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Lay Buddhists and sex
Jeffrey
Veteran
Any adivice on this. This is not about CTR (sigh) or monks. Just us ordinary beings.
I find that I want to make someone happy. But I want sex in context of a friendship rather than a friendship in context of sex. I'm not looking for long term but it makes me sad sometimes that I am 'just' friends even though that's what I really want. I want the friendship. But sex is just very joyful. I am sad that I don't have a good income to support a family.
So just airing out my thoughts, but the topic isn't a Jeffrey call for help rather I just want people to say, as a lay person, what they think of sex. As a Buddhist lay person, what do you think?
I find that I want to make someone happy. But I want sex in context of a friendship rather than a friendship in context of sex. I'm not looking for long term but it makes me sad sometimes that I am 'just' friends even though that's what I really want. I want the friendship. But sex is just very joyful. I am sad that I don't have a good income to support a family.
So just airing out my thoughts, but the topic isn't a Jeffrey call for help rather I just want people to say, as a lay person, what they think of sex. As a Buddhist lay person, what do you think?
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Comments
I will admit to the whole sex thing being a lot easier when you lose much of your desire for it.. it's amazing how much of what a man does in his life is really done out of some sort of aspect of the sex drive.
Futureama does a funny part of one episode where its a documentary and it says how everything man has ever done was to impress women , all the science and inventions etc LOL.. not necessarily true, but funny.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/hl-5052038/futurama_anti_robot_propaganda_season_3/
I couldn't help myself
For me, friends-with-benefits relationships always ended up being sex first, friendship second in the end. My only experience with the reverse(love/friendship first) has been in my current long term relationship.
In my personal experience, sex/lust can greatly complicate a platonic, functioning friendship.
Then again, I'm not sure anything I said has much to do with me being a buddhist lay person :dunce:
-but that's my 2 cents.
I believe it was George Orwell in Animal Farm who postulated:
Two legs good, four legs better (wait a minute . . . that's not right . . .)
Love, compassion, metta is the higher form of sex.
Lovely. Eh Ma Ho.
There's a Seinfeld episode where Gerry and Elaine try to do this, but discover it is a minefield.
Lord Chesterfield
An extract from "When Harry Met Sally"
Remember this is Buddha for Beginners talking about sex and Buddhism. It is not about 'Jeffrey's' situation.
However, grain-of-salt is advised, as most of my relationship/friends-w-benefits experience has been with other women, except for my current one.
Personally I have no problem with sex so long as no one is being abused or exploited.
To be honest, I'm not sure what it is you actually want, Jeffrey. Friendship + sex = a relationship. You say in your OP you're sad about being "just friends", but that contradicts it being what you "really want". Maybe you should just let things pan out and stop trying to control events?
If the only thing holding you back is the fear of not being able to support a family, I would say why do you need to have a family at all? Not all women are desperate for motherhood. And even if, by accident rather than design, a Little Jeffrey popped into the world, you'd be amazed how everything falls into place in your hour of need.
For those wishing to increase the libido . . . assuming it is not out of control . . . maybe another thread . . .
Increase in Love
as the 'evil dervishes of Islam' try to do when not killing innocents (thus have I heard but found no Love in) @towhomitmayconcern
Good luck guys. If you can love the lovable, may be time to move on . . .
As for lay Buddhism and sex, it's just like anything else a person can do that distracts them from their practice, which includes a whole lot of things.
I do have to say, I feel genuinely sorry for men, as I sure hear a lot of self reporting, being yanked around (pun intented) by their erm drives. I don't know what that is like, but it seems like a huge bother, and kind of an unfair burden just for being male.
Gassho
In some ways, that is the answering without question.
:clap:
You youngsters are really waaaaay too uptight and repressed. :-)
I am sooo glad I'm "old" and had SO much (responsible) fun and freedom back in the day. I'm sad for you younger people now...
All the guys I knew (not "biblically" speaking, by the way! LOL) carried condoms, just in case the girl they were with wasn't taking/using BC. I'm sure accidents happened and/or there were those who weren't careful to begin with... but among the people I knew during those days, which was a pretty large group, there were no accidental babies born.
I'm guessing from my experiences and friends that the average age a female became sexually active was around 16 back then. About 15 or 16 for the males as well. Is it still the same today? (I honestly don't know).
But it just seems like there is so much 'angst' about sex these days. I know the AIDS scare in the early-mid 80's had a lot to do with this... this... sexual repression. But It's been more than 2 decades since we've learned how NOT to spread diseases like AIDS and other STDs. Why don't more young people have fun and adventurous sex lives while they are still single?
'unskillful'....
From my experience, FWB causes too much confusion.... In a lot of little
ways at first...and then bigger later on down the road. Most people
find out for themselves.....
An item now?
all benefits....
:vimp:
Aside from the long past "aids scare", another reason so many young people may have issues with sex and feel inhibited or (unjustifiably) overwhelmed by it all, could be because of the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in America -- all throughout the 90's and 2000's.
Yeah, all those Christian youth camps, all those silly "purity vows" and "purity rings" parents foisted on their kids.... "slut shaming" for girls, (not so much for the boys, of course, but there was some); rejection of "responsible sex" in favor of "abstinence only" - what a crock that all is/was. Any thoughts?
I think we also run the risk of trouble, with a minority of young people, by unintentionally creating this conflict. I've seen it lead to turmoil and trouble, and emotional distress or worse, that can persist well into adulthood. In this sense, these absurd teachings represent a profound disservice to society, exactly the opposite of the intended effect -- and I do believe the practice is sincerely well-intended though tragically misguided and sometimes permanently harmful.
Getting birth control was NOT easy, in my experience, at all. My daughter, born when I was barely 18, is a statement of that fact.
I've since come 'round and see much more deeply into the so called politics of the right and left, and have come to see much, much more good in social liberalism but that could be because the Religious Right have all but humiliated the conservative party(ies) in my opinion. I fondly encourage lovely, lovely sexual activity as often as it can be had because we do have measures to prevent unwanted transmissions
I only have opinions about the 'purity vows' and all that . . . I was never in those crowds, and don't know how pervasive they were or are. I opine they weren't particularly 'common' or widespread. I've lived in three states and several rural and urban areas, and have only rarely run into that kind of moral puritanism. It's there, but how much it affected the collective attitude? I dunno.
Sometimes I look back at the 60's and 70's and part of the 80's as a pendulum swing who's momentum began in the post WWII era, and the current momentum of conservatism is pooping out (what with gay marriage and legal pot here in Washington state) and slowly swinging back the other way.
That implies we only swing back and forth, but I'm pretty sure there's more to it that that, maybe we spiral up and outward, revisiting powerful collectivity at every turn of the gyre . . .
Gassho
Now im not saying ive been completely celebate since 2009, ive had some friends with benefits experience during that time, but ANY kind of sexual activity has really lost value and you see that its not a physical drive that makes you want to do things, its all about ego and mental fantasies.
Ive knick named that insight "massaging the fantasy, not the phallus" . This is the number 1 thing that makes monks disrobe, and i dont feel much loss about the possibility of never doing anything again.
As ajahn brahm says, its time to fight for celebate people's rights ;-).
The sheer distraction of that drive is gone. I meet, get to know, and regard acquaintances without so much as a "gee, I wonder if . . ." kind of thought. People are just people, their bodies (or the potential of their bodies) are just simple descriptions that I know them by.
Plenty of women my age insist they have the best sex lives EVER at my age because they no longer need fear unwanted pregnancy, and have matured past any girlish morality or worries about not being physically 'perfect'. They can just enjoy sex with freedom for the first time ever.
After I got rid of my second husband, and that was seven years ago, I haven't had more than a handful of "I wonder if . . ." thoughts, but none of them got off the ground. At first I wondered if I were somehow permanently 'wounded' after the disaster of that marriage (I did not 'off' him, though it crossed my mind, I merely kicked his ass out). I don't believe that is the case, though. I am very, very comfortable in my single-tude and it is a breath of fresh air in my life to be free of the wish to have that special someone.
I've encountered many women in my life (and suspect it is rampant in American culture at least) that honest believe they are 'second class' unless they are hanging off the arm of a man. They feel shame for being unpaired. I don't understand that shame. It must be a terrible burden.
In my most unguarded moments, I've thought of giving up my career and taking up residence as a nun. I say this with utmost respect and sincerity for the life of such, and then I wonder if I'm being silly. If I'm honest, except for working, I LIVE as a nun. I have four sets of work scrubs and five articles of outer clothing plus a pair each of slippers, boots and work shoes. I go to work and come home. I eat the same thing every day. I read sacred and sacredotal (lol) literature daily, meditate daily, and never watch TV or listen to the radio. I do not socialize, though I've been given invitation to do so, except I have visited a good work friend twice for dinner with her and her husband. I endlessly spin yarn and sometimes knit or crochet something with it. Half of my tiny mother-in-law studio is packed with sheep, goat, alpaca and llama fleeces I've yet to clean and process
Maybe I don't need to go BE a nun, I already am one
Anyway . . . it all sort of ended up 'this way', my life, for a reason. The sacred is forward now, and perhaps that alone has something to do with no urge to merge?
I had no idea monks primary reason for disrobing is the urge to merge. Hmmm.
Gassho
Also you do sound like you live a form of nun's life.
Being single, being celebate, its all very rebellious. Monks/nuns are the ultimate rebels, shunning everything most people hold dear.. But instead of leather jackets and motorcycles they have robes and alms bowls.
On the upside, it's pleasurable and can strengthen already strong and intimate relationships (which may be due in large part to the complex chemical reactions that occur during and after). On the downside, it can complicate relationships and obsess our thoughts, leading to feelings of frustration, anxiety, and jealousy.
In essence, it's not evil or bad, but it's not purely wholesome, either. It's a mixed bag that we need to be careful when reaching into.
Learning to deal skillfully dealing with my own sexual desires has taken a long time, and a combination of trial and error and being mindful of what's going on inside of me. I've found that a lot of the trouble comes from the desire and the proliferations that I tend to indulge in rather than sex in and of itself.
It's kind of like when we're hungry and we begin to think of all the food we'd like to eat. How's it going to smell, taste, etc., and how enjoyable it will be to eat.
We indulge in this kind of thinking/fantasizing; but when it comes time to eat, we often eat quickly and don't really enjoy it all that much. And if we get too obsessive over our desires and plans, with the craving underlying them, we can suffer when they don't turn out the way we want. What if our partner isn't hungry yet or wants to eat something else? We can get sad or even angry.
The same is true of sex, I think. What if it's not how we wanted it to be? What if the person we want to have sex with isn't interested?
In the end, while the desire to eat and the desire for sex are both natural, they can both cause us suffering if we don't have the tools and knowledge to treat them skillfully, and for each person, that's going to vary slightly. And developing those tools and cultivating that knowledge takes time, effort, and a lot of mindfulness to see what works and what doesn't.
To me, sex should be treated like any other object of sensual desire for a lay-follower: if we're going to indulge in it, at least try to do so skillfully.
The most common complication it brings to a Buddhist practice is thinking that it is somehow less worthy a phenomena to meditatively face within our conditioned responses than any other skandhic influence.