Omega: What role does pleasure play in embracing our sexuality?

Cyndi: Pleasure comes from a variety of sources, not just sexual. There are rituals of pleasure that you can transfer to anything—from sex to playing guitar. What it’s really about is giving yourself permission to live a more embodied life. An embodied life is a life that values the physical. It’s one that does not suppress the needs of the flesh, but also doesn’t give you over to attachment, which is what ends up causing you pain and suffering.

It’s not about hedonism, but about finding the richness in the physical environment that we live in and enjoying our bodies for the sensations that they provide. It’s about showing gratitude—to god, goddess, universe, higher spirit, however you refer to it—for being embodied and being able to feel sensations and emotions and the richness of life. This is what gives our lives color—if we didn’t have peaks and troughs we would just have these cardboard, regimented, Groundhog Day lives. If that’s what you want, that’s fine. But to know what you want, you need do the self-inquiry to ask what’s really important to you.

If you decide you want to lead a pleasurable life, that might mean you get to eat nice food or wear nice clothes or have a vacation every year or just spend time with people that you love. It doesn't have to be about money and having possessions. It can be about prioritizing particular relationships and making a point of spending time with certain people. Or it can be about doing things that you enjoy: going to picnics, going to church, going to meditation, listening to music, going dancing—whatever it is.

Omega: How can we learn to enjoy pleasure if we are not used to it?

Cyndi: Prioritize things that make you feel good. Culturally, we don't do this. It's as if somehow pleasure is bad and suffering is good, that there's righteousness in suffering but there's not righteousness in pleasure. We often think that someone who is pleasure-based is less than or giving into something. What’s wrong with that? What is wrong with stepping into asking for what you want, or being seen as who you are? If you stand up and say, "I want to connect,” or “I really love dancing,” or “I really love hanging out with you," why is that bad? 

Seeking pleasure can be a source of suffering if we attach ourselves to the expectations and outcomes that we want to have. But we can enjoy a variety of rich, pleasurable, embodied experiences from a place of curiosity rather than outcome. 

Omega: Pursuing pleasure or chasing after our desires seems to cause people a lot of pain. Why is that?

Cyndi: Through personal reflection, study, and interviews with many people over the last 20 years, I’ve discovered that it’s not the desire that’s causing us pain. Desire only becomes a problem when we attach an expectation of a certain outcome to it. When people give themselves permission to explore their desire—whether it’s sexual desire, or the desire to be close, or the desire to eat a piece of chocolate—they learn it’s not the desire that causes the pain, but the attachment to the desire. 

So if I'm having sex and I don't have an orgasm, or if I'm having sex and I don't get an erection, and I feel bad about myself, that is where I will find the attachment. If I’m attached to the idea of having perfect sex—“perfect” being an idea created by Hollywood or hearsay or whatever—it’s not the desire that’s the problem. We end up blaming the desire because we think, "Well if I didn't desire this erotic connection in the first place then I wouldn't be in this situation where I feel bad about myself now.” That's not true.

You can still have the desire, but you get into trouble if you go into it with a set of goals, where you have to achieve this thing in order to be a real man or a real woman or an adult. This is what causes the pain. It’s not the desire; it’s the misinterpretation of the learning opportunities that desire gives us.

Omega: Just as there’s a mistrust of pleasure and sexual desire in our culture, there’s also a suspicion of its opposite—celibacy. Can someone embrace their sexuality and also be celibate? 

Cyndi: Many people are celibate, whether through choice or circumstances. If someone chooses not to have sex there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they feel okay with it. People often have the misconception that if you’re unpartnered you can’t have sex. But masturbation is something lots and lots of people do, and it’s a perfectly valid sexual path. For a lot of people, their sexual relationship with themselves is the most consistent sexual relationship they are going to have throughout their entire life. They are going to be their number one partner.

Historically the taboo around masturbation has prevented a lot of folks from being willing to embrace it or consider it valuable. Certainly a lot more folks are talking about it these days, and sales of sex toys are booming. It’s becoming less of a taboo among younger folks in the West, but there is still a stigma.

I also know lots of couples who, for whatever reason, have made a conscious decision to not have sex because it doesn’t serve their relationship. Their relationship is rich and more valuable for other things, but sex is not one of them. Some are also embracing nonmonogamy. In general, I think we’re approaching a level of consciousness that is willing to have a more lateral discussion about sex. We're widening our scope around understanding human sexuality, and I think that's a good thing.