Can You Be Incredibly Happy & Single?

by Amara

What’s the first image you see when you think of Elena Kagan, the youngest woman ever nominated to the supreme court of the United States? Is it of a sexy, available, incredibly successful woman about to land one of the highest positions in the world?

I doubt it. Whether fair or not, Elena’s body, haircut and demeanor declare another message. She’s, dare I say it? Unmarried.

It’s fascinating. Her colleagues agree she is arguably the most intelligent woman they have ever met; yet it’s the whispers that tell us what really intrigues us about Elena. Is she secretly gay or just unable to snag a guy? You could say she’s slightly plump and relatively bland looking. At 50, has she crossed over that invisible female line of being single (desirable and still in the hunt) to being unwanted, or worse, unable to marry?

 Her image, especially the part about being too smart to get married is enough to churn the stomach of any unwed, remarkably intelligent woman. While the single and smart cloud that wafts around her probably wont prevent her from landing the job, it’s amazing to see how it is her relationship towards men that defines her beyond every other brilliant thing she’s ever done.

It’s like the dowdy versus the girly daughter. Sara Palin versus Elena Kagan. Which does Daddy like best? One he adores, the other he respects. The bubbly girl is seen as happy (at least while she is young), while the other as perpetually wanting.

What woman has not had to defer to the buoyancy of other women while doubting her own intelligence? How often do women settle for ‘respect’ whenever we do not feel attractive enough?

Is this just another shade of the old feminist gripe against those enamored by sex appeal over brain appeal?

I think it’s deeper than that. Perhaps with Elena we are witnessing the emergence of another type of femininity to the forefront of our newspapers and minds. Personally, I resonate with Miss Kagan because she stretches and even flaunts the established notions of feminine beauty.  She’s different than the more untouchable figures of Janet Reno or Janet Napolitano, whose build (and hair styles) could be compared. There’s something spicy and unpredictable about Elena. There’s also something mysterious and cautious about her. To me she seems like the cat, who at first glance looks like the runt of the litter. But as soon as you hold her, you know there’s only one kitty in the world for you.

God knows what Elena really feels about all this. If she gets accepted into the club of nine her dating prospects don’t exactly get better. My hope for her is that as she enters those chambers of justice, she finds a way to anoint her bedchamber too.

Perhaps she will chip away for us the stigma of singledom and become a noble icon for the unwed. Instead of being, as one of my favorite authors, Maureen Dowd, put’s it, “that dreaded over-the-hill, out-of-luck, you-are-finished, no-chance” old maid with the “aroma of mothballs and perpetual aunt,” she will surprise us with another face of feminine brilliance.

I hope she puts a flashlight on our greatest fear to show us that loneliness is merely a state of mind. Can anyone be single and downright happy?

If you do not ‘have a partner” at the moment, bang the gavel and say ‘Yes.’

Although finding someone to live happily-ever-after with is undeniably lovely, it’s always temporary. In any case, whether she sits on the supreme bench or not and whatever on earth her opinions are, I nominate Elena Kagan a Queen.

©Amara Charles 2010

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Join us in San Diego for the new Spiritual Sexuality Workshop

for Singles & Couples.

Quodoushka 1 July 8-11 San Diego.

Email for details: amaracharles123@gmail.com

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Too Big To Ignore

Watch out when women get their socks in a twist and decide enough is enough. You can’t help but raise an eyebrow when fifty-nine thousand  Catholic nuns make a Hail Mary pass and directly defy the old boy bishops to endorse the health care bill.

You’d think that as the pews and coffers shrink, and the worldwide cascade of accusations come pouring in, Catholic high ups would calculate the cost of losing the loyalty of their front row nun force who do their bidding and all the work to boot.
Instead, the pope finally lamely admonished flock deviants with predictable pleas to keep the faith calling endemic abuse and corruption ‘grave errors of judgment.’

In what universe is child abuse a grave error of judgment?

Only in the too big to fail church is outright criminal behavior kept in the closet cloaked by the Pope’s choir preaching mercy and forgiveness. I’m a big fan of mercy and forgiveness, but there comes a point when the hypocrisy of an ailing belief system shows its absurdity so clearly it’s too big to ignore.

What would cause a literal slew of priests—globally— to go directly against the decency of their own faith? Why did so many find it impossible to resist having sex with children?

I read the Pope’s letter of apology. His enlightened perspective on the root of this ugly problem? Bad choices of  priests in the first place. Poor training. Too much secularization, meaning not enough church going, and not enough belief in the church. Nary a mention of how church authorities played musical chairs with known criminals, nor the idiocy of transplanting them into virgin territory.

There is only one thing that holds this house-of-cards power structure in place: sexual repression. But to admit this means the fall of the whole thing. Gargantuan organizations cannot examine the very beliefs that keep them big. It’s easier to regroup in Africa, where the number of Catholics is growing exponentially.

Growing up in a Jewish family, the whole idea of sex=sin was just plain weird to me. Everybody eats, sleeps and has sex once in a while. I missed the whole sin part. While most Christians I’ve met swallowed relatively homeopathic doses of the sex=sin pill, the stains on the psyche of millions cannot be underestimated, especially when strains of this virus find their way into every law, school, job and marriage, determining all that is proper.

When will leaders have the courage to face the obvious? Enforced celibacy does not work. Repression creates a breeding ground for perversion and it makes liars out of otherwise good people. All the trials, repentance and forgiveness in the world will never snuff out sexual desire.

Making sexual repression the requisite of spiritual authority is about as intelligent as enforced fasting. Sooner or later you will have to eat, and if you cannot eat openly you will have to lie about eating. I can forgive the abusers because they were asked to do the impossible; turn off sexual love.

Love is existence. And sex is simply one of its expressions. Don’t let any prude tell you otherwise. Even celibacy, when chosen wisely is love. Catholic nuns may not see it this way, but secretly, I’ll bet some do.

Ode to the Elusive, So Called G-Spot

The G-spot ‘doesn’t appear to exist’, say researchers
The King’s College London team believe the G-spot may be a figment of women’s imagination, encouraged by magazines and sex therapists.BBC The Gspot :

Is The G-Spot a fragment of your Imagination?

A Little History of the Wonderful G Spot: (see my comments below)

In the 1950’s German born Jewish gynecologist and scientist named Ernst Gräfenberg became well known for his studies of the role of the woman’s urethra in orgasm.

During the First World War, he was a medical officer, and continued publishing papers, mostly on human female physiology. In 1929 he published his studies of the “Gräfenberg ring”, the first IUD for which there are usage records. When Nazism assumed power in Germany, Gräfenberg, was forced in 1933 to resign as head of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics in the Berlin-Britz municipal hospital. In 1934, Hans Lehfeldt attempted to persuade him to leave Nazi Germany; he refused, believing that since his practice included wives of high Nazi officials, he would be safe. He was wrong, and was arrested in 1937 for having smuggled out a valuable stamp from Germany. Margaret Sanger ransomed him from Nazi prison, and he was finally allowed to leave in 1940, whereupon he went to the U.S. and opened a practice in New York City.

He became famous for his studies of woman’s genitalia, and human female sexual physiology; published studies include the seminal The Role of Urethra in Female Orgasm in 1950, describing female ejaculation, and an erogenous zone where the urethra is closest to the vaginal wall. In 1981 sexologists John D. Perry and Beverly Whipple named that area the Gräfenberg spot, or G-spot in his honor.

While the medical community has not embraced the whole concept of the “G-Spot”, Dr. Sanger, Dr. Kinsey, and Drs. Masters and Johnson credit his extensive physiological work. (thanks to Wikipedia)

Amara’s Comments

The Secret Fire Trigger

While it’s true Ernst was a pioneer, and some might consider him a hero who brought the insides of women’s vagina into the light of day, the G—Spot is not a new invention. Ancient Chinese Taoists refer to this area as the ‘Lute Strings’ and the Shamanic teachings of Quodoushka calls this region on the upper wall of a woman’s inner cave the ‘Secret Fire Trigger.’

While I think Ernst must have been a great guy, and I love what he dedicated his life to, I personally prefer the more poetic names. If I have to name that confounding place scientists are still pondering (and I say-let them ponder away!), I like the sound of having ‘Lute Strings’ inside me. For one thing, rather than fumbling around looking for a spot, this lovely name might encourage my lover to play gently inside me hoping to make a little music. For another, the name ‘Secret Fire Trigger’ is a lot closer to the idea of what’s inside than a ‘G—Spot’. It’s a whole ganglion of interconnected nerves and vessels—think of the beautiful illuminated branches in Avatar spreading out into a vast network of intelligent feelers. Now that’s what it feels like inside.

While scientists are still trying to figure out what on earth exists in there, (oh, and their marvelous instruments must have such a hard time pinning down what women have been moaning about for centuries,) I say let the mystery continue!

Anyone brave enough to pull my ‘Secret Fire Trigger’ will not be wondering if they have found the Gspot once I have exploded and poured in ecstasy all over the place. We love thinking we have something wonderful, special and fantastic inside, and we do!

Whether it’s somehow connected to the urethra, or called the Female Prostrate Gland (can we have a better name, please) what matters is that we are still looking, still feeling around, and still having lovely orgasms. (and they’re all good).

But really, thank you Ernst. I hope that your clinical studies were not too clinical, and that while you were alive, you smiled at our folly to name the unameable, know the unknowable or ever even slightly corner the market on women’s pleasure.  On the other hand, even if people don’t know where the name G Spot came from, I think it’s a pretty good way to be remembered. There have probably been more than a few screams of orgiastic delight made by women who were glad somebody was looking for something. So viva the Gräfenberg spot!

Sexy Tigers at Any Age

Perhaps you’ve heard of Cougars, women who like younger men, but what about all us baby booming Tigers out there who plan on refining our sexual prowess for the rest of our lives?    I have been teaching sexuality seminars around the world for over twenty years. A while back, a man in his 70’s asked me if I would teach a workshop for seniors but at the time I was busy with other things. Now I am getting AARP mailings as well as more requests to teach about sexuality and aging.

To tell the truth, I didn’t feel qualified when I was in my 40’s, but now 10 years later, I know a lot more about how our sexual feelings change as we age. For one thing, I know that my desire for intimacy and sex is as strong as it was when I was younger. In fact, although I am far more mellow (and proud of it) making love now is more important than ever.

There’s tons of research proving that touch and sex keeps us younger, but a lot of us already know this in our bones: it’s obvious. The question is, what do we need to do differently? What needs to change in our sex life as we age?

What I realized is that the practices I have been teaching for twenty years are fabulous for sexy adults of any age and I’d like to present some practical, interesting and meaningful things you can do to age gracefully and enjoy sex at every age.

I am planning the next fifty years of my life to be as juicy as the last fifty and I hope you will join me with your thoughts, comments and questions.

I welcome your questions as we explore the issue of sex and aging in the coming weeks. The most interesting comment will get a free copy of our double CD Erotic Touch for Two. If you want to sponsor a workshop for sexy tigers of any age please let us know.

Refining the Senses Through the Art of Tea

Why we fell in love with Chinese Tea

During a trip to Taiwan several years ago I was smitten not just by tea, but by the whole ceremony of it. Traveling with Master Waysun Liang, a renowned Tai Chi master, we were invited to several incredible teahouses. If I had gone myself I would have been left bedazzled by the aromas wafting from walls and walls of beautifully painted jars. Everyone sits to enjoy some tea in these places, but unless you know someone you pretty much get the polite tourist version: drink and go.

Since Master Liang was so treasured by his friends we were treated to hours of conversation and massage every time we sat for tea. You see you don’t really go to drink tea. You go to savor the day, sometimes get a massage and just talk. Back then, I didn’t understand a word, but I took off my shoes just the same whenever someone came in to massage our feet.

Up to then I had no idea the Liptonesque tea variations, now packaged in fancy green boxes has little to do with the ceremony of tea. Those crumpled shards stuffed in bags are actually leaf scraps left on the floor (say those who have experienced good tea)! On that trip in Taiwan a healer made us tea from the leaves he picked from bushes outside his door. Just as I discovered as a teen in farmer’s market that beets are not shinny slices soaking in red juice, for the first time I saw these incredibly tended, gorgeous, fresh, whole tealeaves. And yes, even I tasted the difference.

I bought some tea from one of those jars and let it sit for years on my shelf. To tell the truth I don’t remember anything special about that tea except the price. It took years, and a good friend, Kenny to introduce us to the art of making, choosing and enjoying really good Chinese tea.

Visiting great Tea Houses since then, has become one of our favorite past times. What makes a Tea House great? First and foremost: the joy of sharing, laughing and drinking incredibly good tea. Second and foremost are the people who find, brew and love drinking it. Tea comes with stories and there is something about hanging out with people who take immense pleasure drinking something so subtle it makes you laugh. I hope it takes the rest of my life to figure out what’s in great tea that makes you do that.

People I know think I relate everything to sex and they’re right. Tea is no exception!

It all about the intimate refinement of sensuous taste. To me the ceremony of tea, and the ceremony of sex are the same.

In my book, anyone who really enjoys great tea is probably an incredible lover . Here’s why I think so:

When you drink tea, first you take in the beauty of everything- the cups, the pot, the atmosphere, everything. Then you start to savor the fragrances. You marvel at wonderful sensations lingering in your body and mind. You notice unusual tastes lightly left on your tongue.

A great tea lures you first with it’s scent. It invites you to drink it, but not too fast… After you’ve let its distinctive fragrance (that recalls mountain breezes, sweet wet morning dew and star studded midnights) you must let these saturate your membranes and enter your mind until it whispers ‘would you like to go further?’ At that point if you gulp it down you don’t get much. Then, and only then, you finally take a sip and you whoosh in it’s juice, keeping it quivering and shaking wetly on your lips and tongue for a while. You want to feel it coat the inside of your whole mouth with its warmth before letting it slowly slide down your throat.

Now, a great tea waits. If you pay attention here, a great tea actually has several different tastes, some appearing while it’s in your mouth, and some after it’s swallowed.  A great tea leaves you marveling at its mystery. At first glance it looks deceptively like a simple cup of colored water, but then, if you give it time and let it show you where it comes from it will offer it’s gifts one by one. Plus, the real thing about a tea ceremony is its spontaneity. Never twice the same, it can be mixed with a bit of poetry, a bunch of beauty, and an abundance of praise.

And then there are those profound deep conversations that make you want to drink for hours and hours… Oh, and did I mention that tea has amazing healing properties?

Maybe you see the connection between sex and tea. Those who ‘get’ tea are likely incredibly good lovers. Hey, now there’s a bit of research I wouldn’t mind doing.

Check out our video:

p.s. Sheyna won the raffle held by the Cancer Research Center of Tuscon. The Grand Prize is a tea ceremony at Seven Cups with the tea master in this video, so stay tuned for more tea and sensuous lore.

Sounds of the Little Colorado

Shyena and Amara’s Adventures

This place left us quiet… it is gorgeous and green.

Listening to the sounds of the Little Colorado River is a poetic video celebrating a bit of of the rivers music. Sounds of the river are accompanied by Shyena playing Marimba. Enjoy.

Aphrodisiac Chocolate Nipples

Shyena and Amara Adventures: Aphrodisiac Chocolate Nipples

We’ve been to tea houses, and coffee houses, but there’s nothing quite alike a place entirely devoted to making their own chocolate… The owner here is a chocolate alchemist.
We’ve been to tea houses, and coffee houses, but there’s nothing quite alike a place entirely devoted to making their own chocolate… The owner here is a chocolate alchemist. (and they ship anywhere)

For the sensuous connoisseur and those who adore superb chocolate, Kakawa Chocolate House in Sante Fe is one of our favorites. Anyone who would make Aphrodite Nipples (at 5.25 a bite) is mighty fine by us. Why we drive from Phoenix however is because of their chocolate elixirs. They’re made from a mixture of herbs from Oaxaca, Mexico and come in these little dense chocolate wafers you melt in water. They are sublime. Great for a Sunday morning delicacy. Let’s put it this way- the 7 hour drive sipping on a chocolate elixir is a blast.

Here’s what the  Chocolate House says:

“These Kakawa chocolate wafers/balls are representative of the first historic form of chocolate. The Mesoamericans including the Mayan’s & Aztecs, made chocolate mixed with various spices into wafers, bricks or balls for easy storage and travel Typically, they used the chocolate wafers/balls when they wanted hot chocolate. The chocolate wafers/balls offered by Mark are his closest historical recreations to date of what these peoples were making and drinking. These chocolate drinks are based upon Pre-Columbian anthropological and historic culinary information.”

Aphrodisiac Chocolate Nipples
Looking for an exotic gift for your lover? If you eat their chocolate nipples, expect glory. If your not crazy about pure luxurious dark chocolate, try licking these. The chocolate that is. Watch our fun video about the place. Enjoy!

Kakawa (which means chocolate in Mayan) Chocolate House

Two Confessions… on the making of this video

The first is kind of a cool secret:
I happen to have a masters degree in film and video (which, to my mother’s dismay, I haven’t overtly ‘used’ in about 25 years.) So making video is a total artistic OMG!!!! The technology finally got easy enough even for me. I bought a new camera and then a new Mac, and presto, you pretty much just plug them in together and everything ‘works!’ Combine this with traveling, music, tea, wonderful people and spiritual joy and I’d say a new episode might just be poking through the surface… So stay tuned.

The second confession is a bit more serious and up until now, a bit more more private…
I quit smoking and here’s the how and why it happened:

The first night I am in the monastery, which is virtually a world unto itself -  called the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas - with street names like Compassion and Virtue Way. Everywhere there are devout nuns, monks, and mostly Asian practitioners from around the world. We are all staying in an enormous building that was once - and I am not kidding - an insane asylum. Returning to our room after an entire day of recitation I am dying for a cigarette. Of course there is no smoking permitted within the place, so I must go outside to sneak one. This is day one of seven. I’m thinking, God, this is awful. Ridiculous. I can’t do this here.

Then, I imagine one of the Buddhist nuns, with shaven head, lighting up. That is it! It’s just so funny, and so sad an image I say to myself, That’s it! I am quitting. So, in addition to meditating and chanting for seven days, I am privately going through severe nicotine withdrawal.

Now, for those of you who know… the Nicotine Demons get furious when you don’t feed them. They start crawling through your skin and putting fog into your brain, or maybe it’s some of that smoke you’ve been breathing for years. I read in one of Venerable Master Hsuan Hua’s dharma talks that the celestial beings stay away from those who smoke because they dislike the smell.

Now there’s an argument for quitting that I haven’t heard. Even the Gods won’t come near you… It all seems so incongruous here, smoking; such a strange, yet gripping habit.

Quitting at the monastery turns out to be easier than trying at home because it is simply absurd there. And I am quite preoccupied each day from 3 am ’til 10 pm. The real trick is now that I am back in my cozy home, all alone, with only me to know what’s up, the Nicotine Demons are racing back, more furious than ever over my refusal to submit to their cravings.

What is truly a private victory for me encapsulated in the making of this video is… it’s 100% smoke free! You see, my habit of artistically creating something while smoking goes back to my teenage rebellion years. Now, I am rebelling against my own fabrications and delusions. Instead of breaking away from others, going off to smoke while I create something personal and beautiful (the two have a long romance together in my mind), I am staying up ’til 5 am making this video, and well… just ‘forgetting’ to smoke. I take a deep breath over that.

It has been 2 weeks as of this writing. One day, one breath at a time. Wish me good fortune.

p.s. About the peacocks: They roam freely all around the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and you can hear the cackles of their cries each afternoon while you meditate.

Quehestemehah
You Dance In My Heart

In Beauty, Amara

Shyena & Amara Talk Sex on Christian Radio Show

The other Day Shyena and I were on the Dr. Stan Frager Radio Show in Louisville, Kentucky. What a trip! Curiously, we got more call-ins on this show than any radio sex talk we’ve done- the phones were ringing non-stop.

Before the show we were asked to keep it mild, but the producer was pretty vague; she seemed hesitant to say any of the words we were not supposed to say, so we kind of tiptoed around the subject as best we could. The announcer Dr. Stan, a psycologist, was great however. Five times, after each commercial break right before we went on, he warned viewers they might want to remove young people from the room. Then he nicely repeated how important it was to talk about sex. I was gathering that this was a pretty big deal, and that Dr. Frager was covering his (bases) the way he would tell his audience to cover up. During the commercials we heard their advertisements for Bible classes interspersed with melodic sounding staunchly republican political messages. Something about cutting taxes…

The shows’ topic was ‘Why Sex is Boming for Boomers’, which Stan proudly told us he managed to get the Station’s owner’s approval for. Now, we were trying to respect their Southern, conservative audience and I thought we were totally vanilla- lots of talk about affection, hugging and kissing, and about how the biggest sex organ is between your ears and the like.  But when were midway through, another male manager cut in off-air to tell us we needed to tone it down- ‘they were getting calls.’ He sounded politely urgent in his request, but again didn’t say exactly what we shouldn’t say, so Shyena and I were trying to figure it out in the minutes we had. Was it because we said Orah? They probably don’t like Oprah? Who knows?
 

Meantime, one older guy called in to say he’s had a great sex life for the last forty years, and loved all the talk about affection. He actually said he liked being like a ‘lap dog.’  I couldn’t help but say (twice) what a wonderful image I though this was…(Stan changed the subject quickly

Another lady called to say how her parents openly showed affection, hugging and kissing in front of her all the time as a child, and added that because of this she had a happy marriage. (we kept being drawn back by Stan to talk ONLY about married couples…) Then a guy called to tell us (sounded like his girlfriend mind you,) had cistitus, but she wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. The guy sounded quite distraught because she wanted NOTHING to do with sex. He was trilled and really relieved to have someone to talk to about this- I imagine it took a lot for this man to call… I told him to encourage his girlfriend to go to a female gynecologist. (do conservatives go to female gynocologists? Anyway, Dr. Frager liked this advice) I mentioned I have a female gynecologist friend, who said the male doctors in her practice almost never talk about sexual issues with their patients (I was astonished at this) but that she was inundated by women’s intimate questions day in and day out.

Right after the show we got a call from the LeShanta, the producer. She told us Dr. Frager actually loved the show. Shyena however was dying to know what was too racy for Chriatian conservatives. Turns out it was when Shyena said:”Vaginal Dryness.”

Hey, we were trying to encourage folks not to be shy about about buying a great lubricant (called SYLK)….

Oh well, guess the Vagina word is still not okay in some places.

Nothing like preaching to the choir.

All is good.

Quehestemehah, “You dance in my Heart.

In beauty, Amara 

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