Next up, sex. Because actually the Buddha had a lot to say about sex. Okay, what Devon’s going to say here is only very loosely based on what the Buddha actually said, to be sure. But I’d like to think that if the Buddha were alive today as a cisgender thirty-eight-year-old American nonmonastic woman, he’d say something a lot like what you’re about to read.
MAKE SEX GOOD
Devon
Let’s kick off this chapter with a quick contemplation about sex, shall we?
You can do this while you read but you might want to slow down a bit. Maybe take a brief pause after each question. Let it drop in, let it work on you. No need to come up with a clear or perfect answer. Just ask the question. Pause. Feel your body. And see what comes up.
Ready? Please get cozy, and take a few mindful breaths. Now ask yourself these questions:
What is sex about, for me?
What is my version of good, powerful, meaningful sex?
How do my deepest values inform my sex life?
How might my sex life express my deepest values?
Okay, how was that? Don’t worry if you’ve got nothing. Maybe you feel blank and numb and weird inside. Or maybe you’re flooded with a disorganized river of thoughts, images, memories, emotions. Or maybe you had a little insight. All those experiences are fine. The trick is, whatever’s happening in the mind and heart and body—whether it’s newfound clarity or a truckload of sludge and muck—just know it clearly, and keep knowing it, and see how it develops over time.
For me, I’ve been sitting with these questions my entire adult life. I certainly don’t have all the answers. But I thought I’d share a few pieces of my own story and a couple of thoughts on where I believe we are, all of us, in this sociohistorical moment of highly sexualized global capitalist culture.
Which is to say, I’d like to start by talking about shame.
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT
I remember the first time I felt ashamed of my body. I was ten years old. It was Christmas. My parents, sweet and unsuspecting, handed me a wrapped gift in front of the sparkling tree, all lit up and hung with angels. I remember holding the package in my hands, knowing it was clothes of some kind. I remember the excitement as I carefully ran my fingers along the edge of the wrap, releasing the tape to reveal the flat rectangular red Macy’s box inside. Then the elation as I lifted the top of the box and found a green cotton turtleneck—exactly what I’d wanted.
I jumped up, childish in my excitement. I hugged my mom, hugged my dad, ran upstairs to my room, stripped off my plaid pajama top and pulled the turtleneck on, fully expecting to be delighted by what I saw.
Instead, for the first time in my life, I was overcome with a sinking dread. The green turtleneck’s cotton was skintight, clinging. When I looked in the mirror, I saw one thing and one thing only: my belly. Which was sticking out of the fabric like a huge round hateful blob.
I remember thinking I had done something despicable, something horribly wrong. And I remember thinking, for the first time in my life, “I’m fat.” I will never forget the sense of spinning, of drowning, a sensation I would grow used to as I looked and looked and looked in the mirror, again and again, looking for something else, or someone else—some idea of myself—all throughout my teenage years.
A different kid would have simply tossed that brand-new skintight green turtleneck to the back of her ten-year-old closet and never worn it again. But I wasn’t that kid. I made a different choice. Consciously, in front of the mirror that day, I decided I would suck in my belly and never let it out again.
Why is this story in a chapter about good sex? Put simply: sex is about being in a body. And if we’re not allowed to be in our bodies, just exactly as they are, then we’ll never have the kind of full-bellied, openhearted, super-sensual, mutually wonderstruck orgasms we’ve been dreaming of. Sex will just be, at best, another part of the day we check out of, like buying groceries or watching TV.
More than that, sex won’t necessarily line up with our deepest values. Because, for me at least, it’s not just about killer orgasms. (Which are great. I’m not knocking orgasms.) It’s about living my values in my whole life: my work, my family, my friendships, my spirituality…and my sex. Which values? Well, I want to be alive in my body, using my body and heart and mind to recognize and express wisdom and compassion. I want to be alive with others. I want to be alive with myself. I want to be of benefit, fully engaged in all the areas of my life.
Maybe you want some version of this for yourself, too. But how do we make sex good? How do we make it whole and wholesome and embodied and frisky?
Well, first we have to look at what’s getting in the way.
THE TRINITY OF BAD SEX: OBJECTIFYING. PATRIARCHAL. CONSUMERISM.
Back to the skintight green Christmas turtleneck. What was that about? Why would a ten-year-old (and I was a very innocent ten-year-old) have a semi–heart attack alone in her room just from putting on a turtleneck? Why would she fall to the depths of misery over her round (pretty adorable) belly, which, by the way was not big, not fat, and definitely not the result of some horrible, disfiguring lack of self-control or disordered eating. So where did this unshakable intuition come from, this absolute certainty that I should be different?
I blame patriarchy. Or more accurately, the adult me looks back on the ten-year-old me and I blame objectifying patriarchal consumerism.
Pretty complicated, huh?
Now, Craig and I promised ourselves we wouldn’t get all academic and cultural studies in this book, so feel free to skip to the next section, “Take Back Your Body,” if you’re not into this stuff. But in this one instance, I do actually think we need a few big words to make a few big points. Because the dynamics that I want to talk about, the dynamics that need to be unpacked and unraveled and maybe even uprooted, are slippery. We need words that can stand up to their slipperiness and help us get a handhold, so that we can finally see clearly what our bodies and minds are being tasked with, and just say, “Nope.”
Make sense? Okay then, let me take those three big words (patriarchy, objectification, consumerism) one at a time and break them down into their meaningful, useful parts. Because let’s be real here: you cannot make sex good without first uprooting all the insidious ways our global media sell, sell, sell you into making sex bad. Which really translates into all the richness and complexity of human sexuality and sensuality having been squeezed into a power-infused, commodified, hedonistic, tight little package of…alienation.
Yeah, alienation. Ever felt super alone and kind of empty after sex? Keep reading.