The Monk and the Sadomasochists

Bonjour lovers,

I’m so glad you came here.

This is my first post, and I feel nervous because I’m going to put out my real feelings here about why I’m doing it.   It isn’t however a whole philosophy.  It’s just a few of my feelings backed up with some words from the wise.

And if you aren’t feeling me on some of this, but still want to talk dirty to a lover in French, I’ve still got what you need.

Righto! I reckon that

We all need to connect. To charm and feel charmed, to seduce and feel seduced. Love is not all we need, but we all do need love.

I reckon that love is everywhere and available to us all the time.  Yes there is rampant isolation and a loneliness epidemic.  Yes, relationships are hard, but love can prevail.

I’m confident these views are fairly widely held by a broad cross section of the community.  I heard them best expressed first by a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk living in France and then from two bisexual Californian BDSM practitioners.

Let’s hear them speak for themselves….

THE MONK

I have carried Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Art of Communicating all around the world and brought the book three times, in Australia, India and Japan.  My brother has one copy and I have two more treasured in my Paris apartment.

Nothing can survive without food. Everything we consume acts either to heal us or to poison us. We tend to think of nourishment only as what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, our tongues, and our bodies is also food. The conversations going on around us, and those we participate in, are also food. Are we consuming and creating the kind of food that is healthy for us and helps us grow? When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering…. [p1]

THE SADOMASOCHISTS

My dear friend with whom I've long loved chemistry shared the book the Ethical Slut with me.  Despite its focus on Polyamory it really is a guide for anyone who has relationships with anyone at all.  I shared it with my partner.  It was the beginning of some very long deep and challenging conversations that shaped my life forever.  Here is what these two marvelous women have to say:

We think erotic energy is everywhere—in the deep breath that fills our lungs as we step out into a warm spring morning, in the cold water spilling over the rocks in a brook, in the creativity that drives us to paint pictures and tell stories and make music and write books, in the loving tenderness we feel toward our friends and relatives and children. In our combined three-quarters of a century of work as sex writers and educators, we’ve found that the more we learn about sex, the less we know about how to define it, so now we just say the truth as we know it: sex is part of everything. (Pg 30-31)

SO HOW IS THIS RELEVANT?

Talking Dirty in French is not about Buddhism or BDSM per se (although really we can go anywhere you want) but these three writers are touching something very powerful for me.

If this potent energy and this connection to people and the universe is everywhere AND if  it is communicating to us, through all our senses all the time, then WHY do we so rarely feel connected to it?

The Monk and the Ethical Sluts both see suffering borne from this disconnection as rampant in our world.

“Lonliness is the suffering of our time” says Hanh.

He says that it is a lack of conscious awareness and appreciation that blocks us from loving ourselves and prevents us from nourishing communication.  He worries that we are taking for granted the precious gifts that are our lovers.

“Many of us suffer because of difficult communication. We feel misunderstood, especially by those we love. In a relationship, we are nourishment for each other. So we have to select the kind of food we offer the other person, the kind of food that can help our relationships thrive.

Often a romantic relationship begins beautifully, but then, because we don’t know how to nourish our love, the relationship begins to die. Communication can bring it back to life. Every thought you produce in your head, in your heart —in China they say, “in your belly”—feeds that relationship. “ Hanh [p3]

Dossie and Essie agree but also add that society and shame can block us from truly loving ourselves which locks us away from loving others.

Our culture places a very high value on self-denial, which is fine when there is hard work to be done. But all too often, those who unapologetically satisfy their desire for pleasure in their utterly free time are seen as immature, disgusting, even sinful. Since we all have desires, puritanical values lead inevitably to self-loathing, hatred of our bodies and our turn-ons, and fear and guilt over our sexual urges.

We see ourselves surrounded by the walking wounded—by people who have been deeply injured by fear, shame, and hatred of their own sexual selves. We believe that happy, free, guiltless connection is the cure for these wounds; we believe that sex and intimacy are vital to people’s sense of self-worth, to their belief that life is good.

Pg 31

Okay, so they probably disagree on the self denial bit both the Monk and the Ethical Sluts both feel that the first step through is self love, self compassion, self communication.  They also agree that practice is the way forward.   What and how you practice is entirely up to you but there is a path out there for all of us.  I believe the way to bigger love, greater compassion and heightened  passion is connection, with ourselves, with others.

To cultivate connection we need to consciously practice communicating of our appreciation, our respect, our boundaries and even our secret desires.

I feel I’m called to create one more space for that.  No judgment, expectations.

Above all I want to create a time and place for respectful* communication and connection.

It just so happens that I want to do that with strangers,  in  French, with a focus on the filthy, because I think that is FUN!

What do you reckon?

;)

Bisous x

* I think this is absolutely possible even  if you happen to get off on being called degrading names.