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.