Now here's a really interesting conversation.

I've read most of the way through the comments - not entirely yet. There's some interesting, and some good stuff, and ...... there are pieces missing. Gotta read some more and see I can pull them out.

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This was an interesting note from the author (down in th comments) that jumped out at me.....

quote:

One more note: as for sex being pleasurable, eating chocolate ice cream is pleasurable, snorting cocaine is extremely pleasurable, and while I’ve never shot-up heroin, I can only imagine the pleasure associated with it. I don’t think pleasurable is a very good factor in determining the value of a thing. I have nothing against pleasure, but pleasure is just the flip side of the coin that has pain on the other side. You can’t have one without the other.

Yes! I noted that too .....

One thing that's bumping around in my brain about this article and that quote and the previous article ..... is the stuff we know from Helen Fisher. Sex is pleasurable for a reason -- it's what makes babies and that's the first step in keeping the human race alive. Eating is pleasurable cuz we need to eat to live.

At the same time I wouldn't say the only reason for sex is procreation ..... And I wouldn't say the only reason for eating it to add fuel to the machine.

There's a sacredness to those things that's eluding the conversation. I think that's what's trying to surface and find words for me.

What did you think of that particular quote?

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quote:

What did you think of that particular quote?

Obviously I totally agree with this...

quote:

I don’t think pleasurable is a very good factor in determining the value of a thing.

and this is non-sense....

quote:

I have nothing against pleasure, but pleasure is just the flip side of the coin that has pain on the other side. You can’t have one without the other.

How about a good massage. Pleasurable for sure. No pain on the other side of the coin, unless it's a swedish massage.

As that statement pertains to sex specifically - Obviously it can be true, but I'm trying to find the "pain" on the flip side of the coin in my own marriage. I guess you could use my addiction to it as the obverse of the coin.

See now I absolutely agree that pain is the flip side of pleasure. Without one how would you know the existence of the other? What's the motivation for the massage if not some kind of discomfort or dis-ease? What drives us to eat if not hunger? How do we know we are full if don't experience empty? How do we know what desire is unless we've gone without?

It's the ebb and flow that informs us of the existence of the other. I've been dabbling (toe barely in the water) in some of the Hermetic and alchemical concepts of the Enlightenment. Hermes was the mythological figure that revealed light by veiling it. Just when I think I have my head wrapped around that it slips away from me. And yet, I get it in life events ....

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quote:

Without one how would you know the existence of the other? What's the motivation for the massage if not some kind of discomfort or dis-ease? What drives us to eat if not hunger? How do we know we are full if don't experience empty?

With that, maybe I misunderstood what the author was saying. My interpretation was that the pleasure created the "pain".

I have to go now. Smoke is coming from my ears.

You know, that guy also says there are experiences better than sex. I think pleasure is like wine - a very personal thing. What someone thinks is a great bottle - others will have no remorse pouring down the sink. I've yet to have an experience better than sex. I don't like white wine either.

Down the sink??? Surely you jest? There's always baking and marinating and .... saving for the rellies .....

So one of the things HH the Dalai Lama talks about in his book Ethics for the New Millennium is the difference between happiness and transitory sensory pleasure. Happiness he defines as inner peace even under stress - the sense of calm and contentment that comes of virtuous and compassionate choices. What we give as opposed to what we get.

Sensory pleasure, otoh, although not in and of itself either good or bad does not lead to happiness (as defined above). Why is that? Because by it's nature it is transitory - leaving us wanting more at some later point. Sex, food, wine, time with friends, a movie, a date, sleeping, work .... whatever *it* is it is a finite external stimulus. So the pain part of the pleasure/pain coin (in this discussion as opposed to kink ) is in either the remembering or anticipating. Remember, in eastern philosophy a great part of the journey toward enlightenment is being totally present in the .... well ..... present. Both remembering and anticipating take away from that and therefore from the state of inner peace.

Make sense?

Oh, and I don't like white wine either.

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