Our Out-of-Body Orgasms

I debate my husband on whether the best sex is spiritual sex, and why society pretends it’s taboo

What a fun week it’s been. Competent politicians made us desirous again. Healing the public daddy wounds got us publicly horny; Journalists and internet randoms are sharing their nudes on Threads. I love this. As an expression of worldly gratitude, I’m offering 20% off paid subs for the rest of this month. Get access to my real sex stories, love practices, and more for less.

In this week’s post, I debate with my husband about the spiritual aspect of sex and the legitimacy and origin of transcendent orgasms, including whether the sexual revolution has been good for humans on a societal level.

Abigail:

The way it felt so great during missionary last night is how I can tell we’re in love.

Joe:

Ha! That’s such a you-woo statement.

Abigail:

Haha yeah. It is, isn’t it?

Speaking of my woo-ness…

There’s something I have been wanting to discuss on Happy Endings, but I thought it would best come to life as another interview with you. For the sake of ideological balance.

Joe:

Go on.

Is the Best Sex Spiritual Sex?

Abigail:

I think if sex, in one’s own conception, hasn’t touched spirituality, you’re not having good sex.

Joe:

Right.

Abigail:

So what do you think?

Joe:

I mean, in some senses, I kind of agree. The other side of the coin is that spirituality is kind of a floppy definition. You can kind of define it as anything. I think you need to be more specific.

Abigail:

Ok, here’s more specific: I think if your experience of sex, or even just masturbation, hasn’t elicited some sort of quasi-hallucinogenic I’m-touching-something-greater-than-me moment, then you’re not having great sex. How’s that for specific?

Joe:

Yeah, that’s better. That’s much better.

Abigail:

So do you agree?

Joe:

Yeah, I think so. Why?

Abigail:

Well, that’s relieving. I wouldn’t plug you into any of the floppy spiritual categories. So, my follow-up question is, what has your sexual spiritual experience felt like?

What Does Transcendent Sex Feel Like?

Joe:

Idk. It’s just kind of a transcendent thing, innit it. You just kind of leave the body.

Abigail:

Have you felt that from anything else in life?

Joe:

Not in the same way.

Abigail:

Fascinating. Not even drugs?

Joe:

Yeah. Very different, at least I’d say.

Abigail:

And how do you interpret this? What do you think is happening when you feel out of your body while coming? I know you have a theory.

Joe:

I suppose the important thing to kind of focus in on, in a way, is all to do with the fact that in Western society we’re still suffering from Descartes and dualism, is the truth.

Abigail:

Explain…

Joe:

Well, a lot of Western philosophy comes back to rationalism and elements of religion. They believe there’s the mind and the body. And that’s a big part of everything I do. I reject that. I don’t think you can separate the mind and the body.

Abigail:

We do love this topic. But for different reasons, I think.

Joe:

Cause I would say that there’s dualism and then there’s monism. The belief that you can’t split up the mind and the body. Then there’s physical monism. Where you believe that physical reality is the determinant, and mind is a part of the physical. And then there’s idealist monism, when you believe the physical world is a figment of the mind. And then there’s neutral monism, where you believe in some third substance that is neither mind nor body. So that neutral monism thing is where the transcendence comes in. Because it kind of proves that the mind and body aren’t disconnected and there’s things outside of it.

Abigail:

You’re saying that in such a physical moment as orgasm, the fact the mind can experience that sort of ‘leaving’ of the body proves, regardless of whether the physical and mental realms feel separate, they’re actually connected?

Joe:

Yeah. Kind of. They’re not just connected, they’re one thing. And also that there’s things beyond it.

Abigail:

That makes sense. For you, the interesting part of the experience is the realization that mind and body are singular. For me, these feelings are interesting because of how the transcendence feels. It doesn’t feel like any Earthly feeling. Not mental, nor physical. Not even like that time you made that roast chicken with gravy and biscuits that so overwhelmed me it made me cry. It, to me, feels perhaps how you describe neutral monism, in that there’s some other substance that, for a moment, I’m waking up to. This filtered through my learned worldview that some may call ‘woo’ feels like evidence of “the universe.” I imagine it almost like the Pixar movie Soul when the protagonist plays piano. He taps into what’s beyond. And in the process, loses himself. I think that’s how I see it. Not about the mind and body, but about the self and the absence of self.

Joe:

Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. Neutral monism

Abigail:

So you have that same experience then?

Joe:

Well, not every orgasm is like that.

Abigail:

No, not me either. And it wasn’t always the case.

Joe:

No, it hasn’t always been the case. And it’s way more likely to be that transcendent experience when I get a BJ or anything really where I don’t have to focus on anything other than the feeling I am feeling. Cause when I’m having sex, I’m kinda too concentrated on having sex. It’s way more active, more to think about.

Abigail:

Makes sense. Yeah, I can have it in any sexual situ now. But it most definitely wasn’t even remotely possible for much of my sexual life. Actually, I think it did feel semi-otherworldly in my earliest years of masturbation. But then I lost it, in that pre-teen era when more social-cultural shit filtered into my idea of sexuality.

So I know you said you haven’t felt this same self-dissolving out-of-body/mind experience in other endeavors, not even while on drugs, which, given your stories from your English Midlands youth, I find hard to believe. But does the sensation compare to anything to you? Even like a flow state?

Joe:

No, for me it’s the opposite of flow state. That’s like losing yourself in something. But this is more like you’re coming out of yourself.

Abigail:

Ok, that response makes me more certain we’re talking about the same thing.

Do you have theories on why this quasi-spiritual experience would happen during sex?

What Makes Sex Transcendent?

Joe:

Not beyond just the point of monism, no.

Abigail:

You just believe there’s some non-mind-nor-body substance that unites the two.

So, here’s where I know we’ll start disagreeing more. *Clears throat* I feel as sure as a human can be, which is, of course, to say ‘belief,’ that this third substance is the spirit/soul realm or higher consciousness. I know you don’t think this because you still haven’t even picked up all the books I suggested you read on the subject 👀 So, what do you interpret it to be?

Joe:

It’s third substance. Therefore, it’s impossible to understand because our ability to understand is entirely based on understandable things.

Like if Henry draws a picture of a chicken. That is a picture. It cannot understand something like, the World Cup.

Abigail:

So it’s the fourth dimension?

Joe:

It is from a different dimension, yes. But we can’t understand it.

Abigail:

Yeah. Yeah. Neither of us are ‘heaven’ people. But, on that topic… I guess I find it very interesting, right, that we can lose ourselves, experience something that makes you believe in something “beyond,” and yet Big Religion chooses to shame sex instead of embracing its enlightenment potential. My conspiratorial mind reaches here… Brace yourself…

The ways organized religion has shamed sexuality and controlled sex to be condoned within marriage interest me in this respect. As if they’re enforcing spiritual knowledge through the church and not through self-discovery. To keep their power over individuals.

Joe:

I don’t know if I buy that. I think that’s maybe a little bit mental.

Why Isn’t Transcendent Sex the Norm?

Abigail:

Well, this is why I wanted to talk about it with you. I knew we could have a lovely debate. We’ve had stirring chats about celibacy and nuns and shit. And how there are many historical texts showing how horny nuns are/were. Despite them supposing to be chaste. Because I feel like they know. Ya know? Sex is spiritual. Orgasms are otherworldly.

Joe:

Yeah, but I think that’s a little bit backward. Tail wagging the dog. Ya know. Cause you’re thinking about it like an individual person. But things happen cause there’s a social unit. And the social unit is more successful over hundreds and hundreds of years. So the reason they have sex within marriage is because cultures that have monogamous relationships beat cultures that don’t. The culture with polygamy and fifteen wives won’t ‘win’ against the culture with single-family homes where the kids have more parental time. The nuns and monks being celibate tells you that religions that have a small amount of people who dedicate themselves to knowledge are better than a religion where that doesn’t happen. And the sexual revolution has only been a few generations. So we don’t really know if it works or not yet. It’s too early to tell.

Abigail:

Yes yes. Recognizing a blowjob as a spiritual experience isn’t WEIRD, and thus wasn’t great for cultural dominance, eh. I’ll rest my conspiracy theory on the repression of sex consciousness for now. So you suppose that the fact an orgasm can be a spiritual experience isn’t common knowledge is simply because it’s inconvenient for society’s evolution to be wrapped up in spiritual otherworldly sex?

Joe:

Maybe people do know but don’t talk about it? But yeah, if you had a culture that was totally open sexually, maybe that would just lead to people not doing anything else, and it would sort of fall apart? In a weird way, it might just be that the best setup is for everyone to pretend that sex is this really transgressive and provocative thing when it’s not actually at all. The pretense is what makes it hot and therefore people do it. Kind of ironic, really.

Abigail:

Wow, a proclamation that the falling birth rate is due to the sexual revolution. I didn’t see this debate heading here.

Joe:

There’s that saucy Italian cartoonist, Milo Manara, who uses this point in his comic strips. That we all pretend things are bad because it makes it hotter. If you don’t pretend things are transgressive, where’s the sexiness?

Abigail:

We’ve evolved not in spite of the taboos, but because of them.

Joe:

Here’s his famous one of a monk. It’s become a bit of a meme on the internet:

“Monk’s Temptation,” Milo Manara (2011), aka “Me Trying To Live a Normal Productive Life,” Internet Meme

I think the way Milo gets under the skin of this theme is what makes him so good, really. It’s maybe more explicit even in his History of Mankind poster.

“History of Humankind,” Milo Manara (2001)

How Do You Have Transcendent Sex?

Abigail:

Thank you for folding internet culture and lowbrow modern art into the discourse. We’re all better for it.

But we’d all – on individual levels, I can’t speak for society – be even better if we had super spiritual sex, too. So, in order to help spread the good word on out-of-body orgasms, I have one final question: For all those who think we’re not nuts but can’t relate – how do you think you achieve this ethereal ejaculation?

Joe:

I think you just got to. Mm. I genuinely don’t know.

Abigail:

Are you just too good at losing yourself?

Joe:

Maybe I’m just forgetful enough. It’s like losing your keys, I guess. But I do wanna say that it isn’t losing yourself. It’s the opposite. It’s telling the back seat driver to pipe down for a second.

Abigail:

You may even say – ahem – that we’re returning to our highest self 😉

Joe:

Hah.

Abigail:

This reminds me of how you trained yourself to ‘let go’ through that Woo-coded ‘white light’ meditation. You used to be too wrapped up in your mind to sleep. But you learned through practice. I think it takes that – either being too naive or uncorrupted to not have your mind/body overriding your ‘third substance,’ or to practice that mental and bodily awareness that lets you move past those realms.

Joe:

Exactly.

Abigail:

Aka, have a lot of sex and orgasms without distractions. Practice some sort of meditation, again and again, until sex starts feeling like a symphony.

Joe:

Or get really good at losing your keys.

I’m Abigail — a cocksucking feminist, sextech-working and sex-writing married mother of two. I write to prioritize love in my own life, and the lives of my readers. Because love is the most important shit!

Every Monday I offer a peep into my marriage, or share provocations on love in culture. Every other Thursday, I help spread love by providing my personal practices on sex, love, and relationships. Some of these are free, and some are for my paid subs.

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Thank you for being here and prioritizing love with me.

These would make a great next read: a sex story where I help my husband lose himself, a sex story where I lose myself, an essay on why my husband loves a blowjob so much.