ColumnIs a sexual  revolution in the air?

Perhaps it’s the birds singing, the blossoms exploding into orgies of color, and the annual shedding and storing of our winter wardrobe. But this spring there’s something different – are you feeling an extra edge of rebellion and resistance? Whether it’s the potential for an American Spring or just a longing in your body – this palpable, transformational energy is everywhere. And you definitely want to tap that.

Evidence of an emerging paradigm shift can be found as close as your Facebook feed. Your friends may have recently posted articles about feminist porn, the end of traditional marriage, tantra, orgasmic meditation, sex toys, the end of gender binaries, polyamory and so on. Think back to just two years ago – was any of this stuff on your radar? The mainstreaming of BDSM via the virality of “Fifty Shades of Grey” was a big turning point, but without decades of work from the LGBTQ community, none of the above would’ve hit your social media feeds. (If your sex life has gotten more exciting, no matter what your orientation – thank the queers.)

So it seems like we’re heading in the right direction. The millenials will see to that, with their amazing tolerance and openness to all things fluid. But a real and lasting revolution out there in the world requires a deep and authentic inner revolution for all of us – even those of us born prior to 1990. Are you willing to go there?

I began writing about sex because for me, sexuality is a catalyst – perhaps the best place to start a conversation about changing the world. Sexual repression and shaming has been the number one tool in the oppressor’s toolbox since time immemorial. Once desire was identified as a human trait, the manufacturing of the shame industrial complex was almost inevitable. Taking something natural and ubiquitous, putting it in a box and saying, “Don’t touch that!” will do two things. First, it will make people want the secret things in the box even more. Second, it will make them deeply ashamed of reaching for said box. This is the divide-and-conquer modus operandi of sexual repression. We have been successfully internalizing this method for thousands of years. Perhaps we can stop now?

Your fantasies tow the blurred lines between what gives you the most pleasure and what scares the hell out of you. There’s a reason that balance is so delicate and fraught. And that’s precisely the material you need to probe if you want to create your own personal sexual revolution. First, ask yourself these questions: In this sexual revolution, do you want to come to the protest march and hang out on the fringes with a tepid sign, or do you want to lead the parade? Probably something right in the middle – you support the cause but you’re not necessarily going to become one of the leading activists in the movement.

Inner revolution will mean different things to different people, but most will have to start at the same place: exploring your shadow side. I absolutely embrace the brilliant sex-positive landscape out there in the new world we’re building online and off. However, it concerns me that for some, this embrace will be superficial. So there will be all of the sex, but none of the inner revolution. Awareness of one’s deep sexual nature is an essential part of being human and I hope the millenials will do more than boink with abandon — I hope they’ll boink with consciousness. Pleasure will make the world a better place, but sometimes the path to pleasure has psychic roadblocks. It’s important not to let them stop you from pursuing yours. For best results, move through them, not around them.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie@ecosalon.com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

Related on EcoSalon

Slow Sex: Spring is for Shedding (Layers and Baggage)

Part 1: Monogamy is a Patriarchal Myth (& Other Things Your Parents Probably Never Taught You)

The Real Reason Female Sexuality Has Been Repressed for Millennia: Sexual Healing

 Image: kurichan

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

This week’s Sex By Numbers takes stock of things ranging from the factual to the fantastical, including virtual girlfriends, un-airbushed models, and Michelle Bachmann’s logic.

1980: Year that the erotica trilogy Sleeping Beauty, penned by Anne Rice, was first released. The books are being re-released this week to capitalize on the summer’s fantasy-lit phenomenon, spawned by 50 Shades of Grey.

3: Number of cup sizes (A, B, C) used in an anecdotal study to determine if the age-old assumption that men prefer bigger breasts is a myth. The results? Predictable, yet unconvincing.

3:36: Length of a horrendous YouTube video promoting an “augmented reality girlfriend,” which uses video goggles and a motion sensor to project a pixelated Japanese popstar into the user’s life. Best reserved for men who can’t handle a real woman.

0: The forms of contraception that grass-roots anti-birth control organization 1Flesh endorses using. Instead of condoms and the pill—the benefits of which, 1Flesh insists, are completely fabricated—we should all get married and pull out instead.

17: The magazine that announced that its August issue will stop using an unattainable and airbrushed version of beauty and instead, show “real girls as they really are.”

500: Number of public schools now offering classes separated by sex, an indication that the long-held belief that separate can’t be equal when it comes to gender in the classroom seems to be eroding in the U.S.

80: Percentage of sex-induced fatalities where the male was being unfaithful to a spouse during a cardiac event. One of a few studies in a recent Journal of Sexual Medicine literature review exploring the under-reported link of infidelity and death.

58: Despite Michelle Bachman’s fantastical notions that the HPV vaccine is linked to mental retardation, the vaccine seems to be doing it’s job. A study published in the journal Pedatrics found a 58 percent drop in the prevalence of vaccine-type HPV between two samples of females taken in 2006 and 2009.

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