The Sexual Freedom Project: Freedom To Go

Have you ever been discriminated against or made to feel like an outcast because of your sexual beliefs, practices, or orientation? Are there certain cities or countries in which you feel more welcome to talk about or exercise your sexual freedom? If you felt like you didn’t fit in because of your sexuality, would you consider packing up and leaving the country of your birth, of your childhood? What can we do to help people who cannot move to a more progressive locale due to economic or other barriers? What concrete steps can we take as individuals and as a society to ensure sexual freedom for all people everywhere?

Let us know what you think. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts on these topics. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.

Video by Tiye Massey.

A Manifesto For The New Age of Sexual Freedom

The figure of Columbia, with a gender-fluid, two-spirit American native as the model, is VenusPlusX’s icon for The New Age of Sexual Freedom

Editor’s note: republishing it by popular demand …

The New Age of Sexual Freedom is synonymous with the end of sexism and racism (the greatest form of sexual oppression), and the end of nationalism for the purposes of war (the greatest form of racism), in the shortest amount of time (because we are killing each other).

One of our most frequently asked questions is Why A New Age Of Sexual Freedom? Also, what’s that got to do with human rights — equality rights, immigration rights, environmental protections, and safeguarding net neutrality?

In honor of the relaunch of VenusPlusX, I am answering this question in the form of a manifesto, for the express purpose of continuing this conversation on line, which was developed for the most part with Dan Massey before he went on to other shores. Your thoughts and comments are welcomed. We crave your criticism.

To fully understand why VenusPlusX frames the quest for a more perfect world in terms of Sexual Freedom, specifically erotic freedom, first widen the lens a bit for the long view.

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We are all capable of imagining an ideal state of being wherein every baby is born into the world free from all forms of discrimination and enslavement, and where human rights reign, including sexual freedom. These children are free to express whatever their personality wishes, to live and prosper wherever and however they determine. At last, there are no barriers preventing an era of world-wide mutual cooperation and support. Living Peace.

This state of being signifies that we have finally attained the most fundamental and personal human right, our inherited and inherent sexual freedom. Only the achievement of universal sexual freedom, or erotic freedom, will symbolize our civilization’s full maturation — the point when everything that ever interfered with Peace on earth and good will among humans has been eliminated. No more sexism, racism, ageism, certainly no more war or destruction of the earth’s natural resources. Just universal pluralism, a world wide family.

Sexual Freedom is also important in another more basic way, and why VenusPlusX has propogated the more appropriate erotic freedom to get beyond words and get physical. Each human is endowed with health-promoting erotic senses. When a friend puts their hand on your shoulder when you need it, both of you feel comforted. Your electro-chemical systems fire up with the thrill of exercise and sport, and other activities you feel passionate about. Even your adrenalin in an emergency rushes through your every passageway. Erotic senses are your human senses and they operate asexually in numerous ways and also through sexual pleasure all the way to the ecstatic orgasm, something more than 90% experience. All of your erotic senses bring comfort, warmth, and safety in various dimensions everyday, igniting and awakening us to the larger world, even the cosmos itself.

And, more. Whether you perceive pleasure from your erotic senses as the stairway to heaven or just something that makes you feel better, more connected . . . more creative, our awakened erotic senses inevitably bring about much needed healing.These senses bring us into the realm of Love, and the expression of that Love, through Truth (consistency in real time), Beauty (harmony), and Goodness (Love IS the desire to do good to others). Again, another reason the attainment of sexual freedom is crucial to all human progress.

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Your experince of your erotic senses may be mostly inexplicable, but they are there for a reason. You may have felt these, even for a fleeting moment, now try to put together as many consecutive moments just like them, and have a happy day.

These erotic senses are to be revered, even worshipped, for they are what connect each of us with every other human in the world, and beyond.

It’s possible to open the lens wider still, and try to take the longest view possible, to understand how our perfecting world can progress speedily to the ideals we have in mind.

The progression and transformation of civilizations over millenia pass through many stages, from their most primitive roots all the way to universal pluralism (worldwide Peace). The attainment of Peace is the direct result of obtaining the most fundamental right of sexual freedom, the holy grail of all other freedoms.

Progress is a creative act, the ability to transform our selves and our world by adapting to better ways of doing things. Progress is always active and is often upstepped under certain positive circumstances.

Progress has its own evolution and ecology, always preserving and building upon what is old (historical) and also good (humane) while gradually dispensing with all other forms that are old and bad (inhumane, coercive), always in a state of forging a new and better art of living that is free from all forms of local and global enslavement.

All efforts to strengthen communities, the health, housing, and employment of one’s neighbors, especially those most in need, are surely part of this new age. Hospice is an excellent example of an eleventh-century global concept worthy preservation. So is the Internet, now unfortunately under attack by special interest profiteers who would impinge on its free and productive use by everyone on an equal basis.

The military-industrial complex is an easy example of an inhumane and coercive system requiring redirection (say, a green army to protect our environment).

Progress’s natural ecology, then, becomes reflective of how we are getting from Point A (now) to Point B, that perfected world. This concept is nothing new since its been long recognized by agrarians, religions, cults, marxism, feminism, and the transhuman and futurist movement. Progress always synthesizes all that is good, forms worthy of survival and preservation, with everything that is new and also good, on micro and macro levels, so therein is our simple equation, what I like to call a formula for peace. And, progress has scientifically proved to us that the more you apply this formula for peace each day, the better today becomes, not just for you but for everyone that you touch.

Progress is a constant, gradual, sometimes cataclysmic, transfer from coercive systems— created during intermediate and often painful stages of civilization—to new, humane, voluntary associations.

Wherever and whenever an approach, a thing, a process, whatever … is coercive (enslaves another human), a humane alternative can be found with just a tad of creativity. (Love, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are good places to start looking.)

Expanding and improving voluntary associations are the result of creative, thoughtful, and for the most part selfless people working for the good of humanity, a silent form of mercy on a mass scale. There are those who go through life in an uncaring trance, not really present in any moment to make a lasting contribution to the evolution of civilization, or even be aware of much that is going on around them. The rest of us have to wake them up! (Maybe once they realize that enjoyment of sexual freedom is key to something better, they might become more attentive,see above.)

Most dangerous, the generational uncaringness (learned or invented) of people “asleep at the wheel” turns them into blind fodder for the relative few who would amass power, enslave them, and sacrifice their humanity through man-made, always corrupt at their core, coercive systems. The longer and deeper these maligning systems persist, the more hopelessness ensues and even more people drift into this semi-awake state.

So, there’s no time to wait! Arise!

Eventual, inevitable, universal pluralism is built of mutual
respect and individual responsibility, and is only made possible
through the creative energy of Love, a very
high form of Peace wherein we do good to one another.

Related: A Personal Call to Action

Is Love God?

From time to time we have been releasing portions of our pre-publication manuscript for an upcoming that Dan and I completed shortly before he transitioned to higher shores. It’s working title is The Unseen Journey, and, as always, we crave your comments and critiques.

This included a discussion of the conjunction of eros and agape, how their false division has created many falsehoods, harmful and entirely unnecessary, that have crippled humankind’s understanding of the direct connection between sexuality and spirituality. In this excerpt we are introducing the concept of a Supreme Being, not as a religious construct or mystical superstition, but as a logical conclusion of and representation of actualized Love.

Love is in the Air
flickr/creative commons

When better understood, the simple sentence, “Love is God,” contains and summarizes the true and final answer to all human seeking and speculation about the meaning of existence.

All of us have personal knowledge of Love, the experience of Love, from our own lives. One of the greatest and most durable linguistic definitions of Love has been revealed to humanity in the statement, “Love is the desire to do good to others.” In thinking about this statement, we can observe that various things are necessarily true in order for this single statement to be universally true.

In one sense, “a god” is something which humans consider controlling and directive in their lives. These gods have been everything from rocks to other human beings, as well as varied ideas and spiritual ideals. But one logical and durable definition of God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”—in effect, a Supreme Being. [This definition, first proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in 1078, has generally been accepted by philosophers of vitological ontology since then and achieved broad recognition in the work of the great metamathematician, Kurt Gödel, who reduced Anselm’s argument to an ontological proof of the essential reality of such a God.]

As U.S. President Bill Clinton once explained to us, there are many possible meanings attached to the simple word “is.” The most perfect and complete meaning of “is” necessarily becomes pure identity, not merely congruence, similarity, or inclusion, all of which could be incorrectly assumed. When we say, “Love is God,” we mean that the beings designated by the words “Love” and “God” are the same thing.

You may have heard it said, “God is love, but love is not god,” an utterly false and terribly misleading statement. Love most certainly is God. Not a power or an emanation of some being called “God,” but the actual real thing. Where Love is, God is, for they are one and the same, eternally indistinguishable. To avoid confusion with lesser human concepts of pure deity, we use the name, Supreme Being (or just the Supreme) to designate the fullest possible meaning of “Love is God.”

Taken together, “Love is God” means that the desire to do good to others is identically the same as the Supreme Being of all creation.
© 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.

in Cosmic Citizenship / Public Information / The Unseen Journey (working title) / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Alison Gardner 03 Jun 2014 0 comments

Best Essay Explains Misogyny and Rape Culture in a Way that Men Can Understand

A Gentleman’s Guide to Rape Culture

We are so grateful to author and actor Zaron Burnett (@zaron3) and Medium (@medium) for bringing his essay that puts misogyny and rape culture in a feminist perspective. It is a must-read for every young (and old) man, women too. It continues the important conversation that has finally (and thankfully) been thrust onto the front burner due to recent events.

Within just a few paragraphs like this one, Zaron transported me back over 40 years ago when these ideas were rightly assumed by the many men who identified as feminists, the most authentic males in my orbit, including my dear partner and husband, Dan Massey, who went on to higher shores recently. These guys, straight, gay, bisexual, and trans, that were with us from the beginning were the most beautiful creatures to us: Behold, The Man!

When I cross a parking lot at night and see a woman ahead of me, I do whatever I feel is appropriate to make her aware of me so that a) I don’t startle her b) she has time to make herself feel safe/comfortable and c) if it’s possible, I can approach in a way that’s clearly friendly, in order to let her know I’m not a threat. I do this because I’m a man.

This is how men behaved in the early feminist movement, it was about being good men, authentic men, giving comfort and safety to the other half of the population while supporting a movement that explicitly stands for political and social justice. Male feminists wanted (and should want to adopt) this perspective because it replaced the awful predatory, conquering control of women they were taught at their parents’ knee and saw among their male peers. Very unfortunately, as feminism aged and stays lodged in radical feminism which express their hatred of men particularly transwomen, it has failed to keep alive the idea that feminism isn’t just for women.

It was always intentionally co-ed and had to do with your perspective on the world and how you wanted to make it better, how you wanted to destroy coercive systems, such as reproduction legislation, preserve good things about the world, such as hospice started in the 11th century, and create new, more human and voluntary systems, such as abortions that are private between a woman, her doctor, and her family. Feminist issues have no gender boundaries.

Zaron continues .. .

Flickr/Creative Commons

If you are a man, you are part of rape culture. I know … that sounds rough. You’re not a rapist, necessarily. But you do perpetuate the attitudes and behaviors commonly referred to as rape culture.

You may be thinking, “Now, hold up, Zaron! You don’t know me, homey! I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you say I’m some sorta fan of rape. That’s not me, man!”

I totally know how you feel. That was pretty much exactly my response when someone told me I was a part of rape culture. It sounds horrible. But just imagine moving through the world, always afraid you could be raped. That’s even worse! Rape culture sucks for everyone involved. But don’t get hung up on the terminology. Don’t concentrate on the words that offend you and ignore what they’re pointing to — the words “rape culture” aren’t the problem. The reality they describe is the problem.

Men are the primary agents and sustainers of rape culture.

Rape isn’t exclusively committed by men. Women aren’t the only victims — men rape men, women rape men — but what makes rape a men’s problem, our problem, is the fact that men commit 99% of reported rapes.

How are you part of rape culture? Well, I hate to say it, but it’s because you’re a man.

Zaron Burnett III
public domain image

The essay goes on to explain it all in great detail. I’m bringing it to every man (and woman) I know because it is so important and educational. It is guaranteed to make you more of man and more of a human as soon as you finish reading it.

in News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Sex Education / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 02 Jun 2014 0 comments

The Sexual Freedom Project: Stop Genital Mutilation

In light of Kwani’s 3-part series on male genital mutilation (circumcision), we are revisiting this particular Sexual Freedom Project video to keep this important conversation going.

Have you made the connection between male and female genital mutilation and the issue of sexual freedom?

How about forced sexual reassignment surgery practiced on intersex infants?

Video by Tiye Massey.

TRANSCRIPT by David Kreps

So recently I’ve heard a lot about female genital mutilation going on in certain parts of the world. It seems to me that if we’re to respect sexual freedom, that has to be a practice that we criticize first. Uh, that seems kind of beyond the pale. A real slap in the face to human rights.

Misogyny in the news, at last

Editor’s Note: There are few if any links in this post about the recent mass murderer because we have to stop sensationalizing perpetrators instead of sympathizing with the victims.

[Unfortunately]. . . we don’t see misogyny as an ideology, we see it as a given for young men.

— Jessica Valenti, Author, Guardian columnist, and founder of Feministing.com (@JessicaValenti)

God bless the most recent mass shooting victims. Their senseless sacrifice may mark the beginning of a serious discussion about the evils of misogyny, and Valenti is among the few journalists to hit the nail on the head about the root cause of this tragedy, and all the proceeding tragedies, not just mass murders but the 8 youths murdered every day in this country and the thousands of honor killings in places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and, of course, rape.

Flickr/CreativeCommons

The roots of racial, sexual, and gender oppression are both overly established and overly ignored, and delaying The New Age of Sexual Freedom.

Misogyny is so endemic in our culture, such a root cause of so many ills (wars, starvation, inequality), women don’t even realize they are unknowingly (and often knowingly) themselves instrumental in strengthening these suffocating roots. Mothers teach their toddlers what their mothers taught them about deference to males. Even ardent feminists might not curtail this deferential behavior in every instance of child-rearing. That is our sad state of affairs, and activists working on all fronts have to keep this subject on the front burner now that it has a running start no matter what their special focus is because each one can trace its roots to misogyny and sexual and racial oppression at the core.

While ignoring the enlarged picture of how much sexual oppression permeates and is ruining society, most media coverage of this recent mass shooting has shown so little restraint in glamorizing the young and good-looking man that is responsible, much more than for his young and not-so-camera-ready predecessors who didn’t leave behind long manifestos and polished YouTube selfless.

Media is just another corporation commercializing the misery of the powerless after all, but still. Even liberal media are fawning over this kid and making his victims practically invisible in their coverage, because, shucks, he’s so attractive-looking.

But there’s something different this time. In the California shooting we are presented with a shooter directly from central casting, a beautiful, erudite boy at war with himself, whose actions are not summarily damned but analyzed in a way to explain his heinous behavior. This is so much more interesting than profiling any of his victims. What’s the matter with us?

Organizations such as Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence are there educate us and deserve our support, by why do we continue having so much trouble galvanizing grassroots action, boots on the ground, to challenge the notion that 8 children can be murdered everyday in this country because its just the cost of being an open (and armed) society. This daily tragedy and shame is only highlighted when there is a mass shooting because there is an expected and familiar script, a storm of consumer interest then radio silence again.

In a world we we care for each other and understand the implications of our action, male privilege is no longer a given, it doesn’t exist at all. Like any other privilege it is something only to be selflessly bestowed on those with less privilege. Those that don’t yet understand this essential truth are impoverished in a way that no conquest or accomplishment can ever rectify, so we must god bless them too, and pray that they someday soon obtain the values to understand their own behavior and change it, for their sake and for the rest of us.

Also see:

VIDEO: Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes (@ChrisHayes) discuss misogyny embedded in our culture

A Gentleman’s Guide to Rape Culture

“If I Can’t Have Them, No One Will”: How Misogyny Kills Men

in Campaigns / Grassroots / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Transhuman Erotic Freedom / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 30 May 2014 0 comments

The Erotic Vitalizes Life

Here is another excerpt from our upcoming book, The Unseen Journey (working title), all about the connection between the erotic and spirituality. A first step is to start you thinking analytically about sex, reproduction, and the erotic senses so you can understand their distinct differences. We are still editing the final manuscript so all comments are welcomed.

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Creative Commons

Sex is most definitely not about penis-vagina copulation, although that is the one expression of sex everyone learns about and most people will practice, thinking that there are no alternatives. In fact, penis-vagina copulation is not really about sex at all—it is about reproduction. It seems that evolution has assured reproduction by embedding the supporting organs and activities within the vital erotic functions of the human pelvic systems. But it is mistaken to believe that the reproductive function is the only factor dictating the emergence of compelling erotic satisfaction.

In reality, the erotic senses are where the story should properly begin. All universe creatures are endowed with erotic senses; however, only physical biohosts actually reproduce. The erotic senses are essential to vitalizing life in all forms, whether any reproductive capability exists at all. And there are a great many possible and gratifying forms of erotic stimulation (individual or group) that provide no pathway to reproduction and are vitally valuable in and of themselves when properly understood and employed.

Considered are all levels of the erotic senses, not just ecstatic orgasm, but all happiness and all pleasure. That warm feeling you get when someone lays that hand upon your arm or back to comfort you or to show admiration and friendship is pleasure from the very same senses.
© 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.

in Public Information / Sex Education / The Unseen Journey (working title) / Transhuman Erotic Freedom by Alison Gardner 29 May 2014 0 comments

The Sexual Freedom Project: Origins of Monogamy

We wanted to take another look at this video because monogamy is increasingly an important debate when otherwise solid relationships are irrevocably destroyed by one-time or occasional infidelity.

Is monogamy in our genes? Or is it artificially imposed upon us by the state, religion, corporations, or social custom? Why does monogamy endure? What are its pros and cons? Is jealousy just based on fear of loss? Will polyamory someday be more accepted and prevalent, and decrease or increase jealousy?

We want to hear your voice — write your story, poem, song, or essay, or make a video or a piece of art. If we feature your response on the site, we will send you a VenusPlusX t-shirt as a thank you.

Video by Tiye Massey.

TRANSCRIPT by David Kreps.

Well I really believe that in the older times there was no couples and everybody belongs to everybody and there was the tribes and all this “Masarykov Theory” about how the beginning of the society was, and blah blah blah. I really believe that that’s how it was in our genes. But, so how do we build this society that is not like that anymore? But we’ve been educated in this society. We can’t really avoid thinking like that. It’s, there’s, I mean we are not the old tribal people so we obviously don’t think like that. But I really believe that in our origins, [what] we were like than and now we kind of became another kind of creature that is not that natural, but kind of weird, but that’s how it is. So you can’t really fight it. You got to just …’Ok, I’m going to feel jealous if you go to have sex with another person, so it’s better not to do that.’

Summer Internships here, two websites

View current job opening here.

flckr/creativecommons

Join us in our mission aimed at ushering in The New Age of Sexual Freedom a world free from the global culture of racial, sexual, and gender oppression and violence driven by governments, religions, corporations, and social customs. You can view the job openings currently available at VenusPlusX here. Some are based in NY and others are not dependent on geography. Take a look for yourself or forward this on to friends who may be interested.

VenusPlusX is a great place to work, where self-starters are rewarded for innovation.

in Español / News of Note / Public Information by Alison Gardner 27 May 2014 0 comments

A hypocrite the Boy Scouts can love

New Boy Scouts President Robert Gates: ‘I Would Have Supported Having Gay Scoutmasters’

Despite media to the contrary, Robert Gates, the Bush and Obama Administration, Defense Secretary, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans) insiders didn’t view him as a true friend helping to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”. He had no problem accepting any and all kudos that may have come his way, however. By now mention of active duty troops and veterans who had to endure nearly 3 extra years of discrimination under Gates, until he finally relented and put a freeze on dismissals. has been dutifully scrubbed from his biography.

But Gates’s latest demonstration of his underlying hypocrisy is revealed by his first public address as the newly appointed President of the Boy Scouts. He actually said . . .

Robert Gates
(WikiCommons)

A year ago, this meeting saw a respectful and civil debate over membership policy. In a democratic process, a strong majority of the volunteer leadership of this movement from all across the nation voted to welcome gay youth into scouting. In all candor, I would have supported going further, as I did in opening the way for gays to serve in CIA and in the military. […]

[…] Given the strong feelings — the passion — involved on both sides of this matter, I believe strongly that to re-open the membership issue or try to take last year’s decision to the next step would irreparably fracture or perhaps even provoke a formal, permanent split in this movement — with the high likelihood neither side would subsequently survive on its own. That is just a fact of life, and who would pay the price for destroying the Boy Scouts of America? Millions of scouts today and scouts yet unborn. We must always put the kids and their interests first. Thus, during my time as president, I will oppose any effort to re-open this issue.

This is a classic, really. Few profiles in public cowardice are so flagrant. It is glaringly obvious now: he was hired exactly because he wouldn’t bring needed change. Due to public pressure, the Boy Scouts had to reverse its discriminatory practice of throwing out young boys because they were gay. The next obvious step was to stop discriminating against scout leaders (often former scouts themselves) by throwing them out because they were gay.

A May 2013 ABC poll found that 56 percent of Americans oppose the organization’s “intention to continue to ban gay adults.”

By not taking this step, the Scouts are further discriminating against gay youth by demonstrating, in fact, that being gay is a bad thing, and that these young gay Scouts shouldn’t need positive adult role models, who happen to be gay. Hypocrisy writ large that will endure through Boy Scout President Gates 2-year term unless we ramp up pressure and right this wrong.

If you can, support and work with organizations such as Scouts for Equality, who, along with more than 1.8 million petition signers have called on the Boy Scouts to end its anti-LGBT practices.

in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 27 May 2014 0 comments

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