Take Sex out of the Bedroom and into your Community
What do I mean when I say, Take Sex out of the Bedroom and into the Community? To begin to unpack this concept, it’s important to understand that at The Verdant Collective, our definition of ‘sex’ is much more vast than what you’ve likely been taught. To say that sex is an act of masturbation or sexual intercourse is to sequester it to a manageable and relatively small part of our lives. We might even let ourselves neglect our sexuality to some degree when the thought of it sounds hard, complicated, vulnerable, or dangerous.
Something very powerful happens when we reframe our concept of sex from a discrete act that happens once in a while in a private setting (often tangled with layers of shame), into the primary force that drives all of life. At the Verdant Collective, we call this force ‘Eros’ and define it as generativity itself, the energy and intelligence that fuels every impulse of imagination and every act of creation. Sexual acts can be wonderful and yes, are necessary for survival and evolution. But ‘sex’ in and of itself becomes a sliver of what we can create, contribute, and enjoy when we are tapped into our essential nature as Eros. This may sound like an abstract concept at first but with time, attention, and embodied practices, our relationship with our Eros reveals our particular way, our unique gifts, our place in the community, and our inspiration to contribute to something much larger than ourselves. The Verdant Collective is all about reconnecting women with these vital qualities in service to cultural rejuvenation.
As my relationship with my own Eros has deepened, I’ve come to understand that my greatest contribution to community and culture is to devote my time to helping people understand this force within themselves. I imagine a world where we are in touch with what makes us, ‘us’ and we don’t question our belonging to ourselves, our families, or our world. This opens us to valuing nature in all its forms, and we have more room to focus on knowing what’s ours to do in service to the world vs living out fractured behaviors that are rampant in our individual and cultural stories.
Before I get too far off-topic, I’m curious, can you see why it’s important that we shift our sexuality/Eros from something sequestered to small moments into something we that we can experience anytime and in connection with the world? It’s beyond time for Cultural Revolution, and in my mind, this is where it starts.