SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT

In this guidebook for sexual awareness and enjoyment, the authors deliver narrative stories and explanations to help demystify sex and bring depth and meaning to readers’ sexual lives.

Meuth and Weaver present compelling information about what it means to have sexual experiences that involve mental, emotional and physical engagement. Beginning with a foundation for sexual knowledge, the authors define sexual enlightenment as having two dimensions: The first revolves around “sexual life-force energy, which brings forth life in all that is alive”; The second “involves the human capacity to be self-reflective or aware of one’s own existence, particularly becoming aware and conscious of one’s life-force energy.” Sexual enlightenment also involves an integration of the mind and body, which produces an awareness of the self as it fits into the greater sexual force of the world. Written conversationally, the book dives into not only definitions of an enlightened sexual life but also ways to strive toward awareness, including meditation, conscious breathing and “energy awareness,” which involves becoming aware of the sexual energy that moves around and through us. The book also presents a variety of passages that offer historical context for sexuality, such as the rise of Tantric sexual discovery and the ways in which Puritanism, Hinduism and other ideological institutions have conceived of the sexual experience. Movement and physicality are deeply connected to our emotions, the authors say, which have been trained by experiences, both good and bad. In order to move the emotional body away from anger, victimhood and other negative emotions that stunt sexual energy and life force, the authors posit that one “can make a conscious decision to shift out of this auto-emotional state of reaction and actually invent other interpretations by calling on your ‘witness state.’ ” For example, maybe that driver who cut you off was actually racing to be with his pregnant wife who has gone into labor; such reasoning (even if invented) should calm your senses, the authors say, and thus help return you to inner peace. Elsewhere, drawing from theories involving chakras and energy fields, the authors examine the physical body and the areas of the body that emanate sexual energy. Much like a touch from a lover can be arousing, a cool breeze or heat from the sun’s rays can excite the body, further encouraging the idea that creative, sexual energy comes from within, not from the validation and acknowledgment of others. These kinds of lessons and reinforcements make the book a valuable read for anyone seeking a deeper relationship with his or her sexual self.

An informed, dynamic exploration of sexual history and energy.