Can pleasure be sacred? – article by Vina Green

In late November the lovely Vina Green attended Scarlett French‘s erotic writing workshop at The Pot. We were so blown away by the hot story she wrote that we’ve invited her to take up a month-long Guest Writer Residency.

In this first article, Vina explores a question close to our hearts: can pleasure be sacred? Later in the month she will  put her ideas to the test by attending and reviewing Smörgåsbord; in between she’ll create some new erotic stories to titillate and excite us. Enjoy!

“Sacred Pleasure”. Those two words might seem like an anomaly, a contradiction in terms. After all, ‘pleasure’ conjures up images of hedonism, excess and indulgence, whereas ‘sacred’ is often associated with religion, which encourages self-sacrifice, denial and abstinence. But for me, Sacred and Pleasure fit together like a hand in a glove. Here’s why.

My first experiences of sex and sexuality occurred at church. I was raised in one of the more modern, quite Puritan religions, where excess is shunned – greed, lust, and of course, sex before marriage, or even sex within marriage if the sex includes any variation on the bare basics. They don’t call it the ‘missionary position’ for nothing. Although I didn’t take to religion in the way my parents hoped, I did enjoy reading the bible. My favourite chapter was The Song of Solomon, or ‘the Song of Songs’ which contains such beauties as: ‘I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste’ and ‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.’ Pornography wasn’t easy to come by when I was growing up. My first experiences of masturbation were aided by the bible. Pleasure doesn’t get any more sacred than that.

But what does “sacred” really mean? When associated with Western religious traditions, “sacred” often refers to a definable place or a thing, such as a church or a relic. Sacred things have common characteristics – they’re precious, they’re considered worthy of veneration, they may be a route to God, and they’re thought to have power, often the power to heal. Sacred can also have a wider meaning – in Australia, it’s one the government have tried to define by law, in relation to Aboriginal ‘sacred sites’. These are places of cultural significance to the indigenous people, often associated with cultural stories (myths and legends). They’re places that are spiritually alive. Places that have energy. Anyone who has visited Uluru (Ayers Rock) has probably felt it, as do many folk who visit Stonehenge.

So, something that is sacred has power and energy, is precious, worthy of respect, and can be a vehicle to a higher place. Can we say those things about sex?

When we think of Sex and power, it’s usually in a negative sense. Rape is about power. Sex is used as a weapon of war. When we think of sex and powerful men, the power is usually associated with ‘misuse’, as in priests and Presidents. Indeed, the power of sex is enough to overthrow an empire (I did not have sexual relations with that woman!) Powerful women are, sadly, often thought of wholly in terms of their sexuality. Back to the bible (or, Dexter season 6), think of the whore of Babylon, the scarlet woman, usually pictured in red, either with blood, wine, or in more modern day versions a flash of red nail polish (particularly on a hand holding aloft a whip) such as Irene Adler in Steven Moffat’s Sherlock.

What about the positive power of sex? My personal experience is that sex can be deeply healing. There’s proper, scientific evidence for this. I give you the Marvin Gaye classic:

Baby I got sick this morning
A sea was storming inside of me
Baby I think I’m capsizing
The waves are rising and rising

And when I get that feeling
I want Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing is good for me
Makes me feel so fine, it’s such a rush
Helps to relieve the mind, and it’s good for us
Sexual Healing, it’s good for us

The medical benefits of sex are vast – it reduces blood pressure, burns calories and reduces stress. People who have more orgasms live longer.

Is sex precious? Yes, of course. You wouldn’t be reading this website if it wasn’t. I felt that I had lost my capacity for sexual pleasure for what felt like an age (about five years) after a negative sexual experience, and I can tell you that I mourned the loss of my sexuality like a part of me had died. Sex is a little like faith, precious, and fragile – it can be both the simplest thing in the world, or the most difficult, to find, and it’s easily lost. when you find it, and you’re comfortable in it, it has enormous power.

Is all sex Sacred? What about when it’s less candles and incense and foreplay, and more tits and arse? Here’s where my religious upbringing comes back into force, again, not in the way my mother had in mind. Something that people used to say to me often, when I was going door to door to talk to them about God – “I worship in my own way” or “God is within you”. The same is true, I believe, of Sacred Pleasure. You don’t need your Kundalini, or even your cunt, to be awake. Sacred Pleasure finds you when you’re not looking for it, it exists as a constant in the world. Much as Aboriginal sacred sites don’t become any less sacred when idiots come along and build apartment blocks on them, sacred pleasure is inviolable. So, it makes no difference whether you’re partnered or unpartnered, straight or gay, exhuberantly sexual or asexual, active or celibate, female, transgender, male or somewhere in between – Sacred pleasure is accessible to everyone.

Now, let’s get all fruity and talk about sex and energy. Tantra types will immediately know what I mean. For everyone else – think of chemistry. Pheromones. That moment when you lock eyes with someone across the room and go ‘phwoaar’. Standing near them makes the hair on your arms stand up, the tips of your fingers tingle. You caress them gently (and I’m assuming here that the feeling is mutual and consent has been negotiated) or you get them home and rip their clothes off in a flurry of arms and legs and oh oh Oh! That, that electric tingle, is sexual energy. But. you don’t need to be having sex, feeling sexual, or even feel like you will ever be sexual, to experience the power of sacred pleasure. It’s all just a different manifestation of ‘energy’ which you might find in many other places. I get it from the ocean, mountains, yoga, the endorphins that result from exercise. Many people feel it in art, poetry, music. It’s that little bit of magic that produces a sense of wonder, of connecting with an undefinable something that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. And, like electricity, it can be felt gently, or channelled in a way that leaves a room full of people buzzing.

All you need is an open mind and the intent to enjoy the pleasures of your senses – and that, my friends, is when the sacred becomes the divine.

Would you like to explore this question experientially through a series of evening classes in March? Join us at Pleasure Portals, our lovely introduction to conscious sexuality. Find out more >>