The insatiable longing for MANLOVE

The sexual drive in human beings is the primal force of nature, deep rooted in us, its power is so strong it can overrule our reason, our good intentions and drive us into all sorts of adventures and troubles. The sexual drive is nature pushing forward the expansion of life on all levels, not just the reproductive – sexual energy is creative, emotional and, on a good night, can even give us a taste of the transcendent freedom of our eternal spirit.

The sex drive in men is often rampant and raging, hard to satisfy. Nature made women differently, they seem to have had an evolutionary role as a natural break on the sexual appetite of the male of the species. Pregnancy is one such natural break, so are headaches…. Men learnt they had to please their women to get the sex they want.. Women learnt they could control men through sex. Of course men have tried to control other men’s sexuality too, through laws and religion.

For most of the women and many of the men on planet earth there is nothing that quite compares with the ecstatic delight, excitement and sense of security that comes from deeply loving a male member of the species. Coming into emotional and physical union with a powerful male soul is comforting, empowering and potentially divine in its possibilities. The sexual buzz of that union can be highly charged and very more-ish. This is very possibly an underlying reason for the stance religious and political authorities have long taken against homosexuality – as many gay men today are learning, often at high cost, the lustful longing for intimate contact with other men can never be satisfied. When the genie of gay sex is released from his restraints many guys dive into a never ending search for more pleasure. Where once queer zones of uninhibited expressions of pleasure were very rare and hard to find, nowadays gay porn streams direct off the internet and men are cruising and fucking on every high street as well as back street, with drugs often the medium for entering into the moment, helping us to swtich off annoying feelings of shame and guilt that is the inheritance of centuries of homophobic attitudes.

Once we have tasted the formerly-sinful divine pleasure of knowing a man, with sexual, emotional and of course – father – issues all mixed up into a cauldron of feeling, many of us find we just want more. If we get to taste the supreme heights that soulful sexual connection with a man we deeply LOVE can bring us too, we may not get so much satisfaction from casual encounters with strangers. But here’s where drugs help again – taking us into that high soulful place that feels a little bit like being in love and helping us search and search hoping that we will one day fall in love again. When on drugs, chances are whoever we are with we are basically only really loving ourselves and the feelings we can access within ourselves. This fuelled fun is going to leave us feeling empty and disconnected, either in the short or long term. Men who are complete strangers help each other to ecstatic highs but the thing about lovers is that they are there to love you when the sex is over too, when we on the downslide. Casual sex buddies tend not to be.

When I meet guys who tell me they are hooked on crystal meth, mephedrone, or ghb, I say no they are hooked on bliss. They are hooked on the energies of their own soul … because instead of taking the time and making the effort to create a genuine, erotic and affectionate connection with someone in order to have great sex, they are using a drug to create chemical reactions in their own body, which give the temporary impression of some sort of connection. Sometimes the sex reaches such a disconnected place it is clear men are just using each other in order to totally focus on their own needs and wishes.

This is where sex between men is different to sex between men and women. Men will allow other men to treat them like shit. To literally piss all over them and walk away. To shoot their load and get out the door. We don’t mind treating each other like sexual objects – the freedom men now have to have sex with other men liberates the animalistic, insatiable libido in us to explore like never before. The more we watch porn, cruise sites and apps, take chemicals to enhance the experience of pleasure while doing so, the more we want to do it. In the animal part of our brain we lap up the endorphins and cry out for more.

We can blame drugs. We can blame our parents. We can blame the heartbreaks. We can blame society. It doesn’t matter what gets us to this point – we are exploring the raw lustful energy of nature, and its complicated relationship with love and reason. There is really no way to satisfy the lustful longing for loving intimacy with another man once that longing has taken root, once we have opened that genie’s bottle. We better simply accept – and even relish – the insatiability factor – diving into the pleasures of manflesh when we choose and stepping away from it too, keeping some balance in our lives. We can also choose LOVE over lust – set our sights higher on a deeper form of communion and care than lusty sexual adventures can provide. And we can choose LIGHT – opening the curtains of our modern day opium dens (our bedrooms) and letting in some light and awareness about this sexual drive so many are engaged in.

Religions have tried to control people’s sexuality for some centuries. In modern times sexual liberation has arrived, but is linked to a materialist, consumerist paradigm that misses the point that we are not simply physical entities – we are souls on a journey of exploration. Life is the adventure of consciousness, and sex is one of the finest things we can enjoy on that journey. But gay men are treating sex like a sport – when it is in fact a sacrament. Tantra from the east and Pagan paths here in Europe can open our minds to the spiritual possibilities waiting for us to discover in our sexual expression. Sex can open the spirit. The nature of the spirit – as any tantric, pagan priestess or heretic christian or muslim mystic will tell you – is infinite peace and divine bliss. Drugs just give us a taste of the nirvana that can be ours once we learn to make sex sacred, whether we are having it with an intimate companion or complete stranger.

Many gay men are caught in a cycle of longing that has no end. We are not seeing that the real focus of our search is KNOWLEDGE – of who we are, of GOD. When we love and make love to a man we are conjuring the divinity within him and ourselves, connecting soul to soul we take each other to place of revelation. And yes we will want more, we will want it again, the divine taste of MANLOVE is intoxicating.

4.2.7

“I want to see you.

Know your voice.

Recognize you when you
first come ’round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come
into a room you’ve just left.

Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.

I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more”
― Rumi