Sex: The Bastard Child of Eros

Sex is cheap.

I said it. And, I’ll say it again: Sex. Is. Cheap. We see so many images of the feminine EVERYWHERE. Magazines. Commercials. Holiday parties… And it’s all cheap cheap cheap. Such a cheap imitation. Of what, you ask? Eros.

I used to see women walking around in their form-fitting clothing. It led me to one thought. (And it wasn’t eros.)

Eros ~ from the Greek, meaning love or desire. Let’s go with desire. But what kind of desire are we talking about? It’s not the watered-down version of desire that we call sex. Eros goes beyond our root chakra. It calls us–no, demands us–to a living, breathing presence of THE NOW.

I had experiences of eros way before I knew what it was. My whole being was turned ON. Zzzzzzzing! Like a light switch. Like a current of energy that flowed through me. Sorta like getting struck by lightning~ eros lightning. Art can evoke Eros. Nature can evoke it, as well. All of us probably have an experience in nature that called us to an immediate aliveness.

Eros. Such a small yet powerful word. The Rabbis of old told that the people in a village tried to eliminate the sitra achra, otherwise known as the evil inclination. They did so, but the next morning they discovered that none of their chickens had laid any eggs!

EROS is our LIFE FORCE. When we deny it or turn away from it, part of us begins to die. I see this happening in monogamous relationships all the time. Men, in particular, must repress their experiences of Eros in order to not have women feel insecure in their relationship. And then women complain about men not being “alive” in their relationships~ and being “duds” in bed. Not being able to satisfy them. Here’s what I think is really going on. Monogamy kills relationships. Not monogamy. But our rule-based monogamous relationships.

If you get too excited talking to another woman and it shows, I will become a pissed-off biatch. (Am I pushing any buttons?) Good. Feel them being pushed. You see, women can control men with their intense emotions. (And many women know this and do so intentionally to get their way.) And many men, for fear of experiencing the wrath of their women’s anger, will cower in the face of such emotion. They will go into Eros hiding. EA. Eros Anonymous. Forced, as it were, into having to “sneak” Eros into their lives through cheapened forms, such as porn and office liaisons; masturbation and affairs.

I daresay that women experience something similar. They feel the loss of eros in their lives, in their relationships. They begin to die as well. So, instead of dying, we find another form to make us feel more alive~ even if it is a cheapened form of the “real thing.” We all want the real thing. We all desire it.

Eros.

We have cheapened it to such an extent that we don’t even realize the real thing anymore. Just glimpses. Elusive moments. Some of us are still in touch with it, though. Some of us have not barred it. Jealous love is antithetical to Eros. Jealous love kills Eros. Possessive love kills it, as well.

It’s ironic. We create all these rules in relationships because we are scared of losing the love. But the tighter our grip, the more it escapes us. Some good Tao Te Ching shit right there.

Truth be told, we’re all more than a little “eros deprived.” We need Eros more than we need Sex. Sex is our attempt to feel alive in the world. But it can never fulfill us like Eros can. What is Eros? Where can I find it? Where there is an experience of being ALIVE… there lives Eros. Where there is no Eros… there is no experience of being ALIVE.

 

 

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~Art by Miguel Dominguez