Our sex culture gives us a very clear purpose in sex - to achieve an experience of release.
Most people are actually very focused on that purpose in sex and everything is ultimately driven to it. Everything is a step in the sequence towards it.
We might enjoy other things on the way but the ultimate goal of the sex act is to achieve a release.
This particular purpose is the reason we get such a small experience out of sex and why we are not feeling its real power.
This purpose comes from the belief that a release is very valuable.
The idea of this model for sex is that we have a build-up of sexual energy - before sex or during sex. And the greatest thing we can do with it is flush it out via the release.
First - because that event of relieving tension will feel good. (It’s called an orgasm)
Second - because supposedly when we are relieved of sexual energy we feel great - well, happy, satisfied, vibrant, alive, in love and connected. All by the act of getting rid of sexual energy from our system.
The idea is that sexual energy is a sort of ‘pleasurable but toxic substance’ and you feel really amazing when it is gone. Sort of when you squeeze out a really satisfying spot on your face, or when you have a really good shit. But a lot more amplified.
There is a promise of a blissful state we will achieve once all those ‘pleasurable but uncomfortable’ sexual feelings are gone after a release.
So this creates that purpose in sex - to get rid of sexual energy from our system.
Annoyingly, sexual energy regularly builds up and we need to regularly get rid of it. And if it doesn’t and we need something to release, we will artificially create that tension just so we can relieve it and thus enjoy the benefits.
This is a somewhat nonsensical view of how sex would enrich us and our relationships.
We have generally stopped asking why. We just speak of a release as the obviously greatest and most important experience in sex.
This worship of release has grown its own lore, mythology and pseudo-science. The release is given magical qualities - spiritual, emotional, energetic, physiological. It is love and connection. It is a touch of God and the divine. It is good for your health and general wellbeing, and not having it is bad for your health. If will fix your sex life and fulfil all needs in sex. Etc.
We have complex human needs in sex - closeness, connection, love, soulful satisfaction, beauty, energy, wellbeing, extraordinary sensory richness of this whole experience of sex. We were given one prehistoric device to practice sex - - rubbing the genitals to create tension, then releasing it.
Even thought it makes little sense, we share a widespread belief that all our complex needs in sex will be achieved with this one device.
Being awesome humans that we are, we adorned this primitive device with supernatural qualities, profound meanings, ritualised gifting and hopeful but far-fetched explanations.
If we simply understand that our purpose in this moment is not to release, it is something far greater - this will absolutely change our lives with a new powerful source of enrichment.
Sexual energy is not a toxic substance we need to flush out of ourselves. It is a rich, potent and incredibly positive nourishing substance that feeds us.
We want to feel alive, vibrant, well, connected, in love after sex. And we are trying to achieve this by creating this enriching energy during sex but then emptying it out of ourselves.
We expect that the act of emptying, getting to zero, will leave us feeling that wellbeing, aliveness, vitality, love and connection.
What we dream of is actually a state of fullness. Being really alive from that energy. Being saturated with it. It is not a stare of emptiness. It makes no sense to try to empty ourselves if what we want is that state of aliveness.
The true purpose of sex is not to achieve a release - it is to achieve a saturation.
Even if you had a release in sex, the benefit of sex came from saturating and not from the release - the saturating you did before the release.
Over the course of sex you created, say, 100 units of sexual energy, then you lost 30 units via a release but 70 units have stayed with you (if your technique was very good).
People misinterpret this all the time. They will have powerful, sensual, really good sex with lots of foreplay and generating a lot of sexual energy in the genitals, then they have an orgasm and they think they feel amazing after sex because there was a release through an orgasm.
No - you feel amazing because you actually spent that time before the orgasm on enjoying that sexual energy long enough and well enough. There was enough of it generated and absorbed. That’s what really stayed with you and that’s why you feel amazing now. The orgasm probably actually shaved off a good percentage of that generated energy. Yet all that amazing feeling after sex typically gets attributed to the orgasm. Then we just reinforce the myth that the orgasm has this magical nourishing qualities.
And vice versa. How many people have routine sex that is a shortcut to release - quick stimulation to get the orgasm and roll over to sleep. They don’t feel vibrant, sparkly, in love and blissful for the whole day after sex. They feel nothing after sex, a feeling of emptiness. And yet the magical release is there, with all its supposed magic cosmic benefits. It’s all the other stuff that is no longer there.