Let us start with the "Tantra," which means literally to stretch, like a net or a fabric. Although the history and detailed practices are calculated and highly varied, one essential is the dynamics of a spiritual sexuality. It is believed that it is the woman is the "Objective" member of the dyad. The male is only a subjective participant only. This seems particularly ironic in the face of the gender bias and pretense of a masculine objectivity. Female intelligence is rooted in objective reality. Lunar cycles, female bonding, child bearing, practical necessities, and a socially superior linguistics. All of this is the exclusive domain of female intelligence. As men, we are like little children in the worship of our Great Mother. In the rituals of Tantra, we all choose to cultivate intimate awareness. It is the man who is the drone. And we must be submissive to the supremacy of female practical necessities.
As is the case as well in Taoism, the female is supporting ground, the earth, and the receptive waters from which man is born, nourished and interdependent. In Taoism, any denial of this spiritual fact is seen as a tragic ignorance. Man's unwillingness to revere and regard female potency, causes him to suffer. The male power of creativity and influence is only that externally independent directive for duty and responsibility. It is said that a woman's place is in the home and with the family, so is it the responsibility for a man to follow what are his responsibilities, even when it leads him away from the home. Obviously our society has changed, and these generalizations are hopefully less often used to define gender boundaries today. But we are still confronted with our true differences, and the prejudices that have denied women the right to self determination. This "Polarity", this opposition or "Bias," is still a most fertile ground for understanding these instinctual and intuitive differences. Empathy can only provide me with a "subjective," second hand awareness of what a woman may feel, know or understand. But almost every man can tell you, we want to know, "What do women want?"
In mystical Judaism, the woman is compared to the divine law or Torah, given by God to Moses for the survival of the children of Israel. (THe Law is the Lady.) This linking is expressed by the sacred convention of marriage. A man is supposed to learn from woman. Ironically, Judaism is also not free of misogyny. Monotheistic religions, however, do not have an exclusive claim to denigrating woman. Original sin is often blamed on Eve exclusively. Also, in the Eastern Religions, it is the woman who is often seen as Maya, the illusion of attachment to the physical world of suffering and un satisfying pleasures of the flesh. It's believed that it is the female attachment to this world that is the source and the cause of all suffering, this endless cycle of death and rebirth. Nirvana is supposed to be release from this inescapable wheel of reincarnation. Look, women aren't harmless. But as a gender, women have never done anything to be demonized as the cause and source of all evil and suffering.
Come on guys, you know what I'm talking about. I don't want to see women wearing bags over their heads, or have to see them segregated. But it's been imposed on women for millennium. Long before monotheism came on the scene, in the time of Pericles, Ancient Athenian Women were not allowed out at night unless covered from head to toe, carried on a sedan chair. And even if covering yourself up isn't what makes a person more modest, it is seen as a modesty today. It has been my female friends that have confronted me about my vain exhibitionism, and my insensitive indulgence to displaying my freakishly beautiful middle aged body. Knowing what women want, for me has been very liberating. I'm proud of friends for telling me the truth to my face. There is nothing to know about about sexual medicine, were it not for female intelligence. I find it strange that some men think they don't need to learn anything from women. Sex is just the dangling pendant on each of us as complete humans. And yet it defines so much of what we are, how we got here, of how we are different from each other, and of what we need to learn about each other. Our instincts and intuitions are designed to experience living with all of it's freshness, contradictions and polarities.
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