Issues around sexuality have become highly politicized in recent years, as individuals and groups who see themselves as representative of maligned or marginalised sexual orientations have struggled to become accepted. In some cases their struggles have appeared to pay off, as society has been shamed into changing laws and recognizing the validity of unconventional relationships such as the spectrum of LGBT orientations.
In this article I want to go beyond politics and offer an alternative view of sexuality based on Freudian psychology and Eastern philosophy. To simplify this alternative view of sexuality I have set up three brief categories that will make it easier to consider the bigger picture as well as individual circumstances in regard to sexual expression.
Sexuality, and the expression of sexual drive (libido) is a vital and important part of human existence, and compared to many issues remains highly charged with taboos, fears (based on those taboos) and misinformation. In some ways the political narrative referred to above is complicit in these taboos, since politically motivated cognitive biases have often precluded deeper enquiry by, as it were constructing a prohibitive 'electric fence' of platitude and dogma around the issues.
The following is intended to be a thought-provoking way of categorising sexuality as we move into a deeper understanding of how we can experience a greater and deeper sense of sexual fulfillment and satisfaction as mature human beings.
Type 1. Normal
According to Freud, the chances of achieving what he regards as normal adult sexuality are not particularly good and depend on a multi-layered and highly complex patchwork of factors, both internal and external. Still, this category can be regarded as the model for the reproductive imperative, the blueprint for nature to take its course in the smoothest possible way. It is a sexuality based on the primacy of the genitals in heterosexual combination. With the ultimate aim of penetration and the merging of sperm and egg, it includes the orgasmic reflex as a by-product of these aims. Thus we are looking at the best chance of nature, and by extension, evolution of taking its course.
Type 2. Perverted
Before going into detail it is important to state that the term 'perverted' does not imply any moral judgement or evaluation of this category. It is not supposed to diminish or invalidate the activities which may fall into this category or the attendant feelings, emotions and other responses that may be associated. This category refers to sexuality whereby the libidinal drive has become fixated on objects other than the 'normal' zones of erotogenic interest. It is almost as if, on the way to a normal sexual expression, the libidinal attention was detained or diverted towards an alternative for either internal or external reasons or a combination of both. Thus, for example, a fetish is a prime example since it is the fetishized object that is of primary interest and release of libidinal charge is focussed around this object rather than Freud's 'normal' erotogenic areas.
Type 3. Transcendent
This category is where the Eastern philosophy comes in since it was in the East (India, China) that sexuality was combined with spiritual practices, thus turning sexual expression into an art and a discipline rather than merely an expression of desire. In Taoist and Tantric teachings, sexual expression becomes a dance of energies and practices are proscribed to cultivate sexual energy with a view to bringing the act of sex closer to the ecstacy of spiritual union with the divine. Transcendent sex is not about fixations or personal preferences so much as following the principles that have been clearly laid down, so to speak. While a very small number of people in the west have deliberately practiced transcendent sex, access to such teachings is a simple matter, although actually attaining the goals of transcendent sexuality is probably not.
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