Is sex only sacred if it is connected to a religious or spiritual practice? Do I have to believe in transcendent states to have sacred sex? Do I have to light candles and pray? What does God or Goddess have to do with it? Is sacred sex available to me?
The word sacred has most often been used in terms of religious or spiritual value. And forms of sacred sex are often taught in connection with a specific practice, such as Tantra which is from of Hinduism. But the definition of Sacred includes anything that is regarded with reverence and protected. It can also be defined as anything that is approached with dedication and intention. So anything can be made sacred. And anyone can have sex that is sacred to them, without religious or spiritual framework making it so.
How might you make sex sacred for you? *By treating sex as an important and valued part of your life and self *By dedicating time to have sex, excluding outside distractions and interferences and creating space to focus. *By clarifying your intentions for being sexual, whether with yourself or partnered. What is it you seek to offer? What is it you seek to receive? What do you want from sex today? *By keeping your intentions in mind so that you act from them *By being aware, of sensations, feelings, your partner, your desires and giving all of these reverence by allowing them to be fully experienced *By seeing sex as more than a physical act. Perhaps for you it is also a way to learn about yourself, a way to get grounded and relaxed, a way to solidify your bond or express love, a way to express yourself…
Sacred Sex is available to any of us, if that is what you desire. Some sacred sex is seen as a path to enlightenment. But perhaps any of us can be enlightened; the question is what do you want shed light on? What do you want to better understand? Experiencing any element of life in a sacred way is a mindset that has foundations in gratitude, awareness, curiosity, and open discovery. All great things to bring to sexual exploration. See it as sacred or as profane, sexuality has so much to offer us.
There is a poem full of longing by Stanley Kunitz that ends with “Darling, do you remember the man you married? Touch me, remind me who I am.” The poem expresses a moment of exile from the self, those times in our lives when we have changed or are changing in ways uncomfortable and seeded with grief. And then it ends with this hope, the potential of love and touch and sexuality to bring us back to some foundations of who we are and the willingness to let someone else see a side of us that feels elusive.
One of my hobbies is photography and lately I have been inspired by nudes. This has invited me to ask myself, what is it that I am trying to capture with nudes that is different than photos of clothed models? I think some of the answer is in what this poem expresses. When we can shed clothes, we shed expectations of identity, those external cues about who we are supposed to be or cannot be anymore or have become. We become more vulnerable, sure. But there is also a freedom. When I am gifted with the opportunity to work with models who will be nude, I feel like I get to work with a Human Being, rather than with a fixed identity or a part of who they are. Clothes cover but they also limit. Being naked, the person is more of a mystery and I am drawn to pay attention to each gesture, each expression, each interaction to let them show their self to me.
So one of the potentials that lies in sexuality with a partner, long term or not, is the chance to shed external rules and roles and to show up naked. How might you allow yourself to have sex in a way that reminded you of who you are at the core? Touch can pull us back into the simplest, and yet profound, information source about our self that we have – our body. With someone who has known and loved you, touch can convey a memory or contain a history of you that is still there for you to draw on. And how could you approach sexual engagement with a partner with the intention to remind them of their incredible humanness? How could you honor their nakedness with you by freeing them from being a certain way or a certain person?
This poem reminds me of the availability of the present moment, of joining with someone else to be human in the midst of all kinds of noise encouraging us to be something more limited. As we face loss and transitions and endings of all kinds, sexuality can be a place to return to our self. Sex itself will change too, sometimes feeling unrecognizable. But if we let our self open to touch maybe we can find relief from our private disappointments and insecurities and doubts for a time. How can we let sex remind us to let go of all the things we don’t have to use to define ourselves? What distractions to our Self can we shed as we shed our clothes? What if sex is a place to celebrate our mystery and also our simplicity?
Do you seek your self when you are having sex? What if you did?
Temple Art
Imagine for a moment that when you grew up you went to worship in a place that had on its walls images of people engaging in sex acts, humans with humans, humans with deities, all depicted as sacred.
Imagine being taught in your temple or church that the gift of sexual pleasure is something to be honored and that learning to pleasure your partner is an important adult responsibility.
Imagine in studying your sacred text you openly discussed the section that uses sexual desire and expression as a metaphor for love between humans and God.
Imagine it being common for spaces of worship to have statues and icons of human bodies with exaggerated genitals and breasts, to be celebrated and honored.
Imagine if your worship included dancing - real sweaty, hip shaking, undulating dancing - and your grandma, your baby cousin, and your priest were all there dancing and sweating next to you.
Now I am not suggesting that it should have been this way for you. Each person’s connection to their religious or spiritual practice is unique. And I am not suggesting that these are cultural models that are better than others, I believe life is too complicated to make sweeping statements like that. But these are models that exist and I think it is valuable to consider different perspectives and how they might impact us and our beliefs about our sexual selves. What it might have been like to have your sexuality interconnected with the sacred? Is this something you can imagine? Is it something you want?
Many of us have experienced a disconnection between the body and its sexuality and the spiritual and sacred. And of course, many of us have been wounded by expressions of faith that exclude or deny realities of sexuality. Many people are trying to find ways to reconnect those elements of life. Some people have had transcendent moments while being sexual that have surprised them, moments of feeling deeply connected to something bigger than themselves. Some have felt awe for the human body and for the depth of desire. Some are yearning for something different, even if it is just in the way we feel and experience our self. In yearning, I think it is helpful to engage with wondering. What if? What if I saw this differently? Can I be curious about how other people see it? So what if you let yourself imagine, not to find an answer but just to open up the questions and possibilities? What might that open up in you?