Celibacy, friends with benefits, casual sex … what is the meaning of these sexual choices in the world we live in today?
For newcomers to this blog, you may not know that my life as a public figure began with celibacy. My very first article was this one, about why I practice celibacy:
Choosing Celibacy
And although I no longer consider myself to be official “celibate,” and I could be having sex all the time if I chose to do so, for all practical purposes I just don’t. And that is by choice.
When I first started blogging and became known in the seduction community, a lot of people decided they were going to persuade me of the “benefits” of casual sex, one-night stands, friends with benefits, and whatever other arrangements and labels people use to describe sex without commitment. Some people thought I’ve just never had great sex (not true). Some people thought I’ve never had a long-term sexual relationship (not true). Some people thought I had a lot of sexual hang-ups (not true). And they were convinced that I just needed to have a really good sexual experience to change my mind.
Well, I’m now looking back at almost four years in this community, and if anything, I’m even more convinced that friends with benefits has no benefits and lots of downsides. My willingness to engage in casual sex is probably as low right now as it has ever been.
At the same time, my sexual ENERGY and creativity has been as alive the past few months as it has ever been. I have been creating ground-breaking video products at a speed that makes most coaches dizzy, and the content just flows out of me. Most of the time it’s totally effortless and totally inspired.
For whatever reason, my aversion to casual sex seems to rile up a lot of people, and so I ask you to read this article with an open mind and consider: Maybe Erika Awakening doesn’t have a problem and doesn’t need to be “fixed.” Maybe she’s on to something valuable here.
Many of you know that I am a devoted student of A Course in Miracles (ACIM), and that it teaches a very unconventional view about life. “I am not a body, I am free,” is one of the central principles of ACIM, and I think of it often when I see women all around me advertising their “worth” through their bodies. And hey, I’m not pretending to be above it all. I published half-naked scantily clad photos of myself also. But as it is, lately I just don’t have the heart to do it anymore. Why are women wearing painful shoes and painful clothes and adhering to painful diets to advertise their sexuality and their bodies? Do we value ourselves so little that we think that’s the primary thing we have to offer, our bodies?
In college, I sometimes fell prey to insecurity and tried to get affirmation from men through my sexuality. I quickly learned that sexual affirmation from men doesn’t fill the insecurity, it makes it worse. As I became more spiritual leading up to starting my first blog, I realized that affirmation can only come from within, and that made casual sex LESS appealing than it had ever been before. If it’s not being used as a source of affirmation because we have discovered self-esteem within ourselves, and if pleasure and superficial social connection has been recognized as having no value, then what purpose does friends with benefits serve? NONE.
My primary feeling about all this hasn’t changed since the first blog article. In fact, the sexual experimentation that I have done since then has affirmed the conclusion that sex without commitment has no value. It’s not “bad.” It’s not “evil.” This is not a Puritanical or moralist view. Friends with benefits or casual sex just doesn’t have any value. And in most cases, it has caused totally unnecessary drama, strife, and misunderstanding, in situations where I would have been better off with a true friend than a “friend with benefits.” To me, friend with benefits has NO benefits. It’s worthless.
This is not a negative judgment on sexuality in general at all. I just think sexuality as our society has conceived it is so warped and suffused with ego consciousness that I have no interest in participating in it. As for sexual energy in general, I consider that to be the Divine source of my voluptuous creativity for the past nine months, and I love it. In fact, I devoted an entire program to it here:
http://tapsmarter.com/30-days-to-sexual-power
And I’ve never felt more romantic than I did in the past few months:
http://spiritualseduction.com/what-is-romance
But I am not a body. And when men are seeing me as a body, I feel totally UNSEEN. In my opinion, we as a society need to work on CONNECTION first. Sex can be integrated later, when people have learned to see past the body. As long as there is any chance that a man who has sex with me will see me as a body afterward, and treat me with disrespect and not be accountable for his word, I’m not interested.
Am I crazy? Think whatever you like. Really, I don’t care what anyone thinks about me. Some people mistakenly believe that I haven’t tried it “their way.” Be careful about your assumptions. My sexual and relationship experience is greater than you realize. I’ve tried it the conventional way. That’s what led me to reject the conventional approach. And nothing I’ve seen since I got into the seduction community has changed my mind about this.
Where this is all leading, I don’t know. I do know that I trust my process very deeply. A few years ago, I was working at a conventional job that felt like a prison, and I didn’t see any good way out of it. By following my intuition, I extricated myself from that situation and now make multiple six-figure income in my pajamas, working from home doing what I love. That would NOT have happened except that I was willing to challenge all the conventional wisdom and insist on doing things a new way.
Basically, I’m doing the same thing with sex. There were lots of naysayers about my business, also, and they were all wrong. They said what I’ve done was impossible. Well, it was possible. I’m living proof. At this point, I would never trade the life I have created for the conventional life that most people are settling for, living lives of quiet desperation as slaves to a system that seems “beyond their control.”
So I trust that where I am going with sex will turn out to be an amazing place. It won’t be conventional, that’s for sure. It will be a place where nobody sees the body anymore. It’ll be a place of deep committed polyamorous connection. And it will happen as I just keep trusting my intuition. Mark my words.