The Sexual Freedom Project: Activism Intersects With All Walks of Life

What motivates you to be an activist? Was there one radicalizing experience that made you get up and do something, or was it a gradual evolution?How does your activism interact or relate to other aspects of your life?

Join The Sexual Freedom Project cast with your own video or essay (via columbia@venusplusx.org), and we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

More videos here.

Video edited by Tiye Massey.

The Sexual Freedom Project: Sexual Identity

What does sexual freedom mean to you? How does it relate to your sexuality, sexual identity, sexual orientation and/or gender identity?

What do you think?

Join The Sexual Freedom Project cast with your own video or essay (via columbia@venusplusx.org), and we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

More videos here.

Human Rights in Perspective: Your Role in the Fight for Sexual Freedom (Part 3)

Image by Terence Faircloth via Flickr

In providing perspective on The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013, we’ve looked at some of the obstacles ahead, and took a closer look at two of the 200+ countries discussed in the Report. It’s hard to fathom the instances of discrimination that we aren’t aware of, but one thing is clear: The fight for freedom is something that must take place worldwide with people of all types and nationalities participating simultaneously.

It is good to see the United States paying attention to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) issues, but is that enough? Many of the countries listed in the Report (such as Afghanistan) have seen military intervention from the United States, making the state of sexual freedom even worse. Are we wrong to be suspicious of the US government’s ulterior and imperialistic motives when it comes their advocacy on behalf of sexual freedom?

So where are we? So far we have we have established what problems we face, but what can we actually do?
The first step is to recognize your power as an individual. Embody the characteristics that you want to see in the world. Get involved and take charge. We can only predict the future by creating it — a brighter future for all, for our children, and their children and future generations. The world does not change for the better without individuals who are unafraid and willing to step up. Are you one of those people who will stand in solidarity against discrimination, here and abroad? Make yourself heard. Find your outlets and use them, whether writing, rallying, protesting — all non-violent methods of expression. Seek out like-minded individuals and find your strength in numbers.

The human mind is a dangerous weapon, but it is also the greatest tool there is. Through dialogue we can tweak and fix the errors in the human psyche — lack of empathy, hate, and countless other mental diseases, not just in places like Uganda, but in the U.S. as well. Whatever the cause of your reluctance, you must ask yourself whether it is worth considering against the battle for freedom.

Also see: Part 1 and Part 2.

Human Rights in Perspective: A Tale of Two Countries (Part 2)

In Part 1, I shed some light on the current human rights challenges we face, and in Part 3 I  offer a call to action, but here is a more in-depth look at two countries that are particularly interesting — Uganda and Sweden. What do the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013 tell us about these places?

Uganda

uganda_flagThis country has been on the map for a while now for it punitive laws against people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT). And, this year, since this report’s publication, Uganda’s draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act, referred to as the Kill the Gays Bill by the civilized world, was enacted, coming down hard on LGBT people, with long sentences, even for just knowing and not reporting a “known homosexual.” Here is how some of conditions in 2013 are summarized.

LGBT persons faced discrimination and legal restrictions… LGBT persons were subject to societal harassment, discrimination, intimidation, and threats to their well-being, and were denied access to health services… Police in Kampala arrested British theatre producer David Edwards Cecil for staging a play police alleged promoted homosexual activity…

Things in Uganda have gotten far worse, and the passage of the “Kill the Gays Bill” shows us that there are no signs of improvement. The bill was preceded by laws from the colonial era, crafted by British authorities to punish the unnatural sex observed among the locals, and Uganda is still under the choke-hold of western influence, with many of their most influential citizens promoting this awful doctrine. We must continue speaking out against these vicious attacks on freedom, avoiding the “out of sight out of mind” mentality which can muffle our efforts. It’s time to push back.

Sweden

sweden_flagHuman rights in countries in the Nordic area are often considered a gold standard. When it comes to issues such as sex education and equality, many will not hesitate to praise this region. The praise is apt enough, as the region has been ahead of the curve for some time now. For example, all Nordic countries allow some form of same-sex marriage. However, it turns out that even Sweden, a Nordic country, has its issues.

During the year there were isolated incidents of societal violence and discrimination against persons perceived to be gay. The NCCP* reported 850 hate crimes in 2011 based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

This shows us how deeply the roots of bigoted culture run. One of the world’s greatest models of progressiveness has these problems. We still have a very long way to go.  

Click here for Part 1, and Part 3, your part in the fight for freedom in all its forms, including sexual freedom. *Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention

The Sexual Freedom Project: A Culmination of Things

As a new addition to VenusPlusX, I would like to express my views on some of the interesting media I have come across here.

One video I found is particularly intriguing because the woman speaks of the big picture – the culmination of things that influence our sexuality.

Everyone is a product of their environment, and everything connects. Social mechanisms such as school, church, media, and upbringing tend to have a large impact on individuality.

What do you think? Are you free from the external influences that we all experience, or how are you still affected?

Send us a video or essay expressing your thoughts for a free VenusPlusX t-shirt.

More videos here

VenusPlusX relaunches!

Welcome back to VenusPlusX.

As most of you know at the beginning of 2013 Dan set off suddenly and unexpectedly for the hereafter (WikipediaThe AdvocateHuffington Post). We had just finished our jointly authored book about the erotic connection to spirituality. It’s working title is The Unseen Journey, and we hope to publish it by the end of this year. We will periodically release short excerpts before publication here to stimulate discussion, and the comments and critiques we so avidly crave.

Already available now as a companion reference, A Course in Immortality (and in Spanish, Un Curso En Inmortalidad), which will be published as an included Appendix in the new book.

We again want to thank all the well-wishers who have reached out to our family this year. Many of you have asked about Dan’s amazing Memorial Service (February 23, 2013, Josephine Butler House, Washington, DC), so we have put those materials in a special section devoted to him personally.

During the past year our family and our extended family of VenusPlusX advisors have been recalibrating our new multi-plane relationship with Dan, and figuring out what to do next. Well, next is now, April 2014.

VenusPlusX’s has a new look for 2014, and we look forward to picking up where we left off. Our sister site, VenusMasX en espanol, will be getting a similar boost within a couple of months.

Newcomers can find out more about us, and old friends will enjoy our new streamlined navigation. There’s lots of new content, including our Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, to remind our audiences of the diverse mix VenusPlusX puts together everyday, For example . . .

  • End Police Bias and Anti-Trans Violence is one of our continuing national advocacy campaigns with a grassroots component that offers communities help in developing a Transgender Day of Action for their city, using a process designed and proven to bring about systematic and sustainable change. Comparable to “Stop and Frisk,” walking while trans or otherwise gender non-conforming invites the same sort of constitution-crushing behavior by culturally challenged public safety officers who set a tone rarely fair to people of color and anyone else that is different from the white hierarchy.
  • The always inspiring individual Sexual Freedom Project videos. Maybe it’s time for you to join the cast by making your own declaration of sexual freedom by video or essay. And, we’ll send you one of our sought-after VenusPlusX t-shirts.
  • Transleadership and Transunity. This section has been corralled as a safe space to talk about the obstacle to unity faced by our community, both within the trans community and the LGBT community at large.
  • The transcendent aspects of sexual response and its direct connection to our role as cosmic citizens.
  • Sex Education, particularly for young people, since there is so much out there that constitutes harmful mis-information and the even more depraved and dangerous intentional disinformation propagated at all levels of society, from the family, schools, commerce, governments, and organized religion.
  • Sections on Transhuman Erotic Freedom and Sexuality, Freedom, and Cosmic Citizenship focus on dragging sacred sexuality out of the closet to save the world.
  • News [link to archive] and opinions, research studies, conferences, etc., that relate closely to our mission to bring about the New Age of Sexual Freedom. Issues such as net neutrality, de-militarization, and racial freedom are all keys to bringing about a new world that is voluntary and mutually supportive as opposed to inhumane, coercive, and enslaving by those who dare to amalgamate power against their fellow human. Sexual and racial freedom are inherited, inherent, and the bedrock of all other freedoms.
  • And, we have expanded our Library where among other things, you’ll find a handy table of contents to posts that Dan Massey authored or we co-authored with his byline.

Let us know what you think of our new look? To cheer us on, leave a comment, and if you haven’t already, please Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

 

Thousands of drug offenders to receive clemency

Step by step, month by month, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, as left us breathless as he and the Obama Administration have begun to heal America by destroying some of the malignant tentacles of the 40-year-old War on Drugs.

April 2013 will become one of the greatest landmark in establishing human rights in our own country because Holder’s most recent efforts will expand the eligibility for clemency to the 20% of all current prisoners who are serving sentences for marijuana possession, eventually freeing tens of thousands of people and improving the future for just as many families. He’s hiring more lawyers to free more and more people from jails and prisons.

 

In order to keep up with the influx of applications, Holder says the Department of Justice will assign more lawyers to review the applications. “As a society, we pay much too high a price whenever our system fails to deliver the just outcomes necessary to deter and punish crime, to keep us safe, and to ensure that those who have paid their debts have a chance to become productive citizens,” Holder said. “Our expanded clemency application process will aid in this effort. And it will advance the aims of our innovative new Smart on Crime initiative – to strengthen the criminal justice system, promote public safety, and deliver on the promise of equal justice under law.

This is a prime example of the progress at its best, and the further dismantling of completely coercive and useless systems. Things like racially motivated “stop and frisk” are unconstitutional in the first place and techniques like it are headed for the dustbin of history, at long last. Most important, we are seeing the first reversal of the corrupt and coercive corporate prison industry. Amazingly, as U.S. taxpayers we have been paying for the privilege of this industry’s Washington lobbyists wasting our time fluffing our congressmen, judges, and local communities for longer and more severe sentences, for the express purpose of improving profits, mostly on the backs of people of color, who have been ensnared by the War on Drugs because of poverty and joblessness.

 

What do you think?
Is there anything about the War on Drugs worth saving?
How will society change once this domestic war has ended, beyond the end of penalizing drug users?
What do you think of the very concept of for-profit prisons? Aren’t they a brick and motor conflict of interest?

 

 

 

 

Dan Massey Memorial Service: Eulogy

Additional material from this February 28, 2013 Memorial Service: Introduction, Mayor’s Proclamation, Dan The Activist, Upcoming Book Excerpt, and Printed Program. Also see: WikipediaThe AdvocateHuffington Post, and MetroWeekly.

Dan, 1977

Dan, 1977

I am Joan Wentworth, a friend with a long history with Dan and his family. Within the embrace of that friendship, loyalty, love, and service are themes in this story.

I have always had a deeply intuitive trust that Dan and Alison were innately loyal people. Dan was loyal to his family, friends both new and old, to values that he esteemed, and to the movements that held those values.

For all who knew him, walking with Dan in this life for any length of time was an experience measured according to his thoughtful and personal understanding of LOVE, whether he was propagating the idea that God is Love or that Love is God, Dan meant it, and lived it. There was a measure of urgency about him to put that love into service.

Was Dan ever NOT in service to something of value? I can’t quite remember, but did Dan and Alison EVER go on a vacation to do nothing more than to relax? Maybe once? Wasn’t their whole life, for both of them, dedicated to improving the world? Look at the people whom Dan attracted to his life. Just look around today at the diversity of this group. He saw ideas as movements and created collective units from them. His science community, his spiritual communities, his social activism are all peopled with ideals that motivate and serve; they’re all the same transcendent ideals, really, rooted in the premise that Human beings must be known to be loved, while divine beings must be loved to be known.  My dear friend Dan has been an enigma in my life since I first saw him in 1974 at a Urantia Book Readers conference. I will never forget that first time. He and Alison were that distinguished, fascinating couple—tall, distinctive, and with a lot of hair, and at the time a little bit “scandalous.” I thought they were the perfect hippies, cool, groovy types who would have no trouble believing in supernatural messengers. I heard Dan was a scientist and mathematician, which sounded so elusive, and that Alison was an educator, which I could relate to. Right off, Alison showed a warm personal interest, which was so gratifying and compelling, it made up for what appeared to me to be Dan’s prompt and unabashed critical assessment. He was intimidating. Maybe intimidating is not the word, but if you can recall Dan’s stature and his curious gaze, you can appreciate my unease. Dan was taller than even I, and that for one I was not used to, but he was also “DAN” whom everyone seemed to know and respect. Awesome Dan with Awesome Alison and they were talking to me. When I told Dan I was a Latin teacher, he was quick to let me know that he had chosen MIT over other universities specifically because they did NOT teach Latin there. I think he was smiling when he said it, but either way, he took his leave rather quickly. So, I dutifully assumed my place as the dead-language teacher in his life. Nevertheless, he did talk to me. And here I am close to 40 years later, still the dead-language teacher, but one made so much more alive by my friendship with this awesome couple. Imprinted in my mind forever is also the last time I saw Dan. It was at the wonderful surprise 70th birthday party Alison arranged for him just over a month before he became ill. I sat next to Alison, opposite him. At one moment, I caught him looking intently across the table at her. I wish I could have heard whatever it was he was saying to himself. His gaze was contemplative, and perplexed. He seemed appreciative, but a bit stunned. How in the world had she managed to surprise HIM? How HAD she outwitted him? No one had before her— Alison gave Dan his first and most memorable surprise birthday party. The classicist in me compels me to point out that Penelope was the one and only person ever to outwit Odysseus. And she did it with the test of their marriage bed, immovable and built from an ancient olive tree ever rooted in the ground. It was their secret sign, the secret of the bed only those two knew. Dan and Alison surely have their exclusive secret sign. To my mind that makes them epic heroes. And then, of course, in an apparent deliberative display of one-upmanship, Dan managed to surprise her, too, by leaving just over one month later. How lucky were we 17 people present at that celebration of Dan’s 70 years of living. There were photos all along the table of Dan as a boy and a young man, etc.  And there he sat, center table, surrounded by his children and their spouses, people whom he cherished in his life, by extended family, and the beautiful woman who has loved him for 40 years. He had to have been happy. I am touched to the core by the vision of that Last Supper. I spent many, many years following Dan and Alison around, from New Hampshire to Massachusetts to Virginia and finally to DC. Alison became my dearest of friends and most intimate adviser. Dan hung over our visits like a benevolent mind spirit! He was always somewhere in the house working on something–something fascinating, I guessed. He worked a lot, always. He would pass by on his way out to work, dressed neatly in a business suit, with his hair close-cropped, but he was wearing Birkenstocks on his feet, which I always thought was the right touch of eccentricity for a scientist. Before the children came, I did not actually see Dan much, but once the house gave birth, he was a constant presence. He was always talking to them, teaching them something, just playing with them. Our families became close. My daughter, Bree, babysat for both Ross and Tiye for years. I became godmother in case anything unforeseen should happen. I depended on their friendship and love in ways neither of them could possibly fully know. That is what love does—it grows imperceptibly, as you get to know each other. Human beings must be known to be loved. With these human beings, it was easy. Dan’s level of brilliance gave a surge to the depth of my own insights. I did not always understand what he was saying, in fact if I am honest, I rarely understood what he was saying, but I listened with the chaste enthusiasm of a schoolgirl who adores her teacher because he is so smart and so cute! Gradually over the years, I had opportunities for solo conversations with Dan. Always the professor, he gave freely of his knowledge, to put it mildly. I got the complete history of the occult foundations of Washington DC on one long ride from Union Station to Great Falls in Dan’s cool I’m-still sexy-black Lexus two-seater sportscar. I think my question was something like, “So, do you like DC?” I figured out that I needed only to ask one question, make one simple inquiry, and I would be the beneficiary of a long and fascinating narrative, full of tangents and supportive references. Sometimes he even remembered I was there. I wish I could remember every single word. He told me that he hoped Obama would win in 2008 because he was the ethical candidate and the survival of our world depended on moral revision, or something like that. Once the Supreme Court redefined “human,” in terms of corporations, Dan declared the end of the world, as we know it (not exactly his words, either.) The next I knew he had discovered the Transhumanist movement, or for all I knew he had invented it, and was setting out to transform it. When Dan and Alison came to NYC, they always included me somehow. I hold onto so many precious dinner conversations that jarred me out of complacency. How often would I finish correcting Latin tests and find myself an hour later engaged in an explanation of the joys of erotic robotics. Then I had to go home, ALONE, to digest, all of it, which after that, seemed unfair. Alison was always able to help me understand Dan’s ideas by transforming them into literary metaphor. My mind is full of images that somehow translate into ideas deeper than any I could explain in words. Alison is the queen of metaphor and the great interpreter of her husband/partner. She has that NJ street-wise pragmatism combined with a literary eloquence that could filter Dan’s “esoteric cogitations” (and hers) for me. So much in Dan’s recent years seems full of wonder. The dead-language teacher in me has to resist finding myth in his story. It would be so easy to mythologize him. There is his three-fold evolution from Scientist to Urantian to Transhumanist, from husband to father to Transgenderist. We find ourselves remembering his life here in a building dedicated to one of his most precious life’s goals—equality. From his ivory tower of information theory, to his highly tangible defense-systems innovations, all the way to his transcendent social activism, Dan used his mind for the Good. He clarified for me God the Supreme and led me to envision God the Ultimate. Dan made practical sense of where all this living and experiencing was really taking us. He seemed to know for sure. And he did. I really do believe that Dan knew he was immortal and that we were, too.  He was so TRANS, always ‘trans-ing’ some obstacle or other. Now he has transitioned and transcended, and who knows what else he is doing there. Reading the numerous testimonials that started pouring in on line I gained a humbling insight into who Dan was and will remain to those who knew him. It seems he had so many incarnations that each of us probably has our own version of him. Dana says his manner was “respectful but firm, and though Dan and Alison both had strong opinions, they never demanded compliance.”  (adapted) Dan was opinionated. Davis adds, “His tremendous intellect was matched by a compassionate heart and generous sense of humor.” Dan was funny. Lee offers: “Dan, never hesitant to express his truth-seeking beliefs—blew the roof off a UB event when he went ‘off-script’ and boldly challenged many of the pre-conceived “pure revelation” concepts that many held so conservatively.” (adapted) Dan was NOT conservative. There is no disputing he was intelligent, or that he was formidable. Either way, his mind was a gift for all of us. Living with Dan must have been something like living with an intellectually challenging Socrates, who was a real handful, they say. But that spirit of confrontation is exactly what propels spiritual evolution. Dan was not a lazy religionist, nor could he abide those who were. He tamed and trained his own genius in service to greater values and expected as much from others. Alison used to say that when she passed on, I would inherit Dan–second wife she called me! As if I could ever have presumed to manage Dan. Love him, yes, but delight him, no. Only Alison could do that, only Alison, and everyone knows that. Their bond is a melding of 2 hearts and 2 minds: his math, her literature; his facts, her meanings. The goal of each: something very valuable–a true love relationship, enviable and beautiful to see. Dan’s earth family is relatively small in number, but these four people are all larger than life each in his/her own way. Surely I seem naïve, awed perhaps, when I talk about the Masseys, but in my own defense, I am a literature teacher, I earn my money from hyperbole. Hyperbole is a poetic device suiting for description of this family. Tiye is everything from a ballet dancer, a blogger, an artist, a scholar, a linguist, a health expert, a good wife, a loving daughter, a tough-love kind of sister, a loyal friend, and a precious godchild (that’s the short list), and she has managed all that along with the wise selection of her wonderful husband, Carles, in just 27 years. She is a Massey. That is fact, not hyperbole. Nor can her love for her dad or for her mom be exaggerated. Ross is a larger than life character, too. He is already running the world, you know, in his own way and he is only just 30. What 17-year old goes to Cal Tech and in his first year starts tutoring upperclassmen? Who finishes Cal Tech with a year to spare? Who goes to Cal Tech in the first place and learns to drink beer? Ross has his dad’s irony, irreverence, and wry humor. His reserved and benign presence is the embodiment of both his mother and father. When I see Ross, I hear Dan and I sense Alison. Yet he is so vividly his own person. I can’t see either Alison or Dan on skis out running an avalanche on any mountain anywhere, particularly in Alaska. I am not convinced that was an intelligence test, but Ross passed it, thank God, and he has found the wisdom to choose a partner as spirited as he is. Caroline, Carles, you have the best of paradigms to model. Your partners have observed a partnership in their parents that is select. Dan and Alison raised their kids in an atmosphere of freedom, the freedom to do the right thing as each understood it—no jealous interference, no pre-made prejudices. Alison shared with me Dan’s marriage mantra: “Marriage is a state of perpetual divorcement to which both parties agree every morning to try one more time.” It’s like Aphrodite’s bath. Each time she bathed she restored her virginity. What a great idea! Who has ideas like that? And, finally — to my dearest, Alison. You have made me laugh over the years more than anyone I know. You and Dan made humor an art form. Please try to remember all the peculiar perspectives, all the terse witticisms, all the hilarious ironies you and Dan nurtured over the course of your years together. Keep laughing, and keep us laughing, please. It is the best way to preserve each other, to remember each other. As it is said, “humor is the antidote to the exaltation of ego,” which I guess means being funny is a preservative. Alison left me with a final and lasting image of Dan. She described his body, lying on the bed at 8:30 am Monday, January 28, 2013: “He looked like a pharaoh, like a Pharoah. ” Thank you Dan-Alison, Ross, and Tiye for your friendship, your loyalty, and your love. I love you.      

Introducing our upcoming book, The Unseen Journey (working title)

Photo courtesy of Larry D. Moore  Wikimedia Commons

Photo courtesy of Larry D. Moore
Wikimedia Commons

This is a newly carved out space to periodically share excerpts
from our new book prior to its publication later this year.
We welcome (we crave) your comments, suggestions, and critiques.

Shortly before Dan Massey hung up his keyboard and departed for cosmic shores, he and I had more or less finished the manuscript of what we had only referred to during the previous 30 months as the book. But it is also something that has been in the making through our entire 40-year relationship.

Technologists and teachers by trade, we two strode through decades, hand and hand as close as two souls could be, looking at the cosmos and all its possibilities. We ruthlessly stripped away millennia of mysticism and superstition, and as much as possible applied the scientific method, measurement, and experimentation to evaluate the social consequences of our personal experiences with the interacting personalities and systems that we refer to as cosmic technology.

Like everyone else, we seek enhanced living, a state of being that is transhuman and surpasses, or cures, the stagnation of homo sapien man. By unpacking cosmic technology, we uncover an energy and connection to the entire universe, a living state of joyful immortality in the here and now, and can at last uncover the spiritual basis of all things erotic.

There are no tricks or gimmicks, no religion or even an order of doing this or that, but rather the direct access to the secrets of the universe though a built-in physical connection. This human aspect to cosmic technology is so deeply embedded  and available to each individual that it is a wonder civilization isn’t already further along because of it.

Although known or variously ignored though the ages, a relative few have yet realized that our erotic senses (our love senses) are the conduit of this cosmic knowledge and new energy, whether asexual, as in your friend’s comforting hand upon your shoulder when you needed it the most, any simple act of doing good to others, or the rush of sexually explicit touch sometimes leading to ecstatic orgasm, and practically every bio-chemical and -electrical feeling in between.

It’s all about Love actualized as Truth (consistent realities), Beauty (orchestrated or accidental harmony), and Goodness (motivation to do good to others). No matter what your station or situation in life, true freedom and immediate enhanced living are here for the taking, if you let nothing but Love rule your heart. 

From The Unseen Journey . . . (all rights reserved).

The underlying fundamental absolute of the universe in which we live is the power we recognize in the desire to do good to others, which we properly name Love. Love is expressed in and bestowed upon every level of universe reality, from the most perfected, absolute, or final, qWa to the most primitive human-like person able to make moral decisions.

Love is expressed and perceived differently at each level of progressive maturation and perfection, in a manner uniquely significant and appealing to the esthetics and values of each level.
If divine love is manifest on every level of being, then it must be apparent in our direct, sensory, physical world, and not be limited to the domain of the super consciousness.

Where is this?
The most direct, basic, physical manifestation of the reality of Love is experienced in erotic joy, in the intense experience of neurological orgasm, or even the warm feeling of pleasure of a friend’s hand on your arm when you need comforting. Sexual or not, pleasure activates the very same erotic senses. In any case, the stimulated sensorium explodes with joy as the individual consciousness briefly impinges on the reality of absolute Love.

And what should be our attitude towards this experience of momentary contact 9O’ with maximum joy? Certainly not fear, though that is the reaction of far too many who have been told and/or come to believe that they are unworthy of pleasure.

What is the appropriate action of any person confronted with a vast goodness beyond any other human sensory experience? There can be only one answer.

Worship.
Worship erotic joy.
Worship the living experience of orgasm and every simple pleasure.
Worship the most basic sensory experience of Love.
Worship is the conscious act of surrendering one’s mind, one’s will, to the object of worship. Worship makes the worshiper more like that which is worshiped.
Worship of the orgasmic spirit of Love defeats barriers to interpersonal expression of Love through service. Worship opens the door of the mind to Truth, which directs our action.
Through erotic worship the human spirit is progressively attracted to higher levels of understanding, enjoyment, and service.
Those who would deny this first great step, this open and personal acceptance of a physical gift of Love, place a barrier between the human state and the progressive expression and experience of Love.
When worship of Love is only invoked in the abstract or in deep meditative states, extreme focus is required to experience enlightenment. By comparison, when the first step in the path of Love recognition and worship is taken in the erotic, growth of the consciousness to experience greater enlightenment is simplified and expedited for most people.
All humanity knows erotic joy. The time has come for all humanity to acknowledge the supremacy of erotic joy and join in worship of this amazing, far too long ignored, gift of Love to humanity.
Join me today and forever in the worship of the power of erotic joy.

 

 © VenusPlusX, 2013. All rights reserved.
Already available now as a companion reference, A Course in Immortality (and in Spanish, Un Curso En Inmortalidad), which will be published as an included Appendix in the new book.

Transgender Transhumans! Are you headed to Venus Plus X?

También en español Depending on how you space it, VenusPlusX or Venus Plus X, it’s no accident that you may have stumbled over a novel by Theodore Sturgeon of the same name. Since first reading Venus Plus X in 1960, it has invoked a strong resonance with my own inner truth even though it was Sturgeon’s creative imagination, a perhaps fantasy. It is our namesake because it stands as the earliest and still clearest exposition of the world’s essential ideas and ideals in the world of sex and gender, and guides the our work as advocates, educators, and activists.

In the novel, a 1950’s human male, Charlie, is transported through time to a distant future where the surviving population of earth is a people called the Ledom (that’s model spelled backwards). The Ledom are fully functional androgynes, being capable of mutual impregnation and of resulting individual pregnancy. Most of the novel is focused on exploring the emotional and dramatic situational differences between normative human bi-gender society (envisioned through time flashbacks) and the behaviors of the Ledom, who are free of all sex and gender inequalities and limitations.

Throughout most of the novel the reader is led to think that the Ledom are some natural product of human evolution or genetic reengineering. Near the end, after Charlie has become friends with some Ledom and given them some feedback on their society vs. primitive human society (1950s), they give him a rather detailed explanation of how they view the society from which he came and how that view has come to shape their own. This is Philo’s Manifesto, which is an authoritative debunking of human history, philosophy, religion, and pretty much everything else, while showing the way to a vastly higher and transcendent body of truth. This short statement it is a must read for every person on earth.

Although Philo’s Manifesto is surely one of the most remarkable and complete syntheses of rational human knowledge of a subject normally considered too exotic to be open to intelligent, unbigoted, unbiased discussion, the final reality of the Ledom is even more remarkable. While the directed biological redesign of the human race into the Ledom is surely enough to be called Transhuman, in the final chapters of the story it is revealed that Ledom reproduction is not entirely biological, but involves a complex symbiosis from conception to adulthood with elaborate medical machinery that continually reshapes the “natural” human biology of development into a series of stages that lead to reproductively mature Ledom. That is truly a Transhumanist idea and far ahead of its time!

Without the medical machines, Ledom infants would be ordinary human infants. The creation of the Ledom is a deliberate act of human creativity, expressed in biomedical technology. This is a transformation of a very basic human character as all members of society enter into this reproductive symbiosis with the machine as a way to perfect their society. They have diagnosed the problems of humanity and conclude they all begin with sexual dimorphism and the resulting bi-genderism that rises from ignorance and refusal to examine reality carefully. Their reproductive symbiosis with the machines allows each to mature into androgynes indistinguishable in hermaphroditic sexual function and completely without gender.

Like Sturgeon’s Ledom, we examine many of the problems of humanity. Like Sturgeon, we feel many of the problems would not exist if humans were perfectly androgynous; however, we see many technological alternatives to the “brute force” approach in the novel (remember that DNA had been discovered only a few years before the novel was written, and nothing was known of its detailed structure and function). For example, a simple reduction in the expression of secondary sexual characteristics and the adoption of extracorporeal fertilization and gestation could achieve similar objectives.

Thus, unlike the Ledom, we do not expect to abolish sexual dimorphism. Rather, we seek to encourage health and longevity by discouraging extreme dimorphism that causes the incorrect and unproductive bi-gender model, and encourage either biosex to develop as symmetrically as possible to enjoy the full range of psychosexual and gender experience available to the human nervous system.

Extracorporeal gestation remains a distant technological objective, although planned fertilization is now part of the culture.

Today, as we learn to accommodate the needs of consciously transgender pre-pubescent children, we know that even crude pharmacological intervention at puberty can greatly enhance the experience of androgyny for the matured adult.

The technology foreseen by Venus Plus X is still in the distant future and may never be developed as an option for directed human reproductive evolution. On the other hand, the social changes envisioned in the novel are ready to move ahead today, since they depend only on changing human hearts and minds, and that means education and socialization, not biology. At VenusPlusX.org, we know how quickly such changes can occur in individuals and in groups, once a successful meme has been sufficiently distributed. While we support research into the technology of androgyny, we understand that the time is here today to empower the Transgender Transhuman community to assume leadership in the revolution for full sex and gender freedom and equality.

Editor’s Note: This originally appeared in July 2011, and is one of several posts being reprinted here in connection with the relaunch of VenusPlusX after a year’s hiatus because they are especially elemental in our thinking.

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