Artiklar,
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Kärlek, erotik och karezza
Abstract och citat ur
artikeln:
Mapping the
courses of heavenly bodies: The varieties of transcendent sexual experience.
av Jenny Wade
Artikeln är publicerad i The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology nr 2/2000.
(The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology finns vid flera av de större
universitetsbiblioteken. Se
Libris!)
ABSTRACT:
The relationship between sex and spirituality is a controversial topic
i transpersonal psychology. This article presents a phenomenological
inquiry into the nature of nonordinary, transcendent experiences
reported during sex. Based on the results of 86 interviews with
heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual men and women ranging in age
from 26 to 70, this study focused on spontaneously occuring
experiences in individuals who had no prior history of tantric or
other "spiritual" sexual practices. A phenomenological
cartography is presented, based on the taxonomy developed by Grof
(1975, 1988) and illustrated with numerous vignettes derived from the
reports of the participants in this study. In conclusion, a vision of
sex is considered that goes beyond more and better orgasms to genuine
transcendens and integrated, embodied spirituality.
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From the article:
"Owing to the variety,
no simple definition of transcendent sex is possible. However, two
factors consistently emerge from the narratives as characteristic of
transcendent sex. The first, not surprisingly, is participation in an
altered state that could not be ascribed to the use of chemicals or
deliberate techniques. In this states, as illustrated below, the
ordinary sense of time, space, and/or agency (in Cartesian-Newtonian or
Formal Operations terms) is transcended. Furthermore, the altered state
includes an awareness of the lover, if only as a conduit, and is rooted
in the union of the two during sex. These altered states appear to be
more or less independent of orgasm, which is considered a discrete state
of its own. That was invariable true for the men: they entered an
altered state that had no relationship to the time or duration of their
climax. It was true for the majority of the women, as well. For a few,
however, being non- or monoorgasmic during sex is either infrequent or
impossible. These women were having an unending chain of orgasms that
could last indefinitly, usually until their lover withdrew the contact,
although the events they descibed as transcendent had little or no (subjectivly)
discernible relationship to orgasm. (For most men and women in this
sample, orgasm was either a nonevent or a problem relative to the
trascendent sexual state. Some could not recall whether they had one, as
they were so much drawn into other events; some said it became
"irrelevant"; others found it a somewhat irritating
distraction; and a couple found that orgasm shattered or ended the state.)
(s.107)
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