Daoism and Sex (part 3, or Why you should trust Me)

I'm 40. During the sexual revolution in San Francisco, my family was ground zero. I was the kid in school everybody came to when they had questions about sex. Every single aspect of the sexual revolution was active in my home and the places my family took me.

My great grandparents were suffragettes in New York. My grandmother and her brothers and sisters grew up in a sexually liberated environment. In fact, my grandmother was an advocate for anatomically correct sex education in the schools-- and she occasionally bragged about sex orgies in the 1920's.

During the 1970's my father started the first public class on sex (erotica) for adults. The idea for the class was that anyone could ask any question they wanted and if the answer wasn't known, it would be researched for the next class. That class eventually became the Sex Forum, which eventually became the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality--which gives out doctorates and has been the source of Biology 301 (Human Sexuality) course in nearly all modern universities.

Just to pile it on, he also started the first Sex Information hot-line, the Yes Book(s) or Sex (he is featured in the one on masturbation), and helped run C.O.Y.O.T.E. (Come Off Your Old Tired Ethics) also known as the prostitutes union. I could go on.

As a kid I was surrounded by sexual experimenters. The one word that I never heard around the dinner table was "pervert." When the second wave of sexual liberation started in the 90's I got a chance to go to sex rituals and consensual sex parties (instead of orgies). I've seen it all.

Sexual liberation has positive psychological and physiological effects. However, if you are having a lot of sex you are going to need extra qi in the form of food, more rest and more sleep. Otherwise you'll become deficient. [In Chinese medicine deficient is a diagnosis which is sub-medical (because all you need to fix it is food, sleep and rest) but which is a contributor to many medical problems.]
I've been listening to sex jocks all my life. More experiements in sex have been done in the last 40 years in San Francisco than were ever conducted by Tantrics or Daoist. History is simply not a good resource for good sex.

Imagine you are still a virgin and your parents have set you up on a blind date in which you have agreed in advance to have sex! Sound crazy? It's called arranged marriage and it was the norm in India and China. It's no wonder that they created the Kama Sutra and various Chinese Pleasure Manuals. These kids needed basic sex education. In most cases, an alliance between two families (the marriage) was riding on the hope that that first date would go well.

The idea that Tantra or Daoism has something to teach modern internet competent people about sex is far fetched indeed. Folks, all those Tantric and Daoist Sex classes and books are just modern experiments with an oriental gloss-- they aren't magic, they aren't particularly honest, and the health benefits are nil if you are already liberated.

But I will say this, some people are making a lot of money selling couples sex education vacations with an Oriental Mystic. Nice.