Questions About Practicing Celibacy – The Belief System Behind Sex

So I got another question about celibacy. The truth is that celibacy began with a feeling, a vague intuition. Each time I found myself in “that moment” of decision, something deep inside me said “no.” It didn’t matter the situation or the guy, the “no” inside was loud and clear.

The “reasons” for saying no to sex have changed over time, and will probably change again, but this is my current view.

What is the belief system behind sex — do some of these sound familiar?

– I am a body. I am separate from the person I’d be having sex with, and this is a way of joining or merging.
– Sex is necessary for the continuation of “my” genes and of the species.
– Men who have sex with a lot of women will gain some weird form of immortality — the men themselves will inevitably die, but at least their genes will carry forward (not sure what good this does them when they are dead).
– Women need to procreate by a certain age or else they will die without “recreating” themselves.
– If another person commits to giving me exclusive use of their body, then somehow I have a form of safety. Of course, I’m still going to die, and I’ve cut myself off from connecting with other people, but at least I have some pleasure and safety in this relationship.
– Some people are of higher “social value” than others, and this means that even though they are destined to die, their genes will carry on because of their beauty, intelligence, social skills, strength, etc. etc. etc.
– The greatest gift that I as a woman can give a man is exclusive access to my body. Oh, but he has to do all kinds of things and prove his “value” to make that “exchange” worth it to me (boy, that sounds absurd even just saying it out loud, doesn’t it?) Check out my later article about Trading for Sex.

Notice a theme? Sex and procreation and exclusive relationships ultimately, when it comes right down to it, are all premised on the assumption that we are all going to die. This is our best hope of a little bit of pleasure now and a strange form of immortality (through our genes) from which we are excluded because we are … well, we are dead, so how can we possibly enjoy it???

Seriously, does this make any sense at all? Or, if you really think about it, is this a “story” that we all made up before we incarnated here because it was the most convincing way to persuade ourselves that we are not, collectively, the Force behind all Life.

Now let’s turn this whole belief system behind sex around:

– What if we are all eternal?
– What if we are not bodies but eternal immortal Consciousness?
– What if this is all just a dream, a giant virtual reality program?
– What if we are the ones who made up the dream, and we created all these “stories” about evolution, genetics, etc., to make the dream believable?
– What if in truth it is One Mind that is running all of these little bodies that seem to be running around as separate consciousnesses?
– What if I am already connected, through my mind, to every other mind in the Universe?
– What if our beliefs are the “software programs” that create the physical Universe we see?
– What if there is no death, and the entire reason we are here is to awaken from the dream and realize that fact?

Someone far wiser than me said it this way, and to me this helps us understand the belief system behind sex:

“4 Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of God was killed instead of you. 5 Yet would I offer you my body, you whom I love, knowing its littleness? 6 Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? 7 Mine was of no greater value than yours; no better means for communication of salvation, but not its Source. 8 No one can die for anyone, and death does not atone for sin. 9 But you can live to show it is not real. 10 The body does appear to be the symbol of sin while you believe that it can get you what you want. 11 While you believe that it can give you pleasure, you will also believe that it can bring you pain. 12 To think you could be satisfied and happy with so little is to hurt yourself, and to limit the happiness that you would have calls upon pain to fill your meager store and make your life complete. 13 This is completion as the ego sees it. 14 For guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed, and substitutes for it. 15 Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt, because it goes beyond the body.”

A Course in Miracles

Love,

erika awakening