Public Sex

Do I Have Your Attention?

I don’t know what the answers are here, but I think about it a lot. I’d love to get some opinions in the comments.

My book Before War is about the origins of dominator culture about five thousand years ago, and how sexy people were before that. At the heart of dominator culture is paternity. Cultures that still practice matrilineal inheritance, passing on the family name from mother to child instead of from father to child, don’t keep track of the father. And this makes total sense, since you always know who your mother is. This meant they were free to have orgies. In order to keep track of the father, you need to monitor and control sexuality, at least for the women — and that leads to control, authoritarianism, and psychopathology. And shame, guilt and trauma around sex.

Obviously, sex is the most powerful stimulus available to us. The title piqued your interest, did it not? We are wired to want it, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. It’s too messy and pointless of an activity (and for women, risky) for us to do it if we weren’t programmed by evolution to be fascinated by it.

Hence, it contains immense power. Magical, emotional, biological power. Tantra, the only spiritual teaching that doesn’t demonize and forbid sexuality, teaches that one hour of sexy tantric practice is equivalent to 100 hours of any other kind of spiritual practice. Or something like that.

Our ovaries, wombs, testes, yonis, penises, are pulsing with primal power. We are made from sex. We are made of sex. We are sex.

Before patriarchy, orgiastic sexuality was normal. Classical Greek historians mention orgies among the indigenous people of the land they colonized, the people who knew their mothers but not their fathers. European explorers recount tales of group sex on the beaches of the South Pacific, where patriarchy had barely penetrated. (no pun intended)

This would not have been anonymous, “casual” sex. This was with people you knew intimately. Sex was sacred, not naughty.

Once it becomes naughty, sex can be used for evil. As we are well aware, in the upside-down inversion that is patriarchy, where sex has been shamed and demonized, it can manifest as dirty and ugly, a tool domination and degradation. If satanic orgies are really a thing, that makes perfect sense.

The difference between sacred sex and perverse sex is consent, of course, and respect. If someone is being treated as less than human, as an object to satisfy oneself; if the kink is to demean; this feeds the dark side.

So what if it’s your kink to be demeaned? It’s a very common one. One time at a gathering I asked a question about someone’s kink and someone yelled out “Don’t question the kink!”

And that is the mantra, right? Progressive circles are kink-centric. Any kink goes. But I don’t know. I’ve heard stories of kink communities where young girls are pressured into doing things they didn’t want to do with much older men … they dissociate, and end up very traumatized. What if your kink is to kill people? Is there a line we can draw?

I’ve had some memorable experiences exploring power dynamics. There are some fun games to play. I feel like I’ve worked through it and now there’s no more charge in it for me. I’m not trying to kink-shame BDSM. I might advocate for mixing it up with other types of intimacy, switching roles, and not letting it bleed into real life domination. But is it possible to draw a line between what feels to us healthy vs unhealthy?

In 1996 I attended Burning Man for the first time. Back then, public sex was normalized. Not just at Bianca’s Smut Shack on the far edge of the desert, but on the street. I remember passing by a dude getting fisted.

It didn’t turn me on. To be honest, I probably would have preferred not to see it. Where do our rights to express ourselves end with other peoples’ rights not to be subjected to our expression? I really don’t know. I’m asking you.

After I moved back east, I didn’t go back out to Burning Man for about 15 years. I noticed that somewhere along the way, public sex had become verboten. Even nakedness was less common, although pure nakedness was never as fashionable there as a sexy costume.

It was 2023, the year of the rainstorm that had the festival at a standstill for three days, and during that time I was blessed to be trapped with two guys and we kinda fell in love. We went through transformative rituals and deep chats in the time warp that is Burning Man. When everybody collectively emerged from the flood to celebrate the eponymous burning of the effigy, bursting with pent-up energy and juice, the three of us found ourselves on the top of the Robot Heart art car, thrumming with kundalini and with affection for each other, hurdling through the desert with the pounding beat beneath our feet. We were told that public displays of affection were not allowed. In fact, it turns out it is not allowed anywhere in public on the playa. I was bummed, because I truly felt that our throuple love had a beautiful vibration that would bless others to witness. Well okay, that, and, it felt awfully good up there at 60 miles an hour.

I have yet to hear someone else talking about this prohibition. I want to know how it came about. Was it due to legal issues with the Bureau of Land Management who manages the land where the festival takes place? Or was it a decision of the Burning Man elite class, on behalf of the large number of families that attend?

So that brings up a really touchy issue. Kids. Let’s get back to that in a sec.

Picture this: the ancient ritual of hieros gamos, the holy marriage: a priestess of the goddess making love with her chosen consort with all witnessing and participating, to feed the fertility of the fields.

It’s when sex became naughty, shameful, forbidden, hidden away, that it became unloving, lewd, violent. We see that when sex is withheld from priests they turn to pedophilia. The hiding of sex goes hand in hand with war, genocide, oppression.

So then, should we just abolish the “public indecency” laws? Encourage X-rated public displays of affection? Or allow, in the words of Joni Mitchell about people making out in Paris, “Amour baby .. not cheap displays”?

Obviously, that would be disruptive and distracting to the functioning of society.

And what about consent? I might consent to see a scene I find sexy and appealing. And not consent to a scene involving degradation. Even if the person being degraded technically consented to it … consent is so complex. If you are raised to believe that’s all you’re good for, is it really your free will and desire?

Back to the topic of kids. There was much controversy over the openly sexual pride parades that were advertised as child-friendly. We agree kids can’t consent. Were people right to object to this?

If I had a child, I might want them to witness healthy, loving, or sacred sex scenes .. as a sort of inoculation against the dehumanizing, robotic, antagonistic scenes they will inevitably be exposed to with porn.

I can’t wrap this up with a neat bow. It’s all so messy and complex. Is the distinction between ugly sex, versus beautiful sex that raises the consciousness and feeds and goddess, in the eyes of the beholder? Is there a set of laws around public sex that meets everyone’s needs for consent and self-expression? You tell me.