Hi. I am sorry to hear about your problems and glad you managed to do something about it. Sex-positivity means different things to different people. I had a look at Song of Believers and they are the opposite of Liberum Sexus. It is wonderful you are willing to expose yourself to the Professor's brand of sex positivity. When you start reading In Search of the Final Freedom, you will discover how his sex-positive philosophy developed into an open polyamory Christian community. Although the four books and 48 chapters so far are mostly fiction, the author writes more or less from experience. Just be aware, your understanding of sex-positive will be challenged, even changed. I believe it is a good thing. My own understanding of sex is that sex models the erotic but does not exhaust the erotic. "When the very Eros of existence is awakened in you, you are awakening as outrageous love. You become an outrageous lover. You begin to live an erotic life. Sex transforms from the pitiful grasping for fleeting fulfillment that is not working for virtually anyone, to something else entirely. Sex is revealed as the potent prose and poetry of reality itself, incarnate as your body and your desire. Sex is revealed as the love story of all of reality, happening in and as you. Sex is revealed as the source of all wisdom, pointing us toward the erotic and the holy in every dimension of life. It is a virtuous circle. Sex models Eros. You begin to live the erotic life in every dimension of your nonsexual life. As you re-eroticize your life, you are personally transformed. At the same time, regular sex transforms into erotic sex. Ordinary sex becomes outrageous sex." (Gafni, Marc; Kincaid, Kristina. A Return to Eros.) Not enough people have awakened to outrageous love, but sex can take you there. The Campbells in In Search of the Final Freedom are attempting to get there through their open sex-positive marriage. If you take a look at the Professor's photos (as the one below) you might be shocked by the range of his sex positivity. I hope your invitation will start a hot discussion. Thank you for sharing.

We are all standing on a stepladder with different perspectives. People think that their rung is the only correct perspective. When a person steps onto the next rung, the perspective changes. Our view of metaphors also changes. As Joseph Campbell wrote: "It made me reflect that half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies." (Campbell, Joseph. Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor.) When one moves onto the mystical rung, one realizes that one can only speak about the unknown in metaphors. "That is why, to appreciate the language of religion, which is metaphorical, one must constantly distinguish the denotation, or concrete fact, from the connotation, or transcendent message." (Campbell, Joseph. Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor.)

Mystics from all religions say the same thing: anything we say about the mystical experience can only be expressed in metaphors. The word GOD is a metaphor for something inexpressible. The Tao is a metaphor for something inexpressible. "The metaphorical languages of both mythology and metaphysics are not denotative of actual worlds or gods, but rather connote levels and entities within the person touched by them. Metaphors only seem to describe the outer world of time and place. Their real universe is the spiritual realm of the inner life. The Kingdom of God is within you...Is there a God? If the word “God” means anything, it must mean nothing. God is not a fact. A fact is an object in the field of time and space, an image in the dream field. God is no dream, God is no fact—“God” is a word referring us past anything that can be conceived of or named. Yet people think of their God as having sentiments as we do, liking these people better than those, and having certain rules for their lives. Moses received a great deal of information from what we might call this non-fact. As understood particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is a final term. In almost all other systems, the gods are agents, manifestations, or imagined functionaries of an energy that transcends all conceptualization. They are not the source of the energy but are rather agents of it. Put it this way: Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world?" (Campbell, Joseph. Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) The Tao is just another metaphor expressing in human terms the Source.

It seems as if there are a lot of people in the world who are gullible enough to believe and do anything a charismatic person will tell them. Look at Stalin, Hitler, etc., and how many had to die as a result. Using god as your go-to support for your hatred is the biggest form of blasphemy. Lao Tzu said it best: The Tao (god) that can be named is not the Tao (god)."

I agree with Joe, I am glad the doctors have found the cause, although serious it can be treated. Our prayers are with you.

The human body is a delicate and sacred organism, an expression of Eros. Anything can go wrong at anytime. I am sending my prayers for her recovery.

I also wondered what this was all about. I tried to delete the posts but was unsuccessful.

Interesting.

My prayers are with Paula and you to get through this hospitalization. I agree with you about the anti-vaxxers. They are selfish and low on the developmental rung of love that starts with egocentric, to ethnocentric, to world-centric to kosmocentric. All they care about is themselves and their own conspiracy theories. They would rather die than be wrong. That is typical of egocentrism. I hope they will wake up before it is too late. I trust Paula will recover soon.

I love rom coms, with all the misunderstandings and sexual tensions between the couples. Sex at the conclusion in a HEA (happy ever after) story is fine, there is more to sex than just a prize for the man winning the heart of the woman. Diana Gabaldon is the author of the Outlander series set in Scotland that was made in a popular TV series. I would love to see more of your art.

An interesting take on creating an erotic video. These days anyone with a cell phone can make an erotic video. To make an erotic video that will stand out amongst the "slush pile" one needs a unique storyline, an interesting setting (you've chosen the outdoors) and fascinating characters. A sex scene in a story or video is more than the mechanics or as Diana Gabaldon says in her book; "I give you my body... How I write sex scenes" "A good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids." To achieve that the director must prepare a script, a storyboard, the actors and what and how the actors should play out the encounter. If the director wants a "money shot" one should be prepared when and how it will feature. You have stimulated the creative juices and aroused many with all the possibilities of such a video. I am looking forward to your erotic video.

It is truly sad the pendulum has moved so far into WOKENESS that people are scared to "offend" others. Sex and nudity are the two most feared topics in the postmodern world today. Spiral Dynamics says people are on different value stages, using colors to depict the levels. The postmodern GREENS want to force their values onto RED and BLUES destroying the value stages of children and the youth. One should meet people on the levels they're on.