Since the Sexual Revolution began in the 1960's, art and creative expression has pushed at the social boundaries regarding sexuality, illustrated by movies like Sirens, The Crying Game and Exit to Eden. Recently in the New Sexual Evolution, relationships and sexuality have become hot topics with awareness focussing on the sexual union between couples--couples whose attitudes are not always as progressive as Hollywood's.

The question being raised more and more is how something as incredible as great sex can be dirty or shameful--an outdated and useless attitude that still permeates much of society. Authors like Margo Anand with her book The Art of Sexual Magic, and John Gray, Ph.D. with his book Mars and Venus in the Bedroom, are teaching individuals how to move past their negative conditioning about sex, into realizing greater and more satisfying fulfillment with their sexual partner. Both Margo Anand and John Gray graciously agreed to talk in more detail about society's expanding sexual awareness.

When I asked Margo Anand why is it so crucial for people to understand the sacred quality of sex:

SHE SAID: "Sex lies at the root of life, and we can only learn reverence for life when we learn reverence for sex. The damage to human society caused by the condemnation of sex is incalculable. Instead of celebrating sex as the creative force it is, we have turned sex into a furtive guilt-ridden affair. This has misguided and influenced our entire world view. There is a tremendous amount of effort being made to heal the planet, save the rain forests and to bring peace to warring ethnic and religious factions which are actually raping each other like mad, and yet how can any of this happen when the very source of human love is poisoned? How can love for the planet and love for each other flourish when the basic teaching of organized religion says that the sexual life force is evil? This attitude has permeated everything. Sex has become associated with suffering, frustration and sacrifice because it is so repressed and distorted in this culture, a culture which values pain and violence over pleasure and orgasm. We live in an anti-ecstatic society in which our spiritual tradition has taught us there is a total split between flesh and spirit, that the body is the abode of evil instincts that has to be controlled at all costs."

I asked Margo Anand what she feels has caused the negative attitude our culture has toward sex:

SHE SAID: "Because we live in a anti-ecstatic society that separates flesh and spirit, our culture has lost the understanding sexual energy is a physical expression of our spiritual power--the unite, to create, to rejoice and to feel free. When we hold sexual union in reverence, it becomes a sacred event. When deprive ourselves from sacred sexual union, sex remains a purely physical, instinctual drive disconnected from heart and spirit. As a result, sex is often misused and repressed and directed against life itself. We see the results all around us--sexual violence, rape, the collapse of the immune system which leads to AIDS. Statistics said in this last year, 1.5 million women who have suffered from some sort of sexual crime or sexual violence, mostly perpetrated by men with who they have or have had intimate relationships. We are told, don't talk about sex, don't do it, it's bad, it's dirty. When society preaches the source of life, our root, is polluted by original sin, how can we expect to reap any benefit."

When I asked John Gray how sexuality and spirituality connect. HE SAID: "Spirituality is a quest for wholeness, for holiness, to find and express all that we are, and to express who we are in a meaningful and loving way. Sex does all of those things. Sex is the expression of the most creative force in the universe. It is spirit expressing itself, but when sex is expressed and shared when there is no love, it is wasted, abused and misused. Love is the prerequisite for sex to become a spiritual act, and then it truly is two souls seeking wholeness and expressing love on a physical plane. Love can be expressed in many different ways, but when it is fully integrated, it is experienced fully in our body as pleasure shared with another person, giving and receiving pleasure.

The soul seeks wholeness by becoming conscious and aware of the different elements within it. Particularly, the male seeks union with the female to become aware of the female within the man. That's how he finds his wholeness. Within every man there is the female and within every woman is the male. When the woman loves the man and unites with the man, she becomes more aware of and in harmony with the male inside of herself. Wholeness is the wholeness of the male and female in union together."

I asked John Gray why he felt monogamy in a relationship was so crucial for sacred sex:

HE SAID: "It's the monogamous commitment that brings holiness to the relationship. What this means is you are now training your sexual energy, disciplining your sexual energy, in the very same way a monk would. I was a monk for nine years, so I can teach this to men. As a monk, every time I would get turned on to a woman, I would think of God and I would raise my energy up. I never suppressed my sexual energy, but through breathing exercises and visualization was able to bring my energy up to my relationship with God. I transformed it and redirected it. When a man is married, he can practice the same thing. If he is virile, he is going to be attracted to many women, so what he does is every time he is attracted to another woman, he simply thinks of his wife. When you can channel your sexual energies to the woman you love, and it always goes only to that woman, your energy is always going to her. It's an energetic link. She is nourished through that and sends love back to you. It's a cycle--he gives to her and it comes back to him, until it's always going to her and coming back to him. It's an energizing process which grows over time with monogamy and is dissipated by having casual affairs. You start at zero again."

What John Gray seemed to be driving at was the idea that there is an incredible payoff for being monogamous, something not generally advertised in the tabloids and

HE SAID: "It's a huge payoff. You have lasting passion which has not been possible before, greater creativity, greater longevity and greater health. People with vigorous sex lives live longer and they don't get sick as often. Sexual energy is the life force and it keeps us young. When we stop having sex, the body says, "We're not alive anymore." You start moving in the direction of dying. A greater sense of power and strength comes from being passionate. When you are passionate and you know how to direct that passion to one person, you have even greater strength."

I questioned Margo Anand as to exactly what her unique training method, called Skydancing, teaches couples about sex.

SHE SAID: "Skydancing Tantra is the path to bliss. It teaches there is a holistic approach to sexual loving, and in the process, it teaches you the secrets of great sex. You put your ego aside and you are totally there for the other person. You learn the element of caring and support that go into a true love relationship. Skydancing teaches couples how to stop their destructive patterns, to cleanse and harmonize their energy fields, how to relax their bodies which is very important whenever you enter into any preparation to love-making. It also teaches you how to open your heart to have clear emotional and trusting exchanges with each other and to have a peaceful mind. You learn the art of visualizing, focussing and letting go which is primarily letting go of the mind. When this integration has taken place, you are ready for a sexual experience where physical pleasure is transformed into a delight of the heart and an ecstasy of the spirit. It is this merging of sexuality and spirituality that opens the door to sexual magic and Skydancing--ecstasy and the impression you are so light and so buoyant you are dancing in the sky."

Margo Anand's ideas on having sex with your eyes open was certainly opposed to the standard "Missionary Position" that has America what it is today. When I asked her if her teaching also crossed diverse boundaries--homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual and solo sex

SHE SAID: "Yes it does. Skydancing teaches you there is a powerfully creative force associated with our sexuality. We can become magicians and use that force to help heal our lives and to transform our vision--to realize our dreams, but we have all sorts of programming blocking the flow of our sexual power. We need to be open to be able to face those demons, to look at the shadow and share the shadows with all honesty, knowing truth is erotic. The more you can share your truth, the deeper and the more erotic it

will become in the long run."

I asked John Gray if his basic ideas applied to gay and bisexual relationships.

HE SAID: "Gay couples have told me the ideas directly relate to their situation because within them is a male and female side. It helps identify the masculine and feminine sides. In that way it validate those different needs of both sides, so both people can be more understanding and respectful of those needs when they emerge. Nobody is taught to simply and innocently communicate clearly about their sexuality, to say what they want--to say, "What am I afraid of? What are my hopes?, How do I like to be loved?"

Banging on the doors of a few more cultural taboos, I asked Margo Anand why a man has to be deeply receptive for sexual magic to take place, and why male sensitivity such a turn-on for women.

SHE SAID: "The secret to a harmonious relationship is what Tantra teaches--that we are both man and woman and we have both the male and female hormones within each of us. As a woman, I have the both polarities--male and female. When a man has the ability to develop the feminine side inside himself, he will automatically be able to tune in at a much deeper level with the woman. He will see he has an inner woman. The clearer he is with his inner woman, his receptive side, the stronger his ability to listen and to receive the woman's power and blessing. John Gray has helped people to understand how to balance these two polarities in a very concrete way--just a man's ability to listen to a woman without wanting to "fix" her. There's nothing to fix; you just listen.

When a man has the ability to develop that kind of sensitivity and he is simply able to be receptive, to flow without a goal, and to express his feelings, he is so loved by women because women really feel understood. The woman also has to have her inner man developed, so she has the ability to have enough self-confidence to teach the man what she needs, what she loves and wants."

Disclosure is also a very important element in sexual relationships. I see instances that are unbelievable. People start relationships that go really deep, truly loving from the heart, and because the man is so in love with the woman, he hides from her the fact that he has herpes. By hiding this from her, he exposes her to catching herpes. People lie to each other because they want eachother's love and then they expose eachother to transmitted diseases because they are not telling the truth, they don't have the integrity to clearly communicate. People in this culture need training in the art of love. They need to finally understand sexuality is a very natural instinct and there is nothing wrong with it. Connecting sexuality with original sin is probably the most hurtful thing that has happened to our culture."

When I queried John Gray on what strengthened relationships and what the magic charm of sex was for men and for women,

HE SAID: "For women the magic charm opening them up to sex is romance. What makes men romantic is the possibility of great sex. That's a nice balance which is very important and contrary to what people commonly think. People usually think women give sex in order to get love, and men give love in order to get sex. The truth is much deeper. On the surface it looks that way, but really it's when a woman feels loved that she can fully enjoy sex. A woman's heart opens and then they start becoming sexual. A man's heart opens with the possibility of sex, so men primarily hunger for sex because they hunger for love."

I questioned him further as to how romantic ritual plays out in sexual relationship.

HE SAID: "When a man's actions serve a woman, that's romance for a woman. To romance a man is to appreciate the things he does. When a woman's responses are loving, that's the most romantic thing for a man. The two things a woman can do to be very romantic with a man have to do with how she responds to him. One is to respond to what he does with warmth and appreciation. The other is to respond to his mistakes without punishing him or being critical. When he makes mistakes, the woman needs to respond in a way that minimizes his incompetence, so he doesn't feel she sees his as incompetent or unable to provide fulfillment for her. The most romantic thing a woman can ever do for her partner is to not say no to sex."

In his book Mars and Venus in the Bedroom, John Gray talks about man as an artist, familiar with the basic colors of sex so he can then experiment on how they combine to create a work of art. I asked him whether he thought sex was a creational experience or primarily a recreational experience.

HE SAID: "Making love is a creative act and each time it's a little different, sometimes drastically different. If you're just repeating what you've done before, it loses its creativity, passion and the spiritual quality of being in the moment. The term, "recreational sex," is somewhat negative from my perspective because it debases us as human beings to simply disconnect from our heart chakra. What happens is we start becoming more divided within ourselves and we don't learn to experience pleasure and love at the same time. We never experience pleasure that is in harmony with our values. If you're just having sex and there's no relationship, all your energy is coming down from the higher centers down into the sex center. It sits there and flows out, whereas if sex is a creative act, if sex is expressing who you truly are, if sex is with someone you love, you include all your higher centers and feel the ecstacy that can only be provided by the higher centers."

I questioned Margo Anand about awakening the Wild Self as a way of enhancing creative love-making.

SHE SAID: "The Wild Self is the part of you who knows how to dance ecstatically, love passionately and live totally. Whether you know it or not, it is within you now. The Wild Self is this raw, innocent and vital power you have. Total orgasm of the whole being needs the intensity of the Wild Self. It is absolutely essential to release this energy in powerful, creative, passionate ways and in playful ways that enhance intimacy between partners. A strong heart connection with your partner is the essential thing, the love. Then you can go wild and remain sensitive and respectful enough to stay playful and not hurt each other. When the Wild Self finds free expression in love-making, the mind stops judging, comparing and controlling and you merge with your senses."

I then asked her what the connection was between sex magic and spirituality.

SHE SAID: "Sexual magic is pragmatic spirituality. In my previous book, I said how to use sexual energy and combine it with meditation so you experience ecstatic states of consciousness and you fall into what Deepak Chopra calls "the gap between the thoughts." It is also called the zero point of orgasm or the emptiness beyond the form which is what Tantra talks about.

It's the timeless present. My practice of sexual ecstacy was leading me there, but then I asked myself, "What can I do with all of this energy? I realized this expanded orgasmic power gives us a tremendous motor, a tremendous power. It's the root of life and the most important power we have in our lives. In that moment of the gap, if you have a clear vision or intention of a certain direction, or a certain goal you want to realize, and if you hold that vision and intention during the time you make love, and then you release it into the universe at the moment of orgasm, you have given the universe a blueprint of your desire which can be powerfully magnetized and strengthened by the magnetic field created by the orgasmic energy."

It seemed to me what she was talking about was connecting with the astral network in a cosmic world-wide web of energy to manifest what you desire.

SHE SAID: "Rupert Sheldrake talks about the morphogenic field and he explains because of the existence of this interconnectedness, we are actually connected to patterns of intelligence which connect us to the whole cosmos. Everything is interconnected. That is why I say to the women in my workshops, "When you heal your sexuality, you're not just healing yourself, you are doing it for all of the women on this planet." The most intimate practices can actually affect everybody else. You receive the benefits of that energy field that has been created by all the people who have practiced this particular practice before you. That is why you are empowered by sex magic. You enter a certain frequency, a vibration which connects you. When you reach a certain frequency you access this astral network where these other fields and frequencies have already been established.

Unfortunately in the past, sexual magic has been relegated to the dusty attics of our grandparents and considered to be some kind of theatrical trick, like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It has a bad reputation. What I am saying, is forget about all of that. There is a inherent power in sexual magic that is becoming a trend and this is why I am now working with Deepak Chopra. He is developing the exactly same vision and the same understanding. When you enter the gap between the thoughts, you can plant your desire for your realization and transformation. Then you let them go and let the universe handle the details."

When I asked Margo Anand how couples can use sexual magic to manifest their desires and dreams,

SHE SAID: "After partners learn the technique of MOR (multi-orgasmic response), they go back to opening the channels between sex and the brain through moving energy through the chakras to the different energy centers, by breathing deeply and focussing on taking this energy through this inner channel. Then they look at their magic symbol which is right there on the wall next to their bed. A shortcut is to sit opposite of each other and put the symbol between the two of you, and start to pleasure yourselves in front of each other. You weave all the energies together, focussing them towards a particular intention, so your magical symbol and your sexual energy fuse into a single living dynamic force."

John Gray calls his form of sex magic, polarity sex. I asked him to explain how polarity sex works.

HE SAID: "In sex, we move into a timeless place of no boundaries. When a man is aroused, he quickly goes to a peak place of timelessness. To him it feels like a lot of time has elapsed when really it could be just a few minutes. A few minutes doesn't give the woman what she needs--to slowly bring her arousal to a peak climax of arousal where she can go into a timeless place as well. Polarity sex is a way of having sex which insures the woman gets her needs met before the man climaxes. Once the man has climaxed, his pleasure hormones immediately dissipate, whereas when a woman climaxes, her pleasure hormones do not dissipate, they reach a peak and they stay there for quite a while. We are built to provide pleasure for the woman first. Once she has her peak experience she can stay there to join with the man while he has his peak experience, and they can be in union when he has his orgasm. When a woman reaches her peak level, she can stay at a peak level of arousal, sensitivity and receptiveness--feeling in union and oneness with her partner. Then when he has his orgasm, they are one.

Men don't have the innate ability to maintain high peak pleasures. Women do. They have the ability to reach a peak level and stay there. Men reach it and they are gone. If a man takes the time to build a woman up first and she reaches that level, then he can have his peak and his pleasure will last because he waited for her. If a man goes against his nature--to go fast--and slows down to provide the woman what she needs, then not only will she be happier, not only will their orgasms be more spiritual and united, his pleasure will also last longer."

I asked him what were other elements of polarity sex.

HE SAID: "You start in the earthly polarity and you move to the spiritual polarity. When you're in the earthly polarity, quite commonly a man's hormones are saying, "Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it." The woman's hormones are not really raging saying, "Let's do it." She's saying, "Let's take some time before we do it." That's the earthly level and we need to acknowledge that, so for the first five or ten minutes in polarity sex the whole thing is geared around satisfying the man's hunger. There's a discipline where he doesn't reach climax where his sexual energy is released, but builds up and builds up until within a minute he could have his climax. Then he puts his need to receive--one polarity is giving and one is receiving--and gives to her. She stops giving to him and starts receiving. For a good fifteen to twenty minutes, he gives to her completely without thinking about his pleasure.

With the standard missionary position couples stop having sex after a while. They lose the passion and the juices. What I am saying is you start out kind of standard, where it's all for the man and not much for the woman, but the man is practicing polarity sex which means he is not going to have his orgasm while receiving. The problem is if people aren't practicing polarity sex and if the man is just going for it, he is going to have an orgasm and when she is ready to start being stimulated, he doesn't have any passion left in his body."

This New Sexual Evolution we are beginning to experience is a new cultural paradigm where people are seeing different ways of approaching sexuality and the connection of sexuality to all things. I asked Margo Anand how this is going to affect the social fiber.

SHE SAID: "It's one thing to have a mental understanding that there is a paradigm shift and another thing to take the steps to change things. You have to make a commitment to saying, "I now commit to keeping my power, not to giving it away to parents, teachers, the church, the politicians or the media. I commit to taking my power back and taking full responsibility for my love life. I commit to the pioneer in my love life and to ask questions and challenge all of the old beliefs."

This article originally appeared in Magical Blend