I see that I have misunderstood you, and sincerely apologize for misinterpreting your meaning.
No, my intent was friendly, but my tone was ambiguous; until such time as they do keep me here for my charm, the fault is mine. 
Chiron says:
“This is the way I also thought at first. And I’m a young guy compared to you so my sex drive is alot stronger. Once you learn to send the energy up the spine, brahmacharya and tantra become the natural choices. I used to think it would be impossible to not have orgasm after sex… but you just gotta ride it out and the alternative isn’t worse at all. It becomes an inner, ongoing orgasm, just without the ejaculation.”
Yes, I agree, I look forward with hope to ecstatic conductivity. The “inner, ongoing orgasm”-if tantra leads to this, then tantra is what I need.
“I think you should thoroughly study tantra, because IMO that is the best solution for you right now. And your wife’s interest might also light up with your increased performance 
:D”
Increased performance? Why, what have you heard? 
david_obsidian says:
“Maybe the majority of us have the disease in varying degrees. It may be that your body-mind is on the verge of shaking it off. One of the things that yoga brings is that the body’s own intelligence says ‘to hell with this crap, I’ve had enough’. It can know something is crap and be set on getting rid of it even if the conscious mind and surrounding culture are not yet so convinced.”
Very much so in my case. My dear wife is still a fundamentalist, and our kids too. It’s a huge deal for me to leave it, explore new ideas, and go within seeking truth.
erotic puritanism is a disease-yes, most explicitly.
I had an orgasm in a dream, but did not ejaculate.
Doesn’t count as a wet dream, you see. hehe
Coming back to the topic of this thread: porn - looking at porn,
where porn and erotica are non-discriminating words.
Something is keeping me occupied and I want to quote a passage of the bible here:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But now I tell you:
anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing
adultery with her in his heart.”
Now, would looking at erotic pictures fall into this line ?
Looking at a picture is not the same as looking at the person,
especially if the person on the picture does not know me (and
in real life I also don’t know him/her)
I could go further and take the example of looking at an erotic
tantric statue: here it is no specific person at all,
rather it becomes an idealised image in my mind,
so, am I then loving the ideal love of my mind ?
Now: how would this fit in above mentioned quote of Jesus ?
I think Jesus was saying, “Get yer mind outta the gutter!” 
I don’t know Wolfgang. It seems like a very severe thing to say. If I saw a teacher saying that here and now, I’ve have a lot of questions for him about what he means, and if he is sure he is teaching well with that – it looks like he’s setting people up to get stuck in sexual neuroticism. But as for Jesus himself, who knows. Did he have a bad teaching moment? Or a bad attitude to sex? Or was he just speaking from some of the limitations of his era and culture? Or does he have a good attitude to sex, but it is coming across ambiguously …Or is the whole thing just a mistranslation, or hopelessly out-of-context… a cobbled-together, third-hand report from which the original nuance is not obvious? Who knows? I certainly don’t.
I would definitely go along with that David 
and the same thing goes for lot more of the new testament too
Richard
I quite agree that lot’s of passages in the bible are
many times just for the people of that age in that culture.
And lot’s of passages are mistranslated, snipped and changed
over the centuries (that would be a whole new thread).
But let’s look at the quote a bit and analyse the ethics:
Of course “possessing” a wife is out of the question
and can not be regarded as highly moral or ethical.
What would this quote be in todays world ?
If you are married and have promised to only have one partner,
then as long as this partnership last, neither partner
should look for a third partner.
The question is: when looking at a picture/statue/image,
is this beeing unfaithful to your partner ?
I guess, sometimes it could indeed be so,
at other times it could be a way for both partners
to evolve to a higher level of understanding.
I guess it gets difficult, if one partner regards
looking at erotics as “sinful” and the other sees it
as a means to explore self and sexuality.
Now, the situation of course changes if you are in
a partnership and out of greed/lust/sexual desire
you are looking to satisfy that desire with another
woman. But that would indicate that the relationship
with your partner is not honest, otherwise you would
tell your partner about the “temptation” and you would
be able to resolve it.
At the root of the quotation in question is basically
the “law” for monogamy, which every human either
accepts of being the right thing for him, or dismisses and
finds his own rules (but monogamy would also be a new thread).
I would like you (anybody) to elaborate on the ethics of imagining
erotics in contrast to being “faithful/unfaithful” to a partner.
L&L
Wolfgang
It boils down to “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you”. If you wouldn’t mind in the least bit if your wife is looking at other men all the time, and that she wouldn’t mind at all if you looked at other women all of the time, then go for it. But how many of us can say that we wouldn’t mind? I know I can’t. Even if I told myself that it’s all good…I know in my heart that it’s not “all good”. I would be comprimising what I feel is right.
What feels right to me is if I’m in a relationship with someone, they should be interested in me and not other guys. If they look at me as the same as the rest of the guys in the world, what’s the point? Might as well not be together, because then it’s meaningless. Might as well have relationships with everyone…date a new person every night…so long as we are all the same as eachother.
In the same way, I should be more interested in her than all of the other girls in the world. If I think of her the same way I think of everyone else, then where’s the connection? The relationship would just be all business. There’s no love in that.
Love is about being interested in someone else’s life. Sharing your life with them. Fighting life’s battles side by side.
If you are interested in all people, and share your deepest secrets and stresses with everyone, then what’s the point of having a person to sleep with at night and wake up with? A safety pad for sex? Someone to cook for you? That’s all business, and no REAL-ationship (that was pretty corny huh).
It’s confusing when someone you love cheats on you…after you thought they loved you too. It doesn’t do good things to the person you are cheating on - your lover. It does bad things to them psychologically when you cheat on them, despite how cool they are about it. Deep down…they’re questioning everything.
I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t innately believe in monogamous love. I have met tons of people who are all about “free love”. I think they’re liars. I can see it in their eyes, and subtleties in their actions, that they want that one person…the soul mate. The guy or girl of their dreams.
I don’t think it’s just from stories we’ve heard growing up…I think it’s the way we’re supposed to function. I believe it’s biological.
And about cheating…Cheating isn’t simply having sex with another person. Wanting to have sex with another person is the same thing as doing it, as far as your heart is concerned…because you’re not focused and dedicated to the one you “love”…you’re way far off in lust-land, forgetting about your partner. You are becoming interested in someone else, outside of the shared life between you and your partner. Then, if you’re hiding it from your partner, you’re not sharing your life…and you’re being unfaithful. They can’t trust you (faith) because you’re not sharing yourself with them.
So is that even love? I’d say, when you’re lusting after women other than your partner, you are breaking the love with your partner. You’re being selfish, instead of functioning as the singular unit of man and woman.
I really don’t think Jesus’ saying is unclear in any way. Sure, it’s hard to swallow, but it’s what he said as far as we know. It means exactly what it says, in my opinion. It seems like quite the impossible rule to follow…but I’m not going to say it means something else just because of that. He did also say that the way is narrow, and that few make it.
But I also think he was talking not so much about being married and not committing mental adultery, but just anyone lusting after a woman that he’s not with. It shows where your desires lie…not with God, but with physical attraction to females. And a person could say, “But I practice yoga everyday and have tons of bhakti and still am attracted to women.” To which Jesus would probably respond, “You can’t serve two masters.”
Lust is an indication of your karma.
I totally agree with the last part that Scott writes. I wrote in another thread:
Scott
By the way, this is also Barry Longs and Bernie Priors teachings… 
And just a comment on the difference of looking at a real person or a picture… Children used in child pornography and adults regretting their participation in pornography suffers from great pain due to the fact that they can never stop anyone from watching their traumas, over and over again. They know they can be regognized by anyone, and they know the abuse is out there to be enjoyed by others. It is extremely difficult to work with this part in therapy with victims. So a picture is never “just a picture”. It is a real person, what happened on the picture is real, and the memories and pain scars are there. Shared by those who watch. When watching pornography, you can never know if you look at a trafficing victim getting raped or a woman participating by free will.
Hi Wolfgang
As I am sure you are well aware… this quote is taken from a longer saying by Jesus, where he takes the ten comandments of Moses, and basically says that even if you think, or imagine breaking the commandments, it is as if you broke them. Thus thinking about stealing something, or killing someone, from a spiritual perspective, is the same as doing it.
For me it is one of the most amazing teachings of Jesus.
David- I can see that the chances are that he never said any of this… or that even if he did, he was probably talking about something completely different, but in a way, that is not the point. The point is that this teaching has become part of the body of Christian teachings and the words have been ascribed to Jesus Christ (thus putting them way up there on the ladder as far as Christians are concerned). In other words Christianity today is a system of spiritual practices and beliefs, and it doesn’t really matter who really said what, or didn’t. The same is true for every major religion where the central figure has passed on.
I don’t see why Jesus should have meant anything other than what is said. I don’t see any reason why Jesus should have thought that adultary (or thinking about it) should have been generally advised, or for that matter that erotic art or sex before marriage were a good idea. He is not reported as being sexually permissive, or advising anyone else to be, as far as I know, anywhere in the bible or even in the dead sea scrolls.
My take on it is this…
If you are married to someone, and spend your time thinking about sleeping with other women/men, does that not make your marriage vows a little empty? Or more importantly, doesn’t it mean that you are kind of saying something (I only want to be with you), whilst thinking something else (I’d quite fancy being with her/him), which splits the mind and is efectively a lie? And doesn’t lying kind of strengthen our sense of separation? What if your wife is psychic… she will know what you are thinking…
Just some ideas
Christi
p.s. I am not trying to pretend here that I never consider adultery (or cheating on my wife as we say these days) because I do , just that I feel that it is effectively deception which is part of the game of the shadowlands and, like fear (and many other things), keeps my vibration low and keeps me seperate from God.
Wolfgang asked:
I would like you (anybody) to elaborate on the ethics of imagining
erotics in contrast to being “faithful/unfaithful” to a partner.
Wolfgang, in my mind, if my partner has a problem with it, that’s a relationship issue, just like if she has a problem with my staying at work too late, or (more likely) doing my own thing for too long when she wants my attention.
If I had an issue with her looking at erotica, that would be on the one hand a relationship issue also; on the other hand, there might be a developmental issue there for me if I was bothered about it. It all depends.
There is a lot I disagree with in what Scott and EMC said (and, therefore probably, Barry Long and Bernie Prior if EMC is right in saying they have the same view). What I disagree with is the broad-sweeping prescriptiveness: I believe that their point-of-view is based on personal preference, desire, and disposition, and is promoted as the way or the only true spiritual way.
David,
You may be right that what I think is only based on my personal preference, desire and disposition.
You personally don’t have a problem with your girlfriend or wife cheating on you?
The way I see it when Jesus says “…anyone who looks at a woman and wants to posess her is guilty of commiting adultery with her in his heart.” he is warning us not to be wedded to possession of form rather than substance. True conjoining is between hearts, not merely bodies. To desire physical bonding alone is to be caught in the illusion of bondage to physical form and unable to escape the delusion of duality. Personally, I believe it is my primary obstruction to freedom; I’m workin’ on it. It’s a hard one!
You personally don’t have a problem with your girlfriend or wife cheating on you?
Well, by it’s terms, cheating isn’t good. It’s possible though, that I could be in an ‘open relationship’ and it wouldn’t be cheating then. Possible.
But one thing I wouldn’t have any problem with at all is her enjoying some erotica.
But I tend to be very rational and practical on certain issues at certain times. Once I heard, for example, the fact that your chance of dying in a plane crash are less than dying in a car-crash, I wasn’t at all afraid of flying. I was able to stare that fact in the face and my fear would go away. I can’t do that with everything, but I can do it with a lot of things. And I could do it with her using erotica, I’m sure of that. I just believe, on a rational level, that it’s something she might enjoy and it really won’t mess up the relationship if I don’t let it. It might even enhance the relationship.
At the same time, if people have a problem with it, they have a problem with it, and it needs to be looked at from a relationship point of view. Black-and-white, right-or-wrong probably won’t help.
For example the act of making love is for me a valuable action.
If this is my intent and motivation, then I assume
there is nothing wrong in having sex with my partner (assuming
that my partner also wants it). Now, having clarified that,
if I have a certain ideal in my mind about the state
of the most perfect love-relationship, exchange of energies etc.,
then that is a goal for me to reach and in making love and
having sex I reach it to a certain extent (and it grows!).
In such a situation I “WANT” to reach that goal.
I strongly disagree that wanting necessarily means to leave self,
I strongly disagree that having an image of the future in my
mind means to be separate from Self.
In my understanding it is one of the highest gifts of humanity
to imagine and create the future and not to imagine your future
would be giving up your creatorship.
I also disagree that “whenever there is a like or a dislike” that
I am separate from Self. I understand it as my freedom of choice
to like or to dislike certain things/situations.
And “liking” does not mean to lustfully/greedily longing and
desparately needing to have something, no, it just means to
make a choice for it (and “disliking” does not mean to hate/destroy something).
“Liking” means “not depending on”.
Sorry emc to snip some parts of your post, but I try to keep it short,
and hopefully am not misinterpreting you. To above quote I just want
to express that it is not my desire to fulfill the “MY” and “ME”,
on the contrary, it is my desire to fulfill my partners needs
and to give pleasure to my partner.
Coming back to the topic of pictures: if a painting or a sculpture
stimulates me sexually, am I then unfaithful to my partner ?
Remember, we are looking at an image, not a real person.
In the case of a life/real person, if I am walking down the road
together with my partner and another female walks by and I find
that female attractive, then I could react in several different ways:
a) I start to think about that female, start to wish to have a
sexual relationship (to my standards not the thing to do)
b) start to feel sexually stimulated but avoid having contact
with that person, and soon forgetting about her.
c) express to my partner that I am attracted to this person but
assuring my partner that this person is not a threat to our
relationship (the ideal for my understanding)
Now bringing back the quote from the bible, I probably would
have “sinned” merely by feeling attracted to another woman ?
Finding someone attractive and thinking about committing adultary are two different things, no? We do not have control over who we find attractive and who we don’t, but we do have control over our fantacies. Would you not agree?
Finding someone attractive and thinking about committing adultary are two different things, no? We do not have control over who we find attractive and who we don’t, but we do have control over our fantacies. Would you not agree?
Quite so, of course I agree. But that doesn't answer my other question: Coming back to the topic of pictures: if a painting or a sculpture stimulates me sexually, am I then unfaithful to my partner ? Or may be I need to ask: where does unfaithfulness start ?