Shawna MarieEros. What is it? Sex has long fascinated philosophers and great minds. Plato and his Symposium buddies were the first think tank to openly celebrate homosexuality, feminism and eroticism. Discourse on love has continued through the ages; these following scholars were probably fucking fantastic in the sack.
1.) Lao Tzu
Historians have theorized this 6th century Taoist sage was merely a mythical character. Nevertheless, Laozi had some pretty epic opinions — regarding transcendental sex and raising your spiritual perceptions.
“A person's approach to sexuality is a sign of his level of evolution. Unevolved persons practice ordinary sexual intercourse. Placing all emphasis upon the sexual organs, they neglect the body's other organs and systems. Whatever physical energy is accumulated is summarily discharged, and the subtle energies are similarly dissipated and disordered.”
“..The trap of duality is tenacious. Bound, rigid, and trapped, you cannot experience liberation. Through dual cultivation [careful sexual intercourse] it is possible to unravel the net, soften the rigidity, dismantle the trap. Dissolving your yin energy into the source of universal life, attracting the yang energy from that same source, you leave behind individuality and your life becomes pure nature. Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever..”
— Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu
2.) Carl Jung
A man obsessed with dream symbols and the unconscious mind (friends with Freud on Facebook). He was a strong promoter of art therapy and it's ability to alleviate anxiety, restore and heal. Jung believed we operate with four functions — sensing, thinking, intuition, and feeling.
According to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the libido is identified as psychic energy. Duality (opposition) that creates the energy (or libido) of the psyche, which Jung asserts expresses itself only through symbols: “It is the energy that manifests itself in the life process and is perceived subjectively as striving and desire.” (Ellenberger, 697)
— Wikipedia on Libido
3.) Søren Kierkegaard
This Danish philosopher had brooding eyes and wrote horny love pleas to suffer through a
split with his fiance, Regine Olsen. Kierkegaard waxed existential and was
influenced by Socrates.
“You, sovereign queen of my heart, Regina, hidden in the deepest secrecy
of my breast, in the fullness of my life-idea, there where
it is just as
far to heaven as to hell — unknowndivinity! O, can I really believe the
poets when they say that the first time one sees the beloved object he
thinks he has seen her long before, that love like all knowledge is
recollection, that love in the single individual also has its
prophecies, its types, its myths, its Old Testament. Everywhere, in the
face of every girl, I see features of your beauty, but I think I would
have to possess the beauty of all the girls in the world to extract your
beauty, that I would have to sail around the world to find the portion
of the world I want and toward which the deepest secret of my self
polarically points — and in the next moment you are so close to me, so
present, so overwhelmingly filling my spirit that I am transfigured to
myself and feel that here it is good to be. You blind god of erotic
love!”— Journals & Papers of Søren Kierkegaard, August 1838.
4.) Rumi
He was a 13th century Persian mystic & poet whose theologies included spiritual evolution and universality. Rumi believed that creative love was the paramount goal of our velocity here on earth. He was sometimes vulgar, sometimes intoxicated. Please enjoy these erotic stories of concubines and also donkey porn (bonus – penis shortening device!).
“When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you're not here, I can't get to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.”“Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.
She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.
Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair
My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.”“The way you make love
is the way God will be with you.”“I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
'more'”— Rumi
5.) Bertrand Russell
Through affairs with actresses and intellects, Russell became a lover of the ladies. He had fought against women's suffrage; he also exhibited enthusiasm in regards to gay rights and contraception. He liked math, sex and sex.
“Joy of life… depends upon a certain spontaneity in regard to sex.
Where sex is repressed, only work remains, and a gospel of work for
work's sake never produced any work worth doing.”— The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, Ch. 20 The Place of Sex Among Human Values.
Runner up — Nietzsche's mustache (it tickles!). Sorry Fred, but syphilis is somewhat of a turn-off.
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