Sex: a social and political push for healing sexual shame

People often ask me what my family thinks of my candid way of writing about sexuality, pleasure, and orgasm.

I understand the concern. I write on Facebook, and many of my posts explore climax, pleasure, orgasm, and related themes.

Which raises a central question: is it considered acceptable to share “personal” details in public?

Is there a boundary between education and propriety?

I believe conversations about sex should feel as easy and comfortable as discussing what we had for dinner. The truth is that public talk about sex unsettles many people, and that only strengthens my resolve to continue the conversation clearly and unapologetically.

The sole reason we squirm when sex is discussed is that saying words like SEX, ORGASM, PENIS, VAGINA stirs the shame attached to those activities and to the parts of the body involved in THOSE activities. As I have written before, shame signals the presence of pain and wounding.

What is the best and simplest way to heal any wound?

Expose it, draw out the pus, cleanse it, and allow your body to perform its remarkable work of knitting the tissue back into wholeness.

As long as we, as individuals and as a society, avoid the subject of sex, avert our gaze, and do everything we can to distract ourselves from the ongoing pain born of sexual shame, our wounds will continue to fester, and we will continue to feel the symptoms of that infection.

The symptoms may include, though are not limited to: sexual abuse and rape, addiction to pornography and erectile dysfunction, infidelity and cheating in relationships, low libido, dissatisfaction with life, anxiety, depression and disconnection from self and life, loneliness and isolation, lack of passion, lack of happiness, and a steady undercurrent of suffering.

Our sexual pleasure is our direct pathway to our Divine nature.

If we LEAVE IT OUT of the conversation, we deny a vital component that is not only central to our humanity but also our bond with life itself.

Our most basic and foundational sexual relationship is the one we have with ourselves, with our bodies, and with our centers of pleasure.

Before we learned what shame was, we knew the beauty and excitement of discovery. We knew that pleasure can exist without being bound to pain. We knew that our bodies and our genitals are part of who we are, in no way separate from happiness, love, and divine essence.

Sexual shame is a trauma. It opens a rift deep within the psyche and sets us in constant conflict with our essential nature.

For as long as we carry shame, we are at war with ourselves. The consequences show up in the suffering we experience as a species: poverty, war, destruction, chaos, illness, and a general disregard and neglect of life itself.

Sexuality, and our relationship to it, is the MOST IMPORTANT matter of social and political awareness, and it should be at the heart of our public discourse.

I invite you to bring these conversations to the dinner table, because wherever we feel discomfort or pain, there is room for growth and healing.