Does Sex Belong in a Book about Insanity?

In We Are All Innocent by Reason of Insanity I use my life to provide examples for various points I make, and this includes some discussion of sexuality. When I am illustrating my insanity, I discuss problems I have had with family, relationships, jobs, self-esteem, etc.; I also include some related to sex. When I describe the lessons I’ve learned—acceptance, humility, compassion, and love—I also include some lessons I learned about sex.

Some readers have criticized me for this inclusion. The sense I get from these people is it’s okay for me to talk about how insanity has impacted my life in every area except one: sex. Somehow that’s out-of-bounds in a book that’s not specifically about sex.

This is a book about insanity, both personal and cultural. If insanity doesn’t describe most cultures’ attitude towards sexuality, what does?

American culture has an incredibly puritanical attitude towards sex: it’s dirty, and it’s damaging to young people and other innocents, so just don’t talk about it. But I would counter that sexual problems are rampant in our culture, and a lot of the reason has to do with our cultural attitudes.

We Are All Innocent by Reason of Insanity argues that every society develops a “consensus reality,” which is a collective mind-generated reality (my definition of insanity is: confusing our mind-generated reality with actual reality). Our individual realities are constructed within the collective reality of our culture. The American (and almost every other nation’s) consensual reality includes the belief “sex is dirty,” and we all imbibe that belief with our mother’s milk. As a result almost everyone in our culture is crazy in the area of sex.

Sex is a natural function of our bodies, like eating, yet we get no guidance from our parents and teachers about it. We're taught how to eat with a fork, how to use the toilet, how to wash ourselves, how to spell and do math, and how to drive a car. But we're not taught anything about how to have sex—because it's dirty. We might have sex education in school, but that’s mostly educating us about the consequences of sex—pregnancy and disease. So almost everyone grows up conflicted, confused, and privately believing that he or she is a monster for the "sick" fantasies and desires in his/her mind. We're taught that sex is something you have to hide.

No wonder half of all marriages end in divorce, with sexual problems as a major cause. Studies have shown that 15 percent of married couples have not had sex in the last six months to a year (or more). No wonder that loads of people sneak around behind their spouse's back to have affairs or watch porn.  A hotel manager once told me that during his career, the highest percentage of guests watching X-rated in-room movies occurred during an evangelical convention—the guests were in a place where they thought they could watch porn in secret (not knowing their program selections were being notated)…and they did watch.

In the chapter entitled My Story, where I lay out some of the major issues in my life, I wrote: 

At one point in my life I read a lot of spiritual books, and always I would wait hopefully for some advice on how to see sex from a more enlightened perspective. It always seemed as if the author either ignored sex completely, or did a whitewash of the subject, as if they were as confused as I was.

I determined not to do this.

I have a vision of sexuality that I call "clean sex," which is sex freed of the beliefs and preconceptions we’ve been burdened with, pre-eminently including “sex is dirty.” Clean sex is like meditating while having sex, but in the nicest way—no thoughts getting in the way of feeling the exquisiteness of the sensations.

Sexual energy is always flowing, like all forms of life energy. You can open yourself to tap into that energy flow at any time, and if you stay open you can ride that sexual energy wave into places of bliss, without need for exotic tricks to keep you interested. I think of it this way: when I want to have sex I shift my awareness to tap into the sexual energy, then I get out on the leading edge and ride the wave wherever it goes. It’s all about staying right there on the edge of the wave, not thinking about anything, just moving with the flow of energy.

Here’s a chart illustrating some of the ideas: 

Clean Sex.................................Dirty Sex 

Present in body...................Absent in mind 

Spontaneous..........................Ritualistic (same combination of elements) 

No goal.......................................Orgasm-oriented 

Whole self oriented.............Genital or fetish-oriented 

Love.............................................Lust 

Variations.................................Fixed theme 

Heightens unity....................Heightens separation 

Sane……………….……….........Insane

 There are many benefits to recognizing our insanity, both personally and collectively. Chief among these benefits will be a new attitude towards sexuality.