[Music]
BETONY VERNON: It's through meditation, or through the sexual union, that you will reach
a higher state.
[Music]
BETONY VERNON: It's, the pleasure taboo is something that's basically hinged on 2000
years of Abrahamic history.
Our Greek and Roman forefathers, actually every one of our forefathers that, that were
not, um, underneath the Abrahamic sheet all believed that sex was sacred, and that, in
fact, if we look at the Greek, they, they speak of logos and the divine union, the union
with God, and, and and one of the most direct ways to attain that was through the sexual
union.
And temples were built to celebrate the gods and goddesses, and making love was a way to,
to break through the barrier of the real world, the earthly existence, and, and transcend.
If we go beyond the western borders and we go to Asia, we have Tantra, Taoism, and those
actually were schools of thought, they developed from schools of thoughts, that effected the
way that Westerns today even make love.
Their main philosophy didn't effect ours, and that was that through the sexual union,
again, we can come closer to God.
And through loving each other, we could obtain illumination.
And, and the Taoists actually said - it's through meditation, or through the sexual
union, that you will reach a higher state, an enlightened state.
And the Abrahamic religions did the opposite.
They believed in abstinence.
And abstinence leads to frustration.
And frustration is a horrible, horrible, horrible disease, no?
It leads to all sorts of other problems.
BETONY VERNON: The pleasure taboo in the Western world is, um, it's deeply, deeply rooted on
the idea that, that pleasure was sinful.
It was, sex is related to carnal sin, you know?
Sex and sin go hand in hand.
And so sex became dirty.
It became naughty.
It became something that one should punish themselves for, you know, and particularly
women.
You know, a woman in the 1950s who had an orgasm might spend the next week doing Hail
Marys.
What happened int he 1960s, which led to the 1970s and the most liberated sexual era of
our time since our Greek and Roman forefathers had, um, been really enjoying themselves,
um - it was a 10 year period.
If we think about what happened also on a research level in the 1970s, suddenly also
women were involved in research.
That had never happened.
Women were involved in medicine, and they were, they were very interested in their own
bodies.
And the female body started to be unveiled.
This is all very recent.
We're talking 40 years ago.
It's quite amazing.
Um, there's a lot of work to be done.
BETONY VERNON: My ultimate goal is again to dismantle the pleasure taboo by revealing
the truth behind certain things, and the reasons, and the whys.
And, and actually, I think that if we know how to do certain things, and if we understand
the benefits of doing certain things, that we're tempted to actually try them.
I think that ultimately if we stop judging our own sexuality, and that of others, then
the doors into a whole new world of pleasure can just be flung open.
Hi my name is Betony Vernon.
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