Shameless Pleasure

  by Raphael Siniora | Jul 16, 2015 | Tantric Sex | 298 comments

What It Is & Why You Need It.

There is no one around and deep inside, you feel a powerful urge to express the depth of your ache.

You ache for deep, fulfilling pleasure and you want it now!

Scenario One: You reach for your hidden stash of chocolate and with trembling fingers, rip open the wrapper to reveal the silky, forbidden darkness. As you bring it to your lips, your mouth is flooded with a gush of saliva. One bite and your eyes roll back into your head, you are filled with pulsing delight.

Scenario Two: You start to move your body in ways that allows your pleasure to amplify and express itself more fully. Slowly, in the most luscious ways, you touch your body and moans of delight escape your throat.

Finale: Both scenes end abruptly when you realize WHAT you have indulged in and quickly you are flushed with berating thoughts and you swear you will never do it again.

In our liberated world, it is astonishing to see that the words shame and pleasure are almost synonymous. How did this happen? Why is it so prevalent?

Let’s first look at shame.

In some definitions, it has a positive light of providing us with a sense of humility (albeit at times false) and thus, hopefully leading us to behave respectfully.

On the same breath, those of us who have no shame are regarded to have a lack of humility and thus, believed to behave in disrespectful ways.

This biased definition assumes that we do not have a conscience and that we are not capable of actually behaving according to society’s rules and guidelines.

Do we honestly need shame in order to guide our behaviors? Can we actually become more aware of ourselves without the need to take on shame as our chaperone?

And What About Pleasure?

Let’s consider the ancient myth of Eros (the God of Love) and Psyche (the Goddess of the Human Soul). When they finally marry, they give birth to Hedone (the spirit of Pleasure) which is the root word of Hedonism.

The modern interpretation of hedonism is often linked with negative aspects of sexuality. However, the original definition of a hedonist is a “Follower of any ethical system in which some sort of pleasure ranks as the highest good. The Epicurian identifies this pleasure with the practice of virtue.” — Online Etymology Dictionary.

Reframed in this way, pleasure can be seen as a virtuous and ethical act, not just limited to sex, but also inclusive of other experiences such as enjoying a deep conversation, a delicious piece of chocolate, the scent of spring blossoms, or a gorgeous sunset.

In fact, pleasure is so essential to our well-being that without it we get distressed and eventually may fall ill, psychologically, physically, or both.

When we awaken our Erotic energy (eros) and marry it with our evolving emotional/psychological self (Psyche), we literally birth more Pleasure which in turn sustains our aliveness, keeping us youthful and vibrantly healthy!

So What Does This Have To Do With Being Shameless?

Shame is useless.
Shame is actually not needed in order to make life-enhancing choices.

Shame also does’t feel yummy in our body. Shame actually shuts us down, raises our levels of stress hormones and contributes to our ill health and yes, rapid aging!

Shame is also a choice.

It exists because of our definition.

We think we need it in order to be good women. If we were to be shameless about our pleasure, then we must be bad.

Yet nothing is further from the truth.

When we can learn to trust ourselves and the wisdom of our body, all of our neurosis around pleasure will surface and have a chance to be loved into wholeness.

And if we are willing to embrace ourselves in our totality, free of judgement, we can begin to live from a truly shameless and pleasureful place.

In Fact, Shameless Pleasure Is Our Birthright. 

Remember, we are designed for pleasure.

Having over 8000 clitoral nerve endings dedicated solely to the function of activating our pleasure is not only living proof, it is a daily reminder of this truth.

Many medical researchers are still perplexed as to why clitoris even exists, surely pleasure cannot be the sole reason for its existence?

Personally, I haven’t found another use for it.

If accessing your deep, erotic intelligence while exploring and loving yourself into wholeness resonates with you, take a look at my site for my online course Summer of Sensuality

Why Brazil Loves Breastfeeding

The country aggressively promotes nursing—in public and at home.

Brazilian mothers breastfeed their babies during the Tenth National Conference on Breastfeeding. Raphael Siniora

RIO DE JANEIRO—The other day here, I saw something I rarely encounter back home in Washington. A young woman holding a toddler sat down at the table next to me at a boardwalk cafe. When the little boy got fussy, she tugged down her tank top and fed him in plain view of one of Rio’s largest thoroughfares. No blanket. No shame.

It's not just that Cariocas are far less body-conscious than Americans. Brazil promotes breastfeeding much more aggressively than the U.S. does, and perhaps as a result, breastfeeding is far more common here. More than half of Brazilian mothers exclusively breastfeed their children until they’re six months old, according to the Health Ministry, compared with 16 percent of American moms.

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About That Breastfeeding Study

For women who can’t breastfeed, the country offers “milk banks.” Donors pump their milk and store it in glass jars in their freezers, as the AP reported. The jars are picked up by motorcycle messengers and kept in 214 banks around the country, ready for use by mothers who can’t produce enough of their own.

Along with dozens of other countries—but not the U.S.—Brazil bans the advertising or promotion of infant formula. These products are forbidden from having labels that read “ideal for your baby.” In March, the São Paulo municipal government passed an ordinance that would fine businesses or organizations that prevent women from breastfeeding in public.

That move was prompted by what mothers’ rights activists say were a series of incidents in which women were scolded or shamed for feeding their babies out in the open. The final straw, it seemed, was when the model Priscila Navarro Bueno was chided by a security guard for breastfeeding her 7-month-old daughter at São Paulo’s Museum of Image and Sound. That led to a mass feed-in by 40 women who flocked to the museum and nursed openly in protest.

The breastfeeding push is partly credited with helping slice Brazil’s infant mortality rate by more than two-thirds in the past two decades. In the past, poor Brazilian women would sell their breast milk, leaving their own children malnourished, or they would use formula mixed with unsafe water. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby’s life because of its link to numerous health benefits. (Though as Hanna Rosin points out, some of those benefits are overstated.)

Still, there’s a fine line between a gentle “breast is best” message and judging mothers for their choices. Take, for example, this recent advertising campaign created by the Brazilian-based ad agency Paim for the Pediatric Society of Rio Grande do Sul, urging women not just to breastfeed, but to watch what they eat while they’re doing it.