On Eroticism

Eroticism is one of those topics that is sometimes hard to discuss. In our culture, as Judaeo-Christian as it is, the idea of sexuality is taboo as a topic of conversation, but as a people who are searching for truths from the Gods, not from the Bible, we must come upon this topic and try to handle it with grace and truthfulness.

Eroticism is multifaceted and extremely complex a topic, and I am not expert, but as a human being, I am intimately aware of it. It permeates our natures because as mortal life forms, it is necessary for our survival as a species. But sex, sexuality, and eroticism are actually three separate things.

Sex is the act of sexual contact between people. Genitals in contact with genitals and the act of ejaculation are just base acts of instinctive nature. We are all capable of sex, and nature has made sex enjoyable because as thinking creatures, we have the capacity to ignore our instinctive urges.

Sexuality is the complex of feelings and impulses that accompany our psychological need for companionship to produce sexual attraction. This is also very much evolutionary. Physical sexual attraction is as instinctive as is sex itself, because we tend toward the beautiful, which in evolutionary terms suggests genetic health, and therefore the survival and prosperity of our species.

Eroticism, however, is a different matter all together. Eroticism is not really evolutionary, it is psychological (which is itself evolutionary, mind you) but it is possible to think of eroticism in terms of art. If sex and sexuality are the clay and tools, then eroticism is the artist, for that is exactly what eroticism is, an art form.

Aphrodite is the goddess of this art form. Hers is a combination of all things erotic, of the sex, the sexuality, and the ability to instill thought and higher feeling into these for the sake of a better experience. We humans, under her tutelage, have made of sex an art, a philosophy, and a playful expression of our inner selves, and in so doing, we have made it into eroticism rather than just sex.

How we apply this art form to our lives is based on how we accept the goddess of love and eroticism into our lives, and how we are willing to express that which is deepest within us to another person or people.