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Lili
Netherlands
372 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 10 2009 : 05:24:33 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
Lili, I must say that I don't find your last sentence of your post, supported by the link, very accurate. The myth of the happy whore is dying. I don't think there's any point in trying to pump it alive again - it's so obviously not True.
Hi EMC,
I am no expert in any of this and my view is based on interviews I see on TV and talking to people with different views from mine about their experience. I think you may be right for many cases but also there seem to be people out there that are happy and comfortable doing this kind of jobs even if they did not suffer abuse as children--they even compete for getting such jobs just like regular jobs. While I don't quite understand them I also don't want to pretend they don't exist or think deep inside they are miserable cause they look much better off than most of my friends with regular day jobs. So things are less obvious to me than they are to you but as you say you have been spending time researching the subject and I haven't so your view is well founded--keep posting  . |
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 10 2009 : 11:37:21 AM
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Hi Anthony and all,
thanks for being the one who opened this somewhat delicate discussion. I learned a lot reading it.
quote:
Anthony:
Once again, it is painful because of the rift it causes. I don't really want to do something, then another part of me jumps up an drowns the other part out and convinces me to do something...then Im left feeling conflicted. You know what I mean?
Yes, very much. I've got the same with alcohol. You know, here where I live it's VERY common to drink. Especially beer. Everyone does it, on every occasion. We're the biggest bear drinkers in the world (seriously). I've "been exposed", to go with the language used in this thread, early too. I had my first beer as early as age 10. So now, suddenly, as a 31 years old yoga practitioner, a have to deal with an addiction that lasts for 20 years. Oops.... Everyone else continues happily drinking, no problem, it's normal... What? You're not gonna drink a bear with us? Are you okay, man? Order one for him please, his mind is apparently clouded! Perhaps you know what I mean...
But really, one thing I'm not getting: Alcohol is a poison. It's killing the practice we've done already, and it inhibits us to continue further. It damages our organs, including the brain, and it clouds immediately our minds. So that's clearly something we don't want.
But where is the problem with pornography? I'm not exactly sure what you guys mean with "pornography," but the amount of advice given in this thread, of the type "simply don't watch it ever again, gradually stop yourself from watching it, use your willpower" etc., really perplexes me. Is it bad to watch porno movies? Or dangerous, or what? Isn't it rather how we approach them?
I think here where I live, no one makes such a big deal of it. We talk about it sometimes. I personally currently enjoy movies by Viv Thomas, like "The Art of Kissing," "The Sole Collector," or "Pink Velvet". I think they are simply beautiful. I see beauty, elegance, sensitivity, joy, even naturalness in them. Find them very inspiring. Then there are Japanese porn movies, also often really inspiring, because of their completely different approach to sexuality. I found also some Hentai movies to give fascinating insight into intimacy, as Japanese experience it. And hey, I'm single now for more then 6 years, which is a state I'm not finding the way out of. It's great that I can enjoy at least these movies, now and then. I watch them always when I'm practicing my "solo tantra," and find them to be just a perfectly enjoyable tool. I made really good progress with those movies, since I decided to go tantric. I'm brahmachari for six months with them, learned to block perfectly with them, built up lots of staying power with them, and I'm having further progress in exploring subtler ways of moving energy throughout my body with them. So what's wrong here? They are nice and useful. Practicing sometimes solo with porn movies, gives you perfect comfort to explore the response of your body... You can watch softer stuff when you're not sure with your energy, or go for some hotter stuff, if you want to challenge your limits, etc.
I really don't see anything wrong here. Even when I think of the Eight Precepts of Buddhism, certainly a good codex for a morally balanced life, I can't see any pitfalls.
However, I don't enjoy materials where cruelty, humiliating, or idiocy is being exposed. And I agree that the production of this is dangerous and unwholesome. That's a different story, about poor people committing cruel deeds for money.
But to be clear, many people feel turned on by S/M stuff, for instance, which includes also pain and violence. I personally do not, but it's been shown that this peculiar mixture of sexuality and violence is simply a significant component of our unconscious conditioning. And when it would start to surface into my consciousness, I would certainly not suppress it and keep it secret, in a naive hope that it will disappear somehow. It's important stuff (and very human too), which deserves to be explored, experienced and understood. We can create ritual, or symbolic situations, which help us to dive into it, without needing to actually harm anyone. It's just there - all those wild carnivals, S/M saloons, even the vulgarity common in most (see? it's in all of us) porn movies - all that points to the existence of a profound connection between human sexuality and violence. I think that we need to see that clearly, experience it, understand and embrace and integrate it, in order to heal our wounded sexuality. Not suppress it, and say this is bad, don't do it, ged rid of that...
Roman |
Edited by - mimirom on Mar 10 2009 11:44:38 AM |
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Goddessinside
158 Posts |
Posted - Mar 10 2009 : 1:59:45 PM
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When will human race live sex as it is, simply, purely, naturally as it is, without lust and perversion???????
It's the most natural spontaneous thing that can be a natural stepping stone to meditation!!!!
Our minds have become sick, our societies are sick and have been repressed for lifetimes...
Sorry but I just feel like shouting loud out of anger..
I am angry at all this f*@#$!!!!ing business..
I am angry at the poison that goes on perverting our minds more and more through the media and advertising..
And finally, I apologize from all of you here coz I'm writing in a moment of anger ..
It has to come out..
Thank you for not judging, just read and send to trash..!
(and empty the trash!)
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 10 2009 : 8:40:14 PM
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| Nothing to worry, Goddess. |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 02:41:51 AM
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Goddessinside,
I've been just as angry as you. Now I have realized somewhat how unawareness functions when it comes to sexuality. I now only feel "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." It's very few who see the whole context and range of the consequences (physically, psychologically and spiritually). I'm sure I don't have it all either. Barry Long (and Bernie Prior) are so far the ones whom I have felt most clearly have been able to explain the comings and goings of this from a spiritual perspective. Men and women interact to get this thing going in unawareness.
Have you read any of Barry Long? It might get you a bit more settled around this, and you will find a man who truly understands the feminine (!) and that by itself was such a great relief to me. I cried and cried and cried when I read his books in the beginning, just because being so deeply SEEN as a woman. Everything I had learned in my academical studies of body-mind functioning around this issue suddenly fitted perfectly with the spiritual explanations of it!!! To me, it seems as if science (psychosocial medicine) also in this area is beginning to catch up and merge with the spiritual truths, just like we have discussed a lot in forum happens in physics!
Just found this interview with Barry, I just listened to 2,5 parts (have to run to work) but it seems as a very good interview about tantra and lovemaking and how man can practice and go deeper. In the end of the first video and the beginning of the second he tells a bit about the feminine receiving the sexual mind. Just some food for thought and a presentation of Barry if you haven't heard of him before. If a woman in a normal relationship receives the male mind tensions through the womb... just imagine what a "sex worker" receives all day long...
First part of seven, the rest will show up in the list to the right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ziuq3W7zKg |
Edited by - emc on Mar 11 2009 02:59:47 AM |
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Lili
Netherlands
372 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 07:51:33 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
If a woman in a normal relationship receives the male mind tensions through the womb...
Hi EMC, Goddess,
In my experience periods when not in relationship have lead me to develop mind and body tension of my own whereas I don't remember receiving mind tension in normal relationships. On the contrary I was feeling much better physically when having regular sex than without a partner. Can be that all my partners had very calm mind   |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 09:11:54 AM
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| Have you listened to Barry on the link? It might give a clearer picture of what I mean by that. |
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anthony574
USA
549 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 09:48:51 AM
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Roman,
For me, I want to get it out of my life because, for me, I think it has distorted my view of sexuality for my whole life and I want to allow it to return to an organic and natural state. I think possibly there is sexual material out there that may be harmless...but I was exposed to it at an age way before the point where I would be able to descriminate, so it's a bit late for that. I tend to feel that it centers sex for me around the visual and the mind and takes awareness away from the body. You seem to be able to use it in a constructive way in lieu of a sexual partner...for me it is not that way.
I can't speak of some of the topics brought up on here. I feel bad for inciting negative and painful emotions from the women on here, but I do not allow myself to be drawn into a fixation on healing my inferior and flawed masculine soul with the divine feminine. That is a mentality I fell into before and it leads to nothing but more guilt for me, not to mention thinking, thinking, thinking. I can only work with what is in front of me a day at a time, and for me the task now is to move past my mind's addiction to sexual imagrey and improve my discipline. I believe porn is painful for women...but there are men involved too, ya know. What of the men that ejaculate 5 times every day and know nothing or preserving energy? I'm sure they raised much like myself - exposed to graphic sexuality at a very very early age. That could never really return to a normal love life? I think it is important to avoid fueling the male/female rift - that one needs apologize to the other. We're all in this together.
I don't think men are wholly to blame. I see girls and women flaunting their bodies all the time. Participating in demeaning and mysoginistic movies that even women enjoy (American Pie...). I don't think it's fair to play victim. It is not easy for a guy like me who deep down wants to be the man Godess and emc admire when everywhere I go there are women sending out raw sexual energy, craving the attention of the eyes. It is irritating to me, actually. It is distracting. But it is the human race right now. It hasn't been terribly long since we stopped having exclusively reproductive sex so I suppose we're still in a bumpy transition period. One day at a time  |
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Lili
Netherlands
372 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 10:02:48 AM
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| Yep I have and most of it sounds reasonable but still think people can make their own mind and not do what whoever tells them be it Barry or not. |
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themysticseeker
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 10:30:26 AM
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| Anger is a poison. |
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anthony574
USA
549 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 10:30:53 AM
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| I think there is a big lack of balance in the whole men and women relationship in the cosmic sense. It always seems to be to be centered around females with men being this auxillary creation that is meant to be here merely to resolve his inherent flaws and mend with the fundamental feminine. When I hear this thinking it occurs to me that it does not really make me feel any better about myself as a man. That being with a women gives her all these "bad womb vibes"...I just don't buy into it. I think there is too much focus on the duality of men and women...just be people. So the genitals are a bit different...other than that, I don't think we need to carry our egoic perceptions of difference into the spiritual realm. Sorry if my views are disagreeable with some, but I think speaking from the man's side is something that doesn't get done enough. It gets pretty old carrying the baggage of being a man and feeling like I have to prove that I'm transcending my own gender. I think as long as my focus overall is to be love and peace everything else will fall into place. |
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YogaIsLife
641 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 6:50:41 PM
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quote:
I think as long as my focus overall is to be love and peace everything else will fall into place.
And I'd say you are pretty accurate Anthony.
Indeed, this whole thing on gender differences complicates thing. This is not to say however that man and woman are not different. But, as you so well say, we are all people in the end and at the very core, in the spiritual sense, we are all the same. So, as you say, if we act from there - peace and love and oneness - everything else will fall into place. The trick is to be able to do that, but that is why we are all here after all. |
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 7:32:38 PM
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Dear Anthony,
quote:
I think there is a big lack of balance in the whole men and women relationship in the cosmic sense. It always seems to be to be centered around females with men being this auxillary creation that is meant to be here merely to resolve his inherent flaws and mend with the fundamental feminine.
I believe I recognize this state of mind. It was also my cosmos, when I was in the age of about 20-22, which might be a coincidence, or not. But believe me, it is not the only way Cosmos is constituted. There is the primordial archetypal principle of "The Beauty and the Beast" (Have you read any of the stories recently? Might be a god idea to do so.), which resides deep in our unconscious. At times this principle can surface into consciousness, and make us believe that the entire Cosmos is IT. I believe that no one enjoys to be under it's influence, without being aware of it. Neither men, nor women. And it affects both. Each one differently, and yet perhaps very similarly. You are doing well questioning it, because in the end you'll receive the crucial insight, and you will grasp it as a whole and see that it's not you.
When a man is caught up in this worldview, any critique coming from the feminine seems to have an absolute value. It seems like the only thing you can do is endlessly apologize, feel remorse, and drown in the greatest sin, which is, that you are a man. It's got no exit. It's a vicious circle.
In my experience, women tend to communicate with men pretty much the same way, as your own inner Guru communicates with you, unceasingly trying to heal your mind. When you have an issue, which needs to be resolved in order for you to grow, your mind will lead you again and again into situations which will expose that issue. And this involves pain. Your mind will go back to the painful crack, until it finally forces you to figure out how to heal that pain. Your women are like that. They want to heal you. They want you to grow wise and strong. So when a woman keeps exposing your weak spots, like igniting your remorse, she does not want to harm you. She wants you to face it. So you can see, that apologies are not appropriate in this case.
Imho, Anthony, what you need is to reconnect with your masculine core. Forget for a while about the feminine. Visit your dad and your grandpa or uncle, have discussions with them, see your best male friend and go with him to the woods, go to go-kart races and have some fun, gather with men, go to a remote place, chop wood and make fire, attend a male sweat lodge with Indian rituals, play on drums with men, build a boat, read David Deida or Robert Bly, attend an experiential workshop for men, you might even consider a Vision Quest, if it's available there where you live. Find strength and support in the world of men. Regain your vision!
Keep searching and you will find Shiva right in your hearth. It's your masculinity, your vision, strength, and compassion. Once you've found your core, you'll be able to trust it and build up a firm connection to it. You'll feel the strength in your chest and belly. And this is what you offer to women. It is the greatest gift you can give to your goddess, in order for her to be able to relax in your arms, open up, and shine in her fullest beauty. So there you go...
Roman |
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anthony574
USA
549 Posts |
Posted - Mar 11 2009 : 11:38:03 PM
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Roman, what a wonderful post. Seriously.
I have found on occasion a pride in being a man. It feels...good. Especially during times when I'm doing manual labor, or alone in the woods roughing it. I'm going to be spending a month or two with my dad soon so I'm sure that will help as well.
There is a stigma about being a man, sometimes, in the spiritual community. Not enough encouragement to bring out one's masculine qualities and not enough emphasis on the positive aspects of the contemporary man. For a while when I was beginning yoga and really starting to feel its effects I began trying to shed my masculinity. My sex drive plummeted (with poor effects on my relationship with my girlfriend at the time), I lost interest in physical activities, and my voice even got a bit higher and softer. I was fixated on that apologetic attitude...but the funny thing it, my girlfriend didn;t seem to like it. She wanted a man, not an hermaphrodite. I think the main problem is that spiritual men want to be compassionate and embody those characteristics of unconditional love and such...but those characteristics are most often associated with a female figure, symbol, or achetype so it creates a tension between being masculine and being spiritual.
There is much confusion that arises with men on the spiritual path, for sure. Especially depending on which society you are in. I think this has a lot to do with pornographic fixation. It is interesting that for me in my "real life" I treat women with respect and am not influenced by pornopgraphy in my sex or romantic life. But the mind still craves those mysoginistic and excessive fantasies. |
Edited by - anthony574 on Mar 12 2009 12:00:30 AM |
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Goddessinside
158 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2009 : 01:26:10 AM
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Hi everybody,
Yes, indeed, anger is a poison.. and I once again apologize for my reaction Anthony, and all; I'm aware of it.. and am working each moment on healing this resentment and transforming it into positive energy.. not always easy, but at least, I have the will to do it.
Yes Anthony, I totally agree with you: it's not constructive to have a dualistic vision.. we are all responsible, I said it before and repeat it. We are all victims, nobody is to be blamed. When I get angry, it's my "small me" that has been hurt; but getting stuck in this anger and pain is a curse, not a cure.
Thank you EMC for the Youtube links.. I will check it out as soon as I can today.
Also thanks a lot Minirom.. what you said is wise and goes beyond any duality or limitation..
.Peace.
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2009 : 08:47:45 AM
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Hi Goddessinside and emc,
I'm sorry if I inconvenienced you with my open posting about pornography. It was obviously not intended to offend you. Let me offer a short story from my life, in hope for atonement, because I mind your opinion.
It happened some seven years ago. I lived in a small and dark flat in Prague, and I wasn't really engaged in anything particular in that time. My best friend from childhood happened to live there temporarily too. One day he rang the bell at my door and told me, that he desperately needs to escape from his hometown, otherwise he won't be able to ged rid of his growing addiction to heroin and methamphetamine. He asked me to help him to begin a new life. I lived there alone, so that wasn't a problem.
A few weeks later, one of his friends needed to stay over night in Prague, and so she came to our place. She was the beautifulest girl I've ever seen. Seriously. She had long, dark and rich hair, an angelic face, and her body was just Fruitfulness itself.
Her beauty was so blending, that I immediately forgot about any possibility to win her attention, and so, paradoxically, we were able to begin a healthy, unobstructed communication. Soon we fell in love, and agreed to share our lives in that small, dark flat.
It was truly ecstatic, and a really surrendered to the idea, that it is The one love I've been waiting for, and that it will last forever.
However, I soon noticed that she was hiding something, and begun to ask questions. During the first six months of our love she cautiously uncovered to me the truth about her life. She left high school and the house of her parents in the age of 16, and disappeared in another town. (And she was even a couple years older then me.) There she begun to earn her money as a prostitute. She was doing that for some years, plus here and there she was acting in porn movies, or made some photographs for a foreign magazine. During those first six month of our relationship, she tried to get some real jobs, but the money wouldn't be enough. And I could see that she had lots of money, without having a serious job... Often she wouldn't be at home at night, without explanation, or even picking up her phone. I was having some hard time trying to digest somehow all those news. Of course she was shy and utterly cautious with telling me what's going on. Finally she told me that she was earning her money as a professional "cam whore," and that she needs to do that, because of her long-standing serious addiction to methamphetamine, which of course was financially demanding. She told me that she takes it for six years already, and that currently she needs 1g per day. (That's a huge amount.) So that was after some six months of living together.
So, she left me with a decision. She offered that we could break up, and that she will go, if I decide that I don't want to stay with her. She said that she knows that she was lying and all... Bang!
It was pretty a shock. I didn't have the slightest idea how to react in that situation. Initially I felt flooded with anger and stuff, because of all that deceiving and lying and so. I asked her If there is something that I could do for her, and she actually answered very clearly: "Yes you can help me. And it's simple, you have to love me strongly."
I took 24 hours to think about it, and rather soon I realized that, surprisingly, I don't have actually many options. It was....hmm...just surprising. I could easily see, that I'm in love with her. And that was the whole thing somehow, I didn't want her to go. So I accepted her as she was, I knew after all, that she wished to recover from that nightmare, into a better life. It felt like the most natural thing I could do. It even felt easeful. No heroics needed, at all.
It turned out to have been a good intuition. During the coming six months I could see her actually recovering from all that. We traveled to a remote place, where she had no possibility to buy meth, and after some detox, she actually stopped using it. She never used it again. She got a simple job in a rent a car, and didn't go back into sex industry ever again. I succeeded to get a new job during that time as well. She even started to attend an adult education course, which she actually successfully finished later.
After that time, we broke up. Today she's married, and has got two gorgeous babies, one of which is just 22 days old. Both of us consider the time we spent together to have been great, and we'll be good friends for the rest of our lives, I guess.
So, would that be a healthy approach to pornography? I always thought it was a nice one. You tell me.
Roman |
Edited by - mimirom on Mar 12 2009 11:19:44 AM |
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mikkiji
USA
219 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2009 : 08:52:05 AM
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In the Taoist worldview, this can all be explained through the concept of ying and yang, and the coexistence of opposites--that every human quality has within it its own opposite, and recognizing and balancing those opposing attributes is how we bring silence, peace and fulfillment into life. So, within the male exists the female, yes. But because most men, and masculine social norms, demand that we repress or be ashamed of these feminine qualities, we never achieve balance or fulfillment. Recognizing and expressing the inner feminine values of the male is a spiritual practice, and demands patience, tolerance, self-regard and acceptance. It involves a fierce independence and a non-judgmental willingness to go where the heart leads. Our inner feminine identity is a good leader, and allows us men to be better men--by allowing us to be more the universal Self rather than the ego-bound individual self. Society may look askance at us for this at times, but it need not mean abandoning any of our masculinity either. We do not need to raise the pitch of our voices, become interior decorators or loose any of our sexual or sensual nature. In fact, one experiences a heightening of sensuality through the balancing of yin and yang, because the feminine is so much more sensitive to the sensual, whereas the masculine often overlooks the more subtle aspects of the sensual, being largely overtaken by the overwhelming testosterone-driven sexuality of the male. All of these small changes add up as we balance and integrate, until the male we become, while not exactly hermaphroditic, is softer, gentler, more reasonable and less uncompromising. That does not make us less masculine. My wives and girlfriends over the years have always demanded a very healthy sexual relationship with me, I think largely because I have become a better lover for them as I've grown into my own feminine half more comfortably. I have remained physically well-conditioned and muscular--in fact, the softer my psyche has gotten, the more hard-bodied my physiology has become. Balance between yin and yang is the key--accept, integrate and absorb, resist nothing, allow everything and become the silent witness to the comic dance of the gunas. Ultimately, one finds NO difference between male and female, only masks and role-playing. Beneath it all, it is One.
Michael |
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2009 : 09:32:40 AM
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It's so funny how you guys call me mimiron, or minirom... Actually "minirom" would go for mini-gypsy in my language...hahaha
We cross-posted mikkiji
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YogaIsLife
641 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2009 : 10:37:49 AM
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| Thank you Michael for that wondeful post. |
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2009 : 11:29:23 AM
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quote:
Goddessinside:
Also thanks a lot Minirom.. what you said is wise and goes beyond any duality or limitation..
Thank you Goddess, this is of great value to me.
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Goddessinside
158 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2009 : 01:19:01 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by mimirom
quote:
Goddessinside:
Also thanks a lot Minirom.. what you said is wise and goes beyond any duality or limitation..
Thank you Goddess, this is of great value to me.
Oups! sorry, I wrote Minirom with "n" by mistake.. Funny to learn what it actually means in your language!
Thank you Mimirom for sharing your experience and teachings concerning pornography..
It's a great lesson of Love and Understanding for me..
It's so easy to get entangled with negative emotions towards the person who causes pain to us - that's what we think at least..
It takes will and effort to shift and channel this negativity to transform it through meditation..
Yesterday, I was caught once again in this vicious circle of anger and resentment; there was a certain gap between "me" and this negativity.. I was aware somehow and lived it as it was, knowing somewhere inside that all these emotions are unreal, they will just fade away like they came..
I become so blind when those emotions overwhelm me..
I realised that I have almost become addicted to this vicious circle of anger/frustration--release/compassion/detachment..
It's so easy to say to myself:"Let it go.. turn IN not OUT.. the more you look out, the more you judge the other's behavior, the more you go astray from your inner core and peace.."
It takes a simple "No, this time, I will be watchful not to sink in it again..cause I know it will do nothing but create pain for me, and it will change nothing to reality".
So, I'll try to remember that whenever I go astray from the center, I will just stop, watch, and decide here and now what I want:
I want to surrender to misery and pain, or I want to remain free, peaceful and loving?
Each moment I have this choice..
PS: when I say "I", I mean not only "myself".
Peace... (and meditation!!! ) |
Edited by - Goddessinside on Mar 13 2009 02:42:20 AM |
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JDas
USA
74 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2009 : 05:33:43 AM
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bravo! In an of itself, there's nothing wrong with porn. Clearly a lot of the folks who have posted on this board have not taken a look at the state of it lately. It's waaaaaay different than it used to be! More female-oriented, with woman playing controlling roles more and more often. Porn for money is on its way out, as more and more folks are making videos, women included, of their sexual experiences and posting them for all to see, free of charge! Personally, I think it's a hoot, but everybody has different attitudes toward it, and that's fine.
But dude yah gotta ditch the shame and all those other feelings. That's precisely what's making it a central part of your life. It's those feelings more than anything that are your bane in this matter. Examine them, talk to them, think about them, then let them pass. Then you'll be able to choose for yourself the action you will take, or not. It's not the porn in and of itself that's the focal point here, in my opinion. Porn is just a thing, like any thing else. It's your mind, your feelings, playing havoc with you. Relax. It's okay. You're okay.
quote:
Originally posted by mimirom
Hi Anthony and all,
thanks for being the one who opened this somewhat delicate discussion. I learned a lot reading it.
quote:
Anthony:
Once again, it is painful because of the rift it causes. I don't really want to do something, then another part of me jumps up an drowns the other part out and convinces me to do something...then Im left feeling conflicted. You know what I mean?
Yes, very much. I've got the same with alcohol. You know, here where I live it's VERY common to drink. Especially beer. Everyone does it, on every occasion. We're the biggest bear drinkers in the world (seriously). I've "been exposed", to go with the language used in this thread, early too. I had my first beer as early as age 10. So now, suddenly, as a 31 years old yoga practitioner, a have to deal with an addiction that lasts for 20 years. Oops.... Everyone else continues happily drinking, no problem, it's normal... What? You're not gonna drink a bear with us? Are you okay, man? Order one for him please, his mind is apparently clouded! Perhaps you know what I mean...
But really, one thing I'm not getting: Alcohol is a poison. It's killing the practice we've done already, and it inhibits us to continue further. It damages our organs, including the brain, and it clouds immediately our minds. So that's clearly something we don't want.
But where is the problem with pornography? I'm not exactly sure what you guys mean with "pornography," but the amount of advice given in this thread, of the type "simply don't watch it ever again, gradually stop yourself from watching it, use your willpower" etc., really perplexes me. Is it bad to watch porno movies? Or dangerous, or what? Isn't it rather how we approach them?
I think here where I live, no one makes such a big deal of it. We talk about it sometimes. I personally currently enjoy movies by Viv Thomas, like "The Art of Kissing," "The Sole Collector," or "Pink Velvet". I think they are simply beautiful. I see beauty, elegance, sensitivity, joy, even naturalness in them. Find them very inspiring. Then there are Japanese porn movies, also often really inspiring, because of their completely different approach to sexuality. I found also some Hentai movies to give fascinating insight into intimacy, as Japanese experience it. And hey, I'm single now for more then 6 years, which is a state I'm not finding the way out of. It's great that I can enjoy at least these movies, now and then. I watch them always when I'm practicing my "solo tantra," and find them to be just a perfectly enjoyable tool. I made really good progress with those movies, since I decided to go tantric. I'm brahmachari for six months with them, learned to block perfectly with them, built up lots of staying power with them, and I'm having further progress in exploring subtler ways of moving energy throughout my body with them. So what's wrong here? They are nice and useful. Practicing sometimes solo with porn movies, gives you perfect comfort to explore the response of your body... You can watch softer stuff when you're not sure with your energy, or go for some hotter stuff, if you want to challenge your limits, etc.
I really don't see anything wrong here. Even when I think of the Eight Precepts of Buddhism, certainly a good codex for a morally balanced life, I can't see any pitfalls.
However, I don't enjoy materials where cruelty, humiliating, or idiocy is being exposed. And I agree that the production of this is dangerous and unwholesome. That's a different story, about poor people committing cruel deeds for money.
But to be clear, many people feel turned on by S/M stuff, for instance, which includes also pain and violence. I personally do not, but it's been shown that this peculiar mixture of sexuality and violence is simply a significant component of our unconscious conditioning. And when it would start to surface into my consciousness, I would certainly not suppress it and keep it secret, in a naive hope that it will disappear somehow. It's important stuff (and very human too), which deserves to be explored, experienced and understood. We can create ritual, or symbolic situations, which help us to dive into it, without needing to actually harm anyone. It's just there - all those wild carnivals, S/M saloons, even the vulgarity common in most (see? it's in all of us) porn movies - all that points to the existence of a profound connection between human sexuality and violence. I think that we need to see that clearly, experience it, understand and embrace and integrate it, in order to heal our wounded sexuality. Not suppress it, and say this is bad, don't do it, ged rid of that...
Roman
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mimirom
Czech Republic
368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2009 : 12:57:16 PM
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quote:
Goddessinside:
Each moment I have this choice..
Respect to you Goddessinside, really.
Actually this is one of the moments I miss a "namaste" emoticon here on the forums. Don't you guys miss it? |
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Goddessinside
158 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2009 : 1:25:07 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by mimirom
Actually this is one of the moments I miss a "namaste" emoticon here on the forums. Don't you guys miss it?
/(|)\
(I tried my best! ;)
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2009 : 1:30:00 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by mimirom
[quote]
Actually this is one of the moments I miss a "namaste" emoticon here on the forums. Don't you guys miss it?
Someone once posted this one which I use at time..
_/\_ |
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Very frustrated with myself!
