Category Archives: beliefs

beliefs, nudism, personal

Nudity (again)

I came across an interesting post on the Naked Wanderings blog. It is overtly about the influences nudism has on our (intimate) relationships, but I found it interesting because it also throws some light on why many people find nudity (and thus nudism/naturism) so scary and taboo. Here’s the cut down version:

[N]udism has a positive influence on both our physical and mental health.
. . .
But how does nudism effect relationships?
. . .
[Apparently] the divorce rate among nudist couples is a lot lower than among textiles . . . are nudist couples sharing different values than textiles which are more likely to keep them together?
. . .
The level of trust in our relationship is high enough that we wouldn’t be threatened knowing that our partner was spending time naked among other nudies.
. . .
[But] in many relationships, trust is often linked with an inevitable idea of not letting the fox into the hen house . . . We want our partner to be sexy as hell when we go out together but we wonder why they have to look so fancy when they will spend a night with friends. We know that a couple of her well placed hip movements in that dress can make a guy go crazy or that with his three day beard in combination with that certain shirt he’ll have girls hanging on his lips. Imagine what it would be like if everyone was naked.
. . .
If we allow our partner to be seen naked and to see others in their purest form, have we conquered jealousy? [Maybe.] It’s all about the intention.
. . .
For us, it seems unimaginable not to see our partner nude at least a couple of times a day, but we would probably be surprised if we knew for how many people it has been weeks, months, sometimes even years since they last saw their partner’s naked body.
. . .
According to [one] poll . . . 40% of the interviewees preferred to only have sex when the lights are out . . . because then you avoid getting caught up in thoughts about your physical appearance . . . If you have any intention to spend at least some part of your life with this person, you still feel that you have to hide your own body?
. . .
[T]here is no hiding, we see each other naked so often that . . . we became aware of our bodies and we accept how we and our partner looks . . . nudity still gets us excited, but it depends on the situation. 
. . .
We get the question about how to convince your partner into nudism . . . Propose that they give it a try. Only once, in a secure and not very crowded place.
. . .
[W]e are completely okay with others who prefer to wear clothes. We are not saying that our lifestyle is the only right one.

If even half of this is true, then I find it a very sad reflection on the state of our minds, and the prudish control which has been exerted on us for generations – this is nothing new. A lot of it can certainly be laid at the door of Western religions and the patriarchy; although there are doubtless other influences too.

Isn’t it time we accepted that we’re basically all the same. We all know what’s under your t-shirt and jeans; my t-shirt and jeans.

So where is the problem? Yes, like so many things the problem really is only in your mind, if you allow it to be.

beliefs, thoughts

Devil Worship

It is well known hereabouts that I am non-croyant, so when the God Botherers rang the doorbell the other day my thought processes were stimulated.

It occurred to me that believers in God(s) are fundamentally not just that. It is deeper. They are actually Devil worshippers.

“How so?” you ask. Well to me it is perfectly simple. If they didn’t believe in the Devil and revere his powers, they wouldn’t need God to save them from him.

This isn’t just Christians. It applies to all (major) religions as, in one form or another, all have a God(s) and all have a Devil figure – although they may not state it so explicitly. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism (I think) and some schools of Buddhism (eg. Tibetan Buddhism) are all the same – all have God(s) and all have a Devil in some form – as do ancient “sun worshipping” religions and mythologies

[I don’t claim to know enough about either Taoism or Shinto to know if they are also included. The “purer” forms of Buddhism (eg. Zen) are excluded as they don’t have God(s) and are more of a philosophical way of life and personal development than a belief system.]

What I don’t understand is why people need to believe in either God(s) or the Devil. It is much easier without both.

So if you want a way to really piss off the next set of God Botherers who come calling, just remind them they’re Devil Worshippers and to “get thee hence”.

beliefs, personal, quotes

Quote: Ethics

Quote

Don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t steal. Don’t use love as a game or weapon. Respect the earth, and don’t abuse its gifts. All are familiar ethics that we somehow forget, or manage to sidestep, when we just don’t feel like thinking about consequences.
[Stephanie JT Russell]

beliefs, books

Book Review: A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind

Shoukei Matsumoto
A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind
Penguin; 2018

This is a curious little book which does very much what it says in the title. It is about cleaning, as zen monks do it in the monastery, as well as meditation. The life of the zen monk is hard – much harder than we realise; for another perspective see Gesshin Greenwood – and very strictly regulated. It is clear that many things are done the way they have always been done: because it works, is sustainable in a moneyless society, and is as light as possible on the environment.

By having to do everything precisely the right way, all the time, every time, it is possible to not have to think about what you’re doing but concentrate on doing it. So everything from preparing food and polishing floors, to tidying the garden and having a shit, become part of the meditative practice.

When it comes to cleaning a temple, polishing the floor is as basic a chore as it gets. For many monks, a day does not go by that they don’t clean the floors of the temple corridors.

Since the floors are thoroughly polished day in and day out, every inch of them is beautiful, with their surface, blackened through hundreds of years of use, taking on an almost translucent, fossilized look. You can walk through a carefully maintained temple all day long in white socks without worrying about discolouring them. There is no dust or grime to speak of.

It is the job of the monks to perform the upkeep on these beautifully preserved floors. They are polished every day whether they appear to need it or not.

When you are polishing the floor, you are polishing your heart and your mind.

The point of housework is to clean up dirt and grime, isn’t it? So you might be wondering what is the point of cleaning something that is already spotless. But for monks the physical act of polishing the floor is analogous to cleaning the earthly dirt from your soul.

This book is a collection of very short pieces about the various cleaning and maintenance jobs the monks do, and the way in which they are also a method of meditation. Although translated from the Japanese, the sense of strangeness, quirkiness and totally other has been retained; and that made it for me an interesting, even inspiring, read.

My criticism? There were places where I felt I wanted a bit more detail about how things were done and the rhythm of daily life.

Nevertheless, if you are interested in zen, the way zen monks practice, or just curious about other ways of life, then this is a delightful, short read.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

beliefs, memes, personal

Christmas Meme

Today is the Feast of St Nicholas (supposed prototype for Santa Claus). In some traditions this day is actually more important than Christmas Day, and for others it signals the start of the Christmas season. So today seems an appropriate time for a Christmas meme. Sing along Join in with your version as you choose.

  1. Favourite Christmas music: Bach, Christmas Oratorio
  2. Christmas smell I like: spices
  3. TV programme I want to watch: Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
  4. TV programme I hate: every film and soap
  5. Christmas tradition: our first winter lights go up on the Feast of Christ the King (Sunday before Advent) and don’t come down until Candlemas (2 February); it’s a festival of light combined with a pagan belief in providing light to see us through the darkest months
  6. Living person (not family) I’d like to have a Christmas drink with: Prof. Alice Roberts
  7. Favourite Christmas drink: just lots of Champagne
  8. Christmas food I like: Brussels Sprouts (yes, really!)
  9. Christmas present I’d like: restored libido
  10. Christmas thing I enjoy: Christmas dinner
  11. Christmas thing I hate: “Away in a Manger”
  12. Something I want to do at Christmas: relax & read (but I never do!)

  13. Tree: real or artificial: artificial, why kill a tree (and we don’t have garden space for yet another live tree)
  14. Holly or mistletoe: both
  15. Do you send cards: yes, it keeps people in touch
  16. When does Christmas start: First Sunday in Advent
  17. And when does Christmas end: Twelfth Night
  18. Best present ever: Noreen
  19. Gold, frankincense or myrrh: Frankincense
  20. Christmas pudding with brandy butter or with custard: either
  21. Turkey or something else for Christmas dinner: sometimes turkey, sometimes pork or beef
  22. Do you buy presents for your pets?: of course, doesn’t everyone?
  23. Favourite carol: The Boar’s Head
  24. Christmas cake or mince pies: mince pies
  25. Is your Christmas sacred or secular?: secular, but with a few Christian bits and some pagan bits thrown in

beliefs, thoughts

Ten Commandments for Atheists

I came across this the other day. It’s a few years old but still a worthwhile humanist take on the dreary Christian meme.

These are the ten winning beliefs of the Rethink Prize, a crowdsourcing competition to rethink the Ten Commandments. The contest drew more than 2,800 submissions from across the globe with the winners being selected by a panel of judges.

  1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
  2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
  3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
  4. Every person has the right to control of their body.
  5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
  6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
  7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
  8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
  9. There is no one right way to live.
  10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.
beliefs, current affairs, sexuality

Teenagers and Sex

Three (I think) important articles recently about teenagers and sex. As usual we bring you key quotes, although I would recommend reading the articles themselves (none is long).

The first article reports on Labour MP Jess Phillips’ contention that the discussion of female pleasure is essential to redress the gender power imbalance.

Teach schoolgirls about orgasms (Guardian; 8 November 2018)

Schoolgirls should be taught about orgasms in sex education lesson … girls should be taught about sex from a young age in order to form healthy sexual relationships when they become adults.

[It is] vital to discuss female pleasure in order to “break down the culture of power imbalance between men and women” …

“I’m not suggesting we teach children how to masturbate, I’m suggesting we talk to them about the things they’re doing anyway.”

Women’s expectations “should be greater” and they should “start demanding more” during sex.

“I’ve made a career out of being able to talk about difficult things, and that comes from growing up in an environment where nothing was embarrassing.”

Phillips is campaigning for sex education in [all] secondary schools to be compulsory by 2020 … [E]ducating children about healthy relationships and their anatomy will reduce the risk of violence against women: “To liberate women and end violence is to break down the culture of power imbalance. Let’s stop people feeling ashamed.”

The second article is by Jess Phillips herself.

Yes, yes, yes: why female pleasure must be at the heart of sex education (Guardian; 13 November 2018)

By the time they started talking to us about [sex] at secondary school, I think in the third year (year 9), most of the girls in my class had had their first sexual encounters … The teachers were clearly counting on us not having had intercourse (although some of us had) because our sex education was about Aids … and babies. It was essentially a lesson in contraception.

Sex and relationships were never discussed in our contraceptive education. It was all about the dangers of a man climaxing … We were shown how to handle and dispose of men’s pleasure safely.

[T]he average member of the British public thinks men need sex more than women … This is a cultural norm we have all accepted and it seeps into how we live our lives and teach our children. Men don’t need sex any more than women, they just enjoy it more because it has a guaranteed payoff.

“Just say no” doesn’t work, so perhaps we need to try teaching young people about why they might want to say “yes”. What does good, healthy and happy sex look like, for example?

Girls masturbate, girls know all about what they like and want. They also know what boys like and want. Boys only know the latter. Girls and boys spend at least the first 10 years of their sex lives focusing exclusively on what boys want … Would it hurt to talk to both boys and girls about how sex should be for both parties? Giving girls a bit of hope that shagging won’t just lead to them dripping in breast milk or being a witness in a trial.

I don’t want young girls growing up thinking that sex is just something that happens to us. I want boys and girls to know that it should be about both people not just agreeing, but also enjoying it.

The third article is from a young Nigerian, Jennifer Amadi, who lost a close friend to a DIY abortion because everyone had been too scared to talk to teenagers about sex.

The world must not be too scared to talk about teenagers having sex (Guardian; 9 November 2018)

[T]the world is too scared to talk about teenagers having sex. And young people are losing their lives and livelihoods as a result.

I see these attitudes everywhere, from Nigeria to the UK. Parents who are too uncomfortable to have “the talk” with their kids, nurses who deny young girls contraceptives because they think they’re “too young to have sex”, education ministers who believe the best policy for addressing teenage pregnancies is a sound beating paired with expulsion rather than comprehensive sex education classes.

[P]oliticians … worry that supporting programmes that increase youth access to contraception will cost them their jobs … fearful leaders … earmark foreign aid for politically safe initiatives like abstinence-based sex-ed or programmes that only provide birth control to married women.

There are 1.2 billion people in the world between the ages of 10 to 19 and most live in developing countries …

[W]here the world fails to deliver for its young people … teenagers continue to have unintended pregnancies. Millions of girls experience health issues stemming from pregnancy and childbirth their bodies aren’t ready for, and efforts to improve gender equality are upended as teenage mothers are forced to drop out of school and face lifelong economic insecurity … this has the potential to put the economic and social progress of entire countries at risk, and has lasting implications for global trade, migration and foreign affairs.

[I]nvest in our young people so they can get reliable information about reproductive health and birth control. They decide when to have children and how many to have. They become the biggest generation of educated, empowered, working adults the world has seen. They break the cycle of poverty for their families and shape the future of their countries.

As I keep saying, time to wake up and smell the coffee. With the UK government currently looking at reforming sex education in the classroom this country has the opportunity to lead the world. But it needs imagination and bravery, something for which the UK government has never been noted.

beliefs, personal, thoughts

On (not) Being Angry

There’s an important post by Sensei Alex Kakuyo over on the Same Old Zen blog about approaches to anger and angry people under the headline Buddhism and Professionally Angry People.

It’s important because although Kakuyo approaches it from a Buddhist standpoint it is applicable to all of us. For me the key messages are:

I have a choice. I can be angry, pissed off, and exhausted for my entire life, or I can practice acceptance.

… acceptance is not surrender. Rather, it’s a recognition that there is only so much that I can do with one body, in one lifetime. It’s an understanding that life is filled with suffering, and the only thing I can control is how I react to it.

So, I do what I can within the confines of my own life, and I accept that other people will make other choices. I accept that I may not like those choices …

… professionally angry people get riled up over things they can’t control. They cause suffering for themselves, they cause suffering for others, and the world keeps turning exactly as it did before.

… “Is there direct action that I can take to solve this problem?” If there is something that I can do that will actually solve the problem or alleviate my part in the ill affects, then I do it.

It isn’t always easy, indeed it can be extremely hard, and I know I fail at this more often than not. But it is something I try to live by. There’s only so much one can do and it is necessary to pick one’s fights. There’s no point worrying about things you have no control over; they have to be allowed to wash over you.

beliefs, books, freedom of speech, medical, people, photography, sexuality

Womanhood: The Bare Reality

Laura Dodsworth, author of Manhood: The Bare Reality has a new book coming out, but unfortunately not until next February.

Its title: Womanhood: The Bare Reality.

You can, of course, pre-order it on Amazon or from the publishers Pinter & Martin.

The book promises to do for women, what Manhood did for men: tell of the variety and the stories of man and manhood. As the blurb an Amazon says:

100 women bare all in an empowering collection of photographs and interviews about Womanhood.

Vagina, vulva, lady garden, pussy, beaver, c**t, fanny … whatever you call it most women have no idea what’s ‘down there’. Culturally and personally, no body part inspires love and hate, fear and lust, worship and desecration in the same way.

From smooth Barbie dolls to internet porn, girls and women grow up with a very narrow view of what they should look like, even though in reality there is an enormous range. Womanhood departs from the ‘ideal vagina’ and presents the gentle un-airbrushed truth, allowing us to understand and celebrate our diversity.

For the first time, 100 brave and beautiful women reveal their bodies and stories on their own terms, talking about how they feel about pleasure, sex, pain, trauma, birth, motherhood, menstruation, menopause, gender, sexuality and simply being a woman.

Laura comments further in a recent Facebook post:

“A major issue for women is that men and society are really interested in defining womanhood for us and without us. A lot of the time, women don’t have an awful lot of input into the definition of womanhood, yet we’re judged against it. Women have to make choices that men don’t ever have to make.”
From Womanhood: The Bare Reality

A bold first quote to share from Womanhood. I’ve already been #notallmen-ed on Twitter, so let me say, I love men, this is not anti-men. (I LOVE men.) Remember Manhood?

But this is the point; Womanhood is an exploration of female experience through the embodied stories of 100 women. We define Womanhood on our own terms and in our own words. We reveal ourselves to ourselves and to each other. And it’s about time.

Laura’s previous books (Manhood: The Bare Reality and Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories) were amazing, revealing and informative, so I’m really am looking forward to reading Womanhood: The Bare Reality. My copy is already on order.

Full disclosure: I was one of the 100 men featured in Manhood.

beliefs, personal, thoughts

The Need for Cosmogony and Ceremony

One of our favourite Zen Masters, Brad Warner, recently wrote the ridiculousness of religions, what he called “religulous belief”. As regular readers will surmise, these are views with which I have much sympathy. However along the way Brad did explain why liturgy remains important to me despite my lack of belief in deities.

Here is an editied version of Brad’s article, as it partly explains something which has long puzzled me:

Bill Maher and like-minded people such as Richard Dawkins always make the same complaints about religions. They attack the religion’s cosmogony – its myths, its creation story, its ideas about heavens, hells, angels and all that. They point out that this stuff is ridiculous. Then they figure the job is done.

Most religions have pretty dopey stories attached to them … Even mainstream religions have ideas that sound pretty silly when you examine them; virgin birth, parting of seas, swallowings by whales, people rising from the dead, and so on. Some Buddhist ideas … are just as weird.
…
I don’t think most people join religions because they are convinced by their cosmogony. People don’t say, “You guys teach that God lives on planet Kolob? That sounds reasonable. Sign me up!”
…
Being without faith is a luxury for people who were fortunate enough to have a fortunate life. You go to prison and you hear people say, ‘I got nothing but Jesus in here.’ If you’re in a foxhole you probably have a lot of faith. I completely understand that. But how can smart people believe in the talking snake and people living to be 900 years old and virgin birth? …

The answer is that we’re all in a foxhole. We’re all in prison. Maybe not literally, but metaphorically. We’re all going to get sick and die. We’re all imprisoned by society to one extent or another. Even “fortunate” people have to suffer misfortune. It’s inevitable …

People will cling to anything that makes the sadness of life a little easier to take. Being wrong but happy feels better than being right but miserable.

… Buddhism, at least in the Zen school … doesn’t insist that we have to believe in Buddhist cosmogony. Most schools of Buddhism don’t have a strong insistence on belief in Buddhist cosmogony – although some do. But the Zen school is probably the most radical in its rejection of such beliefs.

Yet … Zennies … still retain many of the trappings of Buddhist schools in which such beliefs are held more strongly. They still have ceremonies in which they honour mythological figures …

Nobody ever insists that you have to believe … yet we play along just like people who do believe these things.

… these ceremonies have practical value. They help people get along together. They give them a sense of belonging and community. Their “lies” … ease some of our worries and fears. And they can do this even if we know perfectly well they’re not true …

This is very interesting as it says to me this is (at least partly) how liturgy and ceremony work: by reinforcing community, easing worries, despite our better judgement. Although I still think there is something even deeper, more magic, about really good liturgy like Tridentine Latin Mass.

I think it may be similar to the way it feels good to hear someone you love tell you it’s going to be all right when you’re sick … We all need that …

Some good food for thought!