We might think Jessica’s anxiety is all in her head, but a disturbing trend is leading to a different conclusion. A new study published in the journal Sexuality and Culture (September 2011) “has found that the portrayal of women in the media over the last several decades has become increasingly sexualized, even ‘pornified,’” according to Erin Hatton, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Buffalo. “In the 2000’s, there were 10 times more hypersexualized images of women than men…this is problematic because it indicates a decisive narrowing of media representations of women.”

A report by the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2007) found compelling evidence that the rise in sexualized images of girls and women in the media is harmful to their self-image and healthy maturation. This can mean undermining a woman’s confidence in her body promoting shame, anxiety, eating disorders and/or depression. Sexualized images of women have been found to increase violence against them, and to decreased sexual satisfaction among both sexes.

“The consequences of the sexualization of girls in media today are very real and are likely to be a negative influence on girls’ healthy development,” said Eileen Zurbriggen, PhD, chair of the Task Force and associate professor at UCSC. “As a society, we need to replace all of these sexualized images with ones showing girls in positive settings – ones that show the uniqueness and competence of girls….The goal should be to deliver messages to all adolescents, boys and girls, that lead to healthy sexual development.”

As parents and other trusted adults, we play a major role in contributing to either the sexualization of the young women in our lives or to giving them a healthier sense of what it means to be a human being. We can take an educative role by encouraging young people to question the images that are being promoted and by sharing information on the negative effects.

Sexualization means that a person’s value comes only from his/her sexual appeal to the exclusion of other characteristics. We can help young women like Jessica and all our daughters, nieces, friends, and yes, our young men, to understand that kindness, creativity, intellectual competence, physical abilities, compassion, service, spirituality and love matter more than being sexy.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

The main source of sex education for many young people these days is online porn, and much misinformation is being disseminated. The major inaccuracy is that yang sex is all there is: sex is only about looking a certain way, vigorous activity, technique, and performance. There is no place for sensual exploration, non-goal oriented play, or relaxation in the presence of the beloved. Very few even get the opportunity to learn that yin sex exists.

When a man and a woman can be totally themselves in each other’s presence, a whole other dimension opens up. When I was studying tantra in India, we spent much of our time doing exercises to get over our fears of the opposite sex and learning to be emotionally real with each other. It wasn’t about performance. It was about learning to take it slow, slower, and slowest.

Osho, the great tantra master, talks about an unknown-to-the-West phenomena, “valley orgasms.” These are the opposite of the yang orgasms that end with a bang or, as Osho says, like a sneeze. A “valley orgasm” occurs from surrendering so deeply with the partner that an inner explosion happens.

“There are two types of climaxes, two types of orgasm. One type of orgasm is known. You reach to a peak of excitement, then you cannot go further: the end has come…In the second, excitement is just a beginning. And once the man has entered, both lover and beloved can relax. No movement is needed. They can relax in a loving embrace.

“When the man feels or the woman feels that the erection is going to be lost, only then is a little movement and excitement required. But then again relax. You can prolong this deep embrace for hours with no ejaculation … You may not be aware of it, but this is a fact of biology, of bio-energy, that man and woman are opposite forces. Negative-positive, yin-yang, they are challenging to each other. And when they both meet in a deep relaxation, they revitalize each other.”  (Osho, 1998, The Book of Secrets, NY: St Martin’s Griffin)

Once you become honest in your sexuality, both the yin and the yang of it, you will be able to enjoy the performance aspect of sex without being trapped in it. Sometimes you will act the porn star and use all the fabulous techniques you’ve learned (that everyone else has learned too), and other times you will experiment with your soft, flowing yin nature. You will be free to be alternately passive or aggressive, hot or not, and able to admit when increased intimacy scares you. You will be sexually real and not have to fake orgasms like a porn star.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

You’ve seen the yin/yang symbol: the white and black teardrops coexisting inside a circle, each half complimenting the other, each essential for the other’s existence. In the East, the timeless symbol demonstrates that all in the manifest world exists as a pair of opposites: fast/slow, hot/cold, passive/aggressive, male/female. These opposites exist only in relation to each other, creating a world of perfect balance.

In terms of sex, yang is outer directed (like a penis): aggressive, hot, noisy, fast, focused on technique, and headed toward the goal of orgasm. Sex is often voyeuristic, a spectator sport, with a preference for the visual.  In prior times, yang was the sole province of men, the masculine.

Yin sexuality is the opposite: inner directed (like a vagina): passive, cool, slow, quiet, meandering, with no other goal than shared sensuality. Yin is full of secrets, soft, yielding, private, hidden, shy and reticent. Women, the feminine, were the sole holders of yin.

Women in the sexist past had no choice but to embody yin, or men yang, with dire consequences for those who strayed from their stereotypes. Most people of today enjoy our potential for greater flexibility and the openness toward people of all persuasions. Ideally, both men and women would embrace their inner yin as well as their outer yang, but that is not what is happening.

Yin is no longer an option anywhere in the West, including the bedroom. Women are boldly exhibiting their yang qualities — nobody wants to be seen as weak. We are prejudiced against the slow, the soft, the passive, the diffuse, the meandering, the unfocused, the yielding. Self-help books and seminar leaders encourage eradicating any yin qualities in oneself in order to be always assertive, bold, virile. Porn promotes a preference for yang sex. We devalue the yin, both in ourselves and others, which is misogyny in a subtle, insidious form.

It is a timeless truth that both yin and yang are essential, and that everything and everyone carry both qualities. It doesn’t help to repress or pretend you don’t have yin. If you do, you will never know yourself. The next time you notice you are feeling shy, or reticent, or passive, or slow, that you don’t feel like sharing, or that you want sex that explores aimlessly and doesn’t go anywhere, instead of finding it wrong, you begin a fascinating exploration of what this hidden part of yourself is all about.

© 2011 Catherine Auman

He looked up to see her examining his food.  “Got to keep my strength up,” he said, squeezing a lime over the cukes.

Geno was one of the most handsome men she had ever laid eyes on, even here at the ashram, where she was becoming rather immune to the whole issue.  He stood at well over six feet with a body that spoke to years in the gym, and his hazel eyes and tanned skin glowed with vitality and health.

Early in the group, he had informed everyone that he had a partner back in Italy and was therefore off limits, although he was available to do exercises with.  Many women had shared a ping of disappointment.  This morning, Laurel and Geno had chosen to do the sensual massage assignment together.  When it was her turn to be the giver, she had watched in amazement as he didn’t even flinch when she neared the vicinity where most men take notice.  His touch on her was rough and insensitive, not at all in tune with her response or lack of it, sleepy and unaware.  He got somewhat excused for this by his otherworldly good looks, but not completely.

She hadn’t told him how unsatisfying it had been.  In true good girl fashion she had told him it had been “nice.”  Someone taught her once that “nice” stands for “Nothing In me Cares Enough about you (to tell you the truth),” and she supposed that was true.  It was not an unpleasant diversion, however, to sit at his table and gaze at that face.  And that body.

“What’s your girlfriend in Italy like?” she asked.

“She is a great and famous teacher of tantra,” he said. “Right now she is giving a seminar in Tuscany.”

“Oh,” she said, thinking back to his touch devoid of sensuality. “You must be learning a lot about tantra from her?”

“Oh yes,” he said.  “She’s an amazing woman.”

“Then why are you here, studying tantra several thousand miles away from her?”

“She says I need to learn more about being on my own, and she is right.  I want to lose my tendency of codependency.”

That buzz word, I hate it, Laurel thought.  “What exactly does that mean anyway?  It seems to me it’s a way to put down people who value being in a relationship over being alone.”

“Here, I hope to deepen my aloneness,” he said, “and then take it back to be with her.  In a more authentic way.”  He moved the tray with its mound of peelings and rinds to the other side of the table, and poised his spoon over the melon.

“A relationship is like climbing a great mountain,” he continued.  “It is a journey that is difficult and long and takes much preparation, much training.  It is the only thing in life that is of value.”  He dipped his spoon into the watery red fruit and took a bite.  “I don’t understand these men who come here just to sleep with any woman.  It shocks me; I don’t understand it.  It has no……,”  he scratched his head.  “Ah, my English is so bad.  What is the word?”  His eyes turned up into the back of his skull, searching his memory banks for an Italiano-Inglese dictionary.

“Rispettare….no?…No!”  Laurel shook her head.  She certainly had no idea.

“Decoro….stima….Ah, ah, I must know.”  He was frantically looking around the crowded lunch area, for what she couldn’t fathom.  “Ah!”  and he sped off over in the direction of the fountain.

Suddenly Laurel found herself sitting alone, not really understanding what had happened.  She shrugged it off to just another strange ashram occurrence.  First she was having lunch with a gorgeous Italian raw foodist, and abruptly she wasn’t.  She reached over and took a dripping bite of his watermelon, then replaced the spoon.

Geno finally reappeared holding a tattered book in his left hand.  He leafed through the pages, shaking his head and muttering.
“Ah hah!”  he trumpeted.  “Nobility!  That’s the word.  Nobility.  It has no nobility.  That’s it.  To sleep with so many women has no nobility.”  He got up and left the table to return the book.

© 2009 Catherine Auman

I picked Frankie the cat up from the pound last week and carried her to her new home. She immediately ran for cover under the bed and wouldn’t come out for 24 hours. When she began tentatively venturing out she would run back whenever she got spooked, often just because someone was walking by, leading to the conclusion she may have been previously abused. A couple of times now she has let me stroke her and scratch her head and then I get my reward: the magic motor of her purring starts and doesn’t stop, that is, until she runs back under the bed again. Thank god she came knowing how to use the cat box.

I just found out on the Internet that back in the Middle Ages during the holocaust of women and gays they designated ‘witches,’ they also perpetrated a huge massacre of cats. The Church was afraid of these ‘familiars’ of the so-called witches because it was believed that cats had psychic powers and could help perform spells. There was even a dog that was tried and hanged as a witch in the Salem witch trials. When you look deeply into Frankie’s mysterious blue eyes, you can almost believe they were right – she knows something we don’t.

Pets seem to have been put into our lives for one purpose and one purpose only: to love and be loved. There’s plenty of well-documented research that being around animals reduces people’s stress levels, lowers blood pressure and even helps us live longer. Animal assisted therapy has been used with at-risk teenagers, folks in nursing homes, AIDS patients, and heart attack victims. I got a call recently from a prospective patient who wanted to know if I had a “therapy dog,” which was the first time I’d heard the term (and no, I don’t, although I’m thinking about training Frankie). On a brochure for an expensive recovery center I got in the mail they list “equine therapy” as a treatment modality which really means, it makes people feel better to ride a horse.

I guess the gist of this is that lonely people everywhere could benefit from owning a pet. There’s something about that unconditional love that’s harder to get from flawed human beings. Also, here in LA, it’s a way that people shop for lovers – going to the dog park to meet other dog owners. It’s easy to talk to someone with a dog, right? No ulterior motive other than just being friendly. Guess we’ll need to get them to set up cat and gerbil parks for everyone else.

© 2008 Catherine Auman

Mark and Diane were seeing me for marriage counseling because they were fighting and criticizing each other bitterly.  I asked Mark to change gears and tell his wife something he appreciated about her.  Diane waited nervously while Mark struggled to identify something as this was a new way for him to think. When he finally said, “I appreciate that you dress so well for work,” she broke out into a huge smile that looked like he had given her a dozen roses. She hadn’t known Mark was even paying attention.
Give it a try. Let your significant other off the hook and tell him or her a small thing you appreciate. Call your mother and give her “an appreciation.” Let your employee know that you appreciate that she is always on time. Everyone can use a dose. Give someone the gift of appreciation today and watch your relationships blossom.

© 2008 Catherine Auman

But the visual is only one of our five senses, and by telling us that the visual is what’s sexy, we learn to have a skewed emphasis on physical image. We come to pay less attention to the other four senses and the art of sensuality is being lost. When we talk about the sensual, we are talking about the seductive qualities of the sounds of our lover’s voice and the sighs of lovemaking, our partner’s particular scent, the taste of their sweat, and the touch of their skin.

Sensual sex is about two people connecting through all five senses. We are meant to make love not only with our eyes, but also with our nose, our ears, our mouth, and our hands. We can learn to enjoy the touch, scent, sound, and taste of sex, instead of only the sight. Many of the exercises practiced in the art of tantra are conducted blindfolded so as to short-circuit the eyes and have the practitioner focus instead on the other senses.

There is a famous story of Napoleon writing home to his wife, Josephine, “I’ll be home in three days. Don’t bathe.” To men of earlier generation, the natural scent of a woman was an intoxicating aphrodisiac that drove them wild with desire.

Sensual means that you appreciate your partner in their entirety, experiencing their desirability just the way they are. Rather than focusing on what, in your opinion, is not like a magazine cover, close your eyes and feel, listen, smell, and touch the incredible and unique sexiness of this particular lover who is gracing you with their intimacy and vulnerability. Every person wants to be loved in their totality, not just as a collection of body parts.

© 2008 Catherine  Auman

As she neared the corner to turn to her flat, an Indian man in his mid twenties stopped her. He wore a stiffly starched Western style shirt, immaculately white, and black trousers. His little mustache quivered. He came up to Laurel’s chin.

“Please, sir,” he said, addressing Laurel. Laurel wanted to scream at him that she was not a ‘sir’ but she bit her tongue. Was the only honorific in Hindi masculine?

“My wife and I,” he continued. His voice was insistent and firm, determined to get what he was after. “We are married new. Please, sir, honor us, bless our marriage.”

Behind him was a shy Indian woman, dressed in punjabi and beaded sandals, her glossy black hair gathered into a thick braid. Her eyes were downcast and she clung to her husband’s arm. Laurel wanted to laugh. Her bless a marriage? Ludicrous. What was with these people?

Then she realized that to them she was a sannyasin, a person on a spiritual quest, which in India denoted a holy person. She laughed to think of herself as holy, yeah, celibate and all. But then again, she argued with herself, she was dedicating her life to spiritual search. In the West, this may have made her an uncool person, but here it was honored as a respected life path. Maybe her spirituality was not that of a celibate monk dedicated to hours of pranayama or late nights studying the dharma. She was equally as determined as he was to see it to the end. Maybe she ought to regard her own life choices with a little more respect.

How did one bless a marriage? “All blessings for your marriage,” Laurel said. “May you live long and happily together.” She waved her arms around like she imagined a priest would. Would that do?

The man smiled at his wife who nodded. The newly married couple walked on into their life together, and Laurel walked on into her life alone.

© 2006 Catherine Auman