taken." True turn-on is not necessarily pretty. It is spontaneous, raw, and animalistic.
Expectation is the great thief of experience; it puts a vice grip around sensation. Our expectations often take us hostage in the practice. If this happens, we look at our response: Do we go silent? Do we withdraw? Do we internally judge ourselves or our partner? Is there something in the moment that we are avoiding? What would this moment be like if it were liberated of our expectations? Is there a fear that without them, the experience will devolve?
A corollary to expectation is the notion that we think we know how the experience should or will go, that we need to drive it in some way. We notice what that might be covering up and how that plays out in our lives. When that quality is removed, how do we feel? Are we able to allow our partner to direct? Do we have fear that they do not know what they are doing or how to handle us, or that if we were not acting then no one would show up? What do we do if our partner seems uninterested? Do we roll over the feelings and get angry, or stop and check in?
There is a felt sense we are moving as one with our partner with no distinction between self and other. We need nothing extra; no eye-gazing, no special movements. Our interior self is connected to their interior self and the two of us are being moved rather than moving. Notice what thoughts come up that prevent this from occurring or stop it when it does. Do we feel a fear of what they might see? What we might see? What it will mean later? Do we feel so hungry for it that we cannot have it? What do we see in terms of meeting another human being? Do we have a tendency to want to give more or take more?
Can we feel how to meet them in the various rhythms and flows? Are there certain speeds, pressures, or positions that we check out on or grab? Are we connecting to essence or appearance? What do we do when we feel a wave—of love? Of disgust? Of reverence? Do we clamp down or allow it to flow into the experience? What makes us want to withdraw or reach out? Do we allow ourselves to feel what our partner is feeling? When different dimensions open that are rooted in altered consciousness, when we can "hear" their thoughts or feel in contact with a presence, how do we respond?
The sex impulse brings us face-to-face with our capacity to let go. The practice is enjoyable to the extent that we let go and difficult to the extent that we do not. This letting go requires a profound trust in ourselves, our partner, and our own resilience. There is, in fact, a power we can connect to that confers a profound sense of knowing and safety that allows us to let go. From that place, there is a whole experience that wants to unfold. We can feel our relationship to that power, where we want to put it outside of ourselves, and where we have an intimacy and trust with it.
Ultimately, this is the relationship we are building. When this is built, a lot of the compensatory behaviors fall away because this is so compelling, nothing else is of interest. There is a feeling when we touch it that we are in love. It reveals itself to be the source of a lot of the feelings of being in love, in awe, in abandon. The issue is, we usually allow that tentacle to attach to someone rather than keeping our attention here at the source of it, getting to know it, and developing a relationship and trust with it. We can secure our connection with it and then let the perfume of it out onto others, rather than handing over the whole store and disconnecting from the source of this feeling in order to do so.
The letting-go is letting go of every thought, feeling, experience, lock up, and grip in order to stay connected with this flow of power. Not stopping when something feels good or bad but letting it continue to flow through, with our focus here. It comes to be that our primary relationship is with this force and that making love or sex is our vehicle for coming into contact with it. It is like coming into relationship with the music we hear in our head, with our body as the instrument to develop our relationship with that music and deepen our capacity to realize it. The gift is who we become in the process.
When considering our capacity for relating, we need to look beyond our ability for how well we relate to this power and see if we can be a channel for it This is more a result than something we practice, but we can recognize it when it comes into action. It feels like something is coming through us, beyond what we could have ever manufactured. We are no longer in relation to power but a transmitter of power.
It comes off of us. So much power moves through us that seeking disappears. There is no us to seek. There is the realization of a channel where we give power rather than seek it, we give love rather than seek it, we give confidence rather than seek it, we give strength rather than seek it. Because the sex impulse has filled us with it.
This is the liberation of the sex impulse. At this point, it can move us with greater empathy, care, and compassion than we could ever move ourselves. But that empathy is used to pierce through the illusion of separation and restore the felt sense of interconnection that is here to heal us all.