What Is
" S E X " ?
The LiveReal Quiz
. . . can you take it?
"For the most mature of men --
-- that's the short line over there --
sexuality is often as much a puzzle
as it is a test."
- Eugene Kennedy

article assembled by
LiveReal Agent "Femme the Groovy"

"Okay, class . . . today we're going
to talk about "hubba hubba"
"Sex."
Some say
that there's much more to it
than we ordinarily think.
Still, we all see it, hear about it,
read about it, talk about it all the time,
- but to ask a really basic question . . .
. . . what is it?
"What Is Sex"?
(multiple choice format)
A) A physical manifestation
of love,
or a physical act where two humans share the deepest and most
intimate parts of themselves - emotionally, spiritually, and physically
- with another human being.
B) A physical act
that is supposed to be this wonderful, deep, mystifying and profoundly
intimate spiritual experience . . . but most of the time, is actually
just a messy, awkward bodily spasm that basically releases tension,
surrounded by a tornado of anticipation and hype.
.jpg)
LiveReal Agents
keeping that passion under control.
C) John Barrymore:
"The thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes
the most amount of trouble."
D) Something that
is, in two words, "n a t u r a l" and "c a s u
a l" . . . and so, there's no need to think about it. It's
a casual sport - like a fun, harmless, thoughtless, athletic romp
in the hay - similar to dancing, jogging, jazzercising, and eating
lollipops - that is a real drag to take seriously, much less think
about.
E) Something that
is neither "natural" nor "casual," and is
actually a pretty complex, serious, and mysterious part of life.
After all, if it's so "natural," why do so many people
have problems with it? - and why are so there so many books about
it, and taboos against it? And if it's really so "casual,"
why are so many people so completely obsessed with it? In other
words, it's something that is very much worth, at the very least,
thinking seriously about.
F) A physical
act in which one person uses another person as a means of experiencing
physical pleasure . . . leading to a somewhat bizarre situation
involving two people using and trying to merge with each other
in order for each of them to be relieved of themselves. (?)
G) A physical
expression of love.
H) A physical
expression of power.
I) A physical
act of spiritual
communion . . . also practiced by aardvarks, geese, mongooses,
hippopotomi, llamas, yaks, whales, and other sentient beings.
J) A means to
occasionally achieve the goal of a heightened sensation of temporary
ecstasy, produced by the friction between two rubbing body parts.
K) W. Somerset
Maugham: ". . . only a dirty trick played on us to achieve
the continuation of the species."
L) An act of creation
which brings forth new life.
M) A fundamental
human drive which advertising executives exploit in order to sell
magazines, makeup, cars, clothes, shampoo, houses, shoes, various
ointments, pills, underwear, nose-hair clippers, socks, thighmasters,
belly-wraps, and any number of otherwise ridiculous and useless
things.
N) A pure source
of pleasure, happiness,
and fun that we feel proud of and happy about.
O) Probably the
largest single source of stress
that exists on the planet. (also, something shameful and guilt-ridden,
like a dirty secret we should keep private.)
P) Evolution theory:
How nature uses us to pass genes on the the next generation.
Q) Stress-Management
Theory: It's a physical activity used to "blow off steam,"
similar in essential function to jogging, swimming, drinking alcohol,
doing drugs, yelling at other people, watching television, and
taking naps.
R) Something that
- like drugs, alcohol, work, and bad television - we can get "addicted"
to. .
S) The reason
why men work jobs, earn money, dress well, develop manners, buy
fancy cars, go to church, work out, and treat people decently.
T) The reason
why women buy clothes, buy shoes, wear makeup, work jobs, diet,
go to bars, read magazines, and watch television.
U) Something that
gives us ten minutes of pleasure in exchange for fifty years of
pain, or vice versa.
V) A transfer
of energy between two individuals.
W) What women
give men in order to get babies.
X) What men want
from beautiful women, and what women want from high-status men.
Y) Freud: one
of the primal drives deep in our being, held in check by a civilizing
forces of repression, and the ultimate root of everything but
psychoanalysis.
Z) A physical
expression of love,
which sometimes gives one venereal diseases. Or, also known as
an act when two individuals, in a cataclysmic act of fusion, merge
bodies, emotions, minds, and souls ( . . . but under most conditions,
only bodies)
AA) The most intimate
and vulnerable type of contact available to humans.
BB) An act that
makes women stronger and man weaker; makes men stronger and women
weaker; makes men and women stronger; or makes both men and women
weaker.
CC) Andy Warhol:
"The biggest nothing of all time."
DD) A topic that,
according to various degrees, individuals are either bored with,
neutral about, interested in, passionate about, or completely
obsessed with.
EE) What happens
when you "give in to temptation."
FF) The act of
taking the deepest, most tender and vulnerable physical and emotional
parts of ourselves and sharing them with another person.
GG) Evidence of
our "original sin" or "fallen nature."
HH) A natural
human need, similar to hunger, thirst, and the need to go to the
bathroom.
II) What wives
give husbands, in hopes of getting love in return, or to keep
them from getting angry.
JJ) What husbands
give wives to stop them from nagging.
KK) The driving
force behind: artistic masterpieces; scientific breakthroughs;
great enterprises; mediocre and bad art, science, and achievements;
war; compromise; illness; molestation; and rape.
LL) Something
that is neutral in itself, but can become either be a doorway
to heaven or a doorway to hell, depending on how we use it.
MM) The most reliable
method to momentarily interrupt and escape the innate drudgery
and mundane dullness in life; (also, "The closest thing most
people have to a spiritual experience.")
NN) A tempting,
juicy, nearly irresistible"bait" that Nature uses to
ensnare and trap us humans in the prison (or "Matrix")
of space and time.
OO) What happens
when our "lower nature" overpowers and dominates our
"higher nature."
PP) The purpose,
meaning, and fulfillment of human life.
QQ) To young people,
it's what holds the promise of fulfillment, perfection, and lifelong
happiness; to old people . . . they just wonder what all the fuss
was about.
RR) The method
through which something known as "love"
can be literally created.
SS) An activity
whereby individuals dissipate their vitality.
TT) A significant
factor in many mental and emotional illnesses.
UU) Adi
Da: Sex is, among other things, "the
physical dramatization of emotion."
VV) Something that, in spite of endless centuries
of worry, study, and thinking about, we still do not fully understand.
WW) "Sex
is a momentary itch, love never lets you go." -Unknown
XX) Something
which, if understood and used properly, leads to great happiness;
if not understood and misused, leads to great suffering. (Also,
a topic that nearly every human is secretly or openly fascinated
with and simultaneously knows very little about.)
YY) An activity
that takes place in every realm of nature, when spirit condenses
and forms matter and so creates a polarity, or tension and attraction
between the two poles. The act of the two poles or principles
uniting results in the creation of life, energy, and matter.
ZZ) An act by
which two animals breed.
AAA) ". .
. the ultimate purpose of sexual life is for awakening the mooladhara
chakra. The momentary pleasure derived from the sexual act is
just a window through which you can see beyond
. . . sexual life is a preparation for this awakening." -
Yogi Satyananda Saraswati

"Heeeeey, you tricked me!
There's no ice cream cone down there!"
BBB) A source of powerful
and precious energy that, in general, can be either repressed,
wasted, or sublimated.
CCC) Woody Allen:
"Love
creates tension;
sex relieves it."
DDD) Henry Miller:
"Sex is one of the nine reasons
for reincarnation - the other eight are unimportant."
EEE) Freud: Something
that, when repressed, results in various forms of spirituality.
FFF) Something that,
when truly not repressed, is spirituality (i.e. when true spirituality
is repressed, it becomes sexuality)
GGG) "Sex
can be a time of total dissolution in love.
Sex can bathe every cell in your body with light, bliss, and life
force. Sex can be an ecstatic practice of open-hearted communion
and surrender to infinity.
Or, sex can be 10 or 20 minutes of genital stimulation ending
in a spasm of biological relief." - David
Deida
HHH) D. H. Lawrence:
"Sex is the balance of male and female in the universe, the
attraction, the repulsion, the transit of neutrality, the new
attraction, the new repulsion, always different, always new."
III) "Sex
is a flame which uncontrolled may scorch; properly guided, it
will light the torch of eternity."
-Joseph Fetterman
( - or in other words, sex is something that is essentially "ambiguous")
JJJ) "But
why of procreation? Because to the mortal creature, generation
is a sort of eternity and immortality, she replied; and if . .
. love is
of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily
desire immortality . . ." - Plato
KKK) "The
orgasm, also known as the "petite morte" or "little
death," is a forerunner of the "big death" of "enlightenment"
where let go of our ego
and experience divine
oblivion." - unknown
LLL) "Sex
is the ersatz or substitute religion of the 20th Century."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
MMM) David
Deida: "The entire realm of manifestation is sexual, in a
certain way . . . Consciousness is "masculine," and
everything that appears is "feminine." So right now,
your consciousness is having sex with everything you see and taste
and smell and feel . . . it's merging with it, "doing" it.
That's why sex is such an interesting thing for most people, because
it's re-enacting the masculine-feminine union
of consciousness and light, which is this moment, through
the body."
NNN) Barry
Long: "Sex is God
blind in existence. Man's
job is to make that God conscious - which will turn what was
devilish into love."
OOO) Plato "...There
is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation
- procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity; and
this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine
thing; for conception and generation are an immortal principle
in the mortal creature..." (Plato, quoting Socrates, quoting
Diotima)
OOOH) "Sex
lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence
life until we know how to understand sex." - Havelock Ellis
OOOHH) Other_____________________________.
Your Answer: ________.
When you finish your quiz, please pass your papers to the front.
(we just always wanted to say that)
(Note: This is a quiz that, in a way,
you're already kind of taking, we're just putting it into words;
you may be graded, but may not be;
we're not sure when, how, or if you'll find out what your grade is;
and we might know who will or won't be grading your papers,
but then again, we may be wrong.)

". . . In a culture
where sex is supposedly all around us
and yet true, intense sexuality
is in desperately
short supply . . ."
- Stephanie Zachaerk
Appendix
I: Does anyone tell the whole
truth about sex?
Appendix II: "What is Sexuality?" by Elizabeth Haich
Appendix
III: Sex as "The Search for IT" that gets us
into The Typical
Cycle...
Appendix
IV: P a r t y T o p i c
The phrase "casual sex" is an oxymoron.
Such a thing as "casual sex" doesn't really exist.
(Discuss)
Appendix V: What is the relationship between sexuality and spirituality?
Final Thoughts:
When it comes to sex, us humans often tend to go to one extreme or the other: either, on the one hand, total permissiveness and promiscuity; on the other hand, puritanical repression.
However, the ideal solution apparently lies somewhere in between - as if there is a kind of "betweenness" in regards to sexuality as there is with everything else.
Maybe that's what D. H. Lawrence was saying . . .
"Sex is neutral"
-
Andrew Cohen
What if sex is essentially like fire?
- meaning, it can be used to cook food, keep you warm, roast some
marshmallows - OR it can be used to burn down your house, torch
a whole forest, reduce an entire city to a heap of ashes . . .
Meaning, it can be a very negative thing, or a very positive thing, depending on your awareness of it and your approach to it?
So in itself, it's neither good nor bad,
but it all depends on how you use it?
In other words, what if sex is essentially
ambiguous . . .
- and then, the question becomes . . . how do you "use" it?
to be continued . .
.
Talk about it:
info@livereal.com
"The way in which people
make love
may tell us more about them
than any searching analysis could."
- Maurice Nadeau
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