Weed Wanderings Herbal eZine with Susun Weed
March 2004
Volume 4 Number 3

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What's Inside Weed Wanderings this Month...

INDEX  | HEALING WISE  |  CHILDBEARING & MOTHERING  | YOUR INTUITIVE DREAMS
WISE WOMAN WISDOM | ANTI-CANCER LIFESTYLE |  MENOPAUSAL YEARS |  FEATURED LINKS

Wholistic Sexuality
Empower Yourself...
Wholistic Sexuality
A New Paradigm For Our Times
( part 1 )
by Sheri Winston 
Wholistic Sexuality

Containing The Force of Sexual Energy - Understanding Cultural Influences
by Sheri Winston

Author of Women's Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure

 

In order to truly comprehend our sexuality we must understand it as a complex interplay between the evolutionary process and the influences of our environment. Sexuality is one of the most primal forces in our world. Of all creatures that exist the vast majority reproduce sexually, making the act of reproduction the most essential driving force after that of personal survival. Yet, despite its innate and pervasive power the topic of sexuality is a challenging one for many people both now and in the past. 

All cultures throughout time have recognized that the powerful and primal sexual drive cannot be left to run wild and needs to be contained in some manner. In sex-negative cultures sexuality is controlled with rigid taboos, strict rules and tough laws with transgressors being ostracized, penalized or even killed. Sexuality is de-sacralized, that is, considered to be profane. In such cultures it is common to find inequities of power between men and women, with feminine power and attributes denigrated.

In sex-positive cultures a flexible container is formed of consensual agreements, respectful communication and honoring ritual that channel sexuality into positive forms. There is more likely to be a balance in power between genders as these cultures honor both masculine and feminine attributes. In cultures that honor sexuality there is an appreciation of the sacredness of the act and of its amazing power to create both new life and spiritual union.

In most Western cultures sensuality, sexuality and ecstasy have been frowned upon, banned, discouraged and shamed. In our current multicultural, multi-influenced milieu these historic sex-negative beliefs still permeate our world while at the same time we are also exposed to a ubiquitous inundation of sexual messages and imagery from every aspect of our media. In our pervasive modern media sexuality is used to sell everything imaginable with its titillating power but provides us with a view of sexuality that is shallow and limited and does little to heal our ambiguity. 

Our culture also maintains a mechanistic worldview that tends to separate things into unconnected parts and to compartmentalize aspects of our selves and our lives into isolated fragments tucked safely away in cubicles. Sex is such a volatile, taboo subject that it is especially alienated and hidden for many people. 

In some cultures sex was recognized as a path to the sacred Divine, a meditation that can lead to cosmic oneness, bliss and proof of the Divine’s love. For those of us enmeshed in Western culture it may be hard to comprehend sexuality as a joyful, loving and compassionate path of ecstatic spiritual practice. But our sexuality has the potential to be sacred as well as intensely pleasurable if we choose to re-shape our beliefs and practices into a sex-positive framework.

Babies, Bliss and Bonding or Procreation, Pleasure and Partnering

Sex has 3 major overlapping functions; procreation, pleasure, and the social functions of attachment and bonding. Of these functions, it is successful reproduction that is the most essential. That sex is also pleasurable is, in fact a subset of making sex work since the drive to experience pleasure is what makes us want to do it. The experience of pleasure is also health-promoting as it releases chemicals, neurotransmitters that reduce tension, de-stress, promote longevity and relaxation. Sexuality is also about bonding, especially in humans due to the fact that our babies are born so immature that they require an extended period of intensive care before they are competent to survive on their own. Hence the need for bonded relationships to ensure assistance in the prolonged and intensive task of successful childrearing. 

“Mother Nature” i.e. the forces of evolution is always conservative. She doesn’t waste. If something can be used for more then one function, it will be. The evolutionary design of any complex system has any one thing serving multiple functions and purposes. The evolutionary template for human sexuality and the reproductive system is to make babies, grow, birth and nourish them until adulthood. Sex is designed to make babies. Sex is also designed to create human bonding for survival. The reproductive system conservatively uses the same equipment to start the babies, grow and birth them, nourish them and to create the bonded relationships needed to support the family. The same hormones that are released during orgasm are released during birth, breastfeeding and when people fall in love. To have a useful model of sexuality we must include the reproductive processes in our understanding.

Culture and Nature
Survival of the species drives us to want to have sex. When seeking to understand and learn and expand our sexuality, we must constantly ask, what is mother nature’s plan, why does this work, what compels us to engage in certain behaviors, what is in-born in the human animal and what is created by the circumstances of our lives and of the cultural milieu in which we live? There are some aspects of sexuality that are clearly a part of being a human animal. The process of arousal, for example is essentially the same for all humans, while what triggers that arousal will vary from one individual to another and from one culture to another.

Some preferences seem built-in, others so ancient that they may as well be, and some uniquely new for our current crazy times. For instance, let’s look at the female breast, a marvelous structure that serves multiple functions. First and foremost, it is designed to nurture a new human being by providing love, physical contact, stimulation and perfect nutrition. Secondarily, it is a luscious erogenous zone, conveniently hardwired by nerves and hormones into the reproductive tract.

But the size of the breast has absolutely nothing to do with its capacity to produce milk. All breasts contain the exact same amount of milk producing tissue, just like we all have the same number of ribs or teeth. All of the size variation in breasts is just window dressing. It is evidence of social selection pressure over time that we modern humans have a delightful variety of breast sizes. It’s also evidence of some deep-seated preferences that male humans have for the female mammaries. And we all came hard-wired to be attracted to the place where our nourishment comes from, babies love to look at ‘targets’, that is a series of concentric circles, also known as the breast.

And yet, although pretty much all guys (a not a few women, either) appreciate breasts, it’s not every guy’s favorite body part. Nor would there ever be agreement over the ultimate in size and appearance, although each culture tends to have ideals. And in some cultures breasts are not even considered an especially erotic body part. So there’s one example of the tangled web that creates us as sexual beings, a combination of millions of years of evolution, selection pressures from biological constraints and human preferences, historical and modern culture tangled with personal experience, beliefs and preferences.

A New Paradigm—Wholistic Sexuality

It is time for a revolution in our understanding of sexuality that I call Wholistic Sexuality. This concept includes an understanding of culture and biology, that incorporates the wisdom of ancient sex-positive cultures and the information available from modern science, and that recognizes that sexuality is an essential connected aspect of being a healthy human.

Wholistic Sexuality is about connection. A wholistic sexuality paradigm introduces concepts that bring sex back into connection with all the other aspects of our lives in a way that honors the power of our sexuality and recognizes that sexual expression, pleasure, intimacy, fun and joy are necessary for people to be integrated and whole human beings. We need to recognize that in order to be a fully healthy human being, we need our sexuality to be healthy.

This does not imply that in order to be healthy we must be in sexual relationships with other people, but rather, that we must create and maintain a good sexual connection with ourselves. In other words, wholistic sexuality is, first and foremost, about our relationship with our self. It includes our physical relationship with our body, our history and experiences, the beliefs that we were exposed to as we grew up, our current beliefs, our current and past relationships, our community, the media, our culture, and all other aspects of our world. It is all of these components and more create our internal sexual relationship. Indeed, sexuality it is a holographic component of our interwoven, inseparable mind-body-spirit. 

The Spectrum of Sexual Experience

Wholistic sexuality includes healthy, loving relationships of many forms, not limiting sexual expression to heterosexual penis-in-vagina intercourse as the norm of sexual behavior. It recognizes that our human birthright is to be able to enjoy the amazing gifts of our sexual potential to achieve an intimate and loving connection to ourselves. And when the right person or persons are available, it includes the ability to have satisfying and joyful erotic relationships with others. We need to recognize that our sexuality changes over time, it grows, shifts, matures, and develops. It is a journey, that is an on-going process of discovery and learning. At its best our sexuality can be a profound and deeply meaningful part of a healthy life. Only when we have a healthy relationship with our own sexuality, are we free to have healthy sexual relationships with others, that are based on respect and caring, and that have the power to bring increased sexual pleasure, health and joy to all.

We need to expand our definition of sex beyond that of goal-oriented, penis-in-vagina heterosexual intercourse. In a wholistic view it includes all activities that bring consensual erotic pleasure and is not limited to a single act. 

Good, Great or Ecstatic Sex

The experience of sex needs to be understood on a spectrum, to recognize what is currently available to us as well as to see what is possible and to recognize when sexual experience is emotionally damaging or physically harmful.

Bad sex is uncomfortable and unsatisfying. It is essentially nonconsensual and feels pressured, coerced or forced. There are unaddressed needs or sublimation of ones own needs to meet the needs or desires of others. Sex that is shame-based or degrading can be an expression low self-esteem and unresolved childhood wounds or painful experiences. Often one person is feeling powerless while the other asserts an unhealthy dominance. Good sex is satisfying and usually mutually orgasmic. It meets basic needs to feel connected and attached. It is based on mutual consent and basic principles of respect. The experience of orgasm is limited to the genital region.

Great sex includes expanded whole-body or multi-orgasmic capacities. It is based on intimate connection that meets deep emotional and perhaps spiritual needs. Great sex expresses love that is reciprocal and establishes a genuine bond. It utilizes sexual energy whether it is consciously activated or unconsciously present.

Wise Woman Center teacher photo of Sheri WinstonEcstatic sex truly carries one outside the small separate self into a timeless feeling of being connected to universal divine bliss. It erases personal boundaries and one can experience a sense of merging with the other that has enormous power to heal wounds and create a sense of Divine love. Everyone has the capacity to experience this and for many people rapturous sex is the easiest path to the experience of ecstasy. It usually consciously employs sexual energy techniques.

The basis for shifting ones experience of sex into the higher realms starts with establishing a healthy loving relationship with our own sexuality. This needs to be combined with an understanding of the skills and techniques that are available to each of us to learn how to expand our sexual repertoire.

 

Women's Anatomy of Arousal:
Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure

Women's Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure by Sheri Winstonby Sheri Winston
266 pages.
Chock-full of information, illustrations, erotic art, games and exercises, a guided tour, wholistic sexuality, orgasmic abundance ...

The clitoris is just the tip of the volcano. Women have a largely unknown network of structures responsible for arousal and orgasm that even most medical professionals don’t know about. ... This fun, sexy, empowering guide combines lost knowledge with ancient and modern sexuality information to illuminate every woman’s secret paths to fabulous, orgasmically abundant sex.

Price: $19.95

 

OrderWomen's Anatomy of Arousal in our Bookshop

 

Making Love: An Herbal Guide - digital download
MP3 digital download - David Winston. 8th International Herb Symposium 2007. Run time 1:37:21.

Making Love: An Herbal Guide to Sexual Health.

Sex is an integral part of our lives, yet so many people suffer from lack of sexual fulfillment due to physiological and psychological problems...

Price: $19.95

 

Order Making Love: An Herbal Guide in our Bookshop

 


Herbs and Sexual Hormones - digital download

MP3 digital download - Matthew Wood - 7th International Herb Symposium 2005. Run time 1:25:03.

A study of the excess and deficiency of estrogen, progesterone, and androgen, the patterns of imbalance they create, their relationship to wider hormonal imbalances, and the herbs that treat them, with a salute to the heritage gift of great women’s remedies received from the Native peoples of America.

 

Price: $9.95

Order Herbs and Sexual Hormones MP3 in our Bookshop


Sexy Herbs - digital download
MP3 digital download - Ed Smith. 4th International Herb Symposium 1998. Run time 1:34:52.

Class for Everyone: (1.5 hr): In this informative and fun workshop, Ed covers herbal sexual tonics for men and women, aphrodisiacs, sexual stimulants, eroto-enhancers, and the treatment of erotomania, impotence, frigidity, and other such maladies.

Price: $11.95

 

Order Sexy Herbs (mp3) in our Bookshop

 

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INDEX | HEALING WISE | CHILDBEARING & MOTHERING | YOUR INTUITIVE DREAMS
WISE WOMAN WISDOM | ANTI-CANCER LIFESTYLE | MENOPAUSAL YEARS | FEATURED LINKS