Ecosexuality: When Ecology and Sexuality Come Together - In January 2011 at UPRM

Ecosexuality: When Ecology and Sexuality Come Together

Ecosexualidad: cuando la ecologia y la sexualidad se encuentran

Este CURSO NUEVO es un seminario avanzado en las Humanidades que se ofrecera en enero 2011.

It is dedicated to exploring ecosexuality, a movement, orientation, practice, and a theory of love.

What is ecosexuality?  How did the concept come about and why it matters?  How can it help us to explore the intersections between ecology and sexuality, science and the humanities, global and personal health and love?  How does ecosexuality intersect with other orientations and practices of love, including those common among gays, bis, straights, polys, swingers, metrosexuals, and so on?  How does ecosexuality contribute to defining our relationship to the environment, to technology, the natural elements, and the web of life that sustains our species?  Is nature our enemy, mother, hostess, all of the above? 
      Books and films in the assigned list may include: Sexual Fluidity, by Lisa Diamond; Sex at Dawn, by Christopher Ryan and Calcida Jetha; Gaia and the New Poltics of Love, by Serena Anderlini; Polyamory in the 21st Century, by Deborah Anapol; Mystery Dance, by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan; Microcosmos and Acquiring Genomes by Lynn Margulis; Sirens, by John Duigan; Shortbus, by John Cameron Mitchell; An Inconvenient Truth, by Davis Guggenheim; Sluts and Goddesses, by Annie Sprinkle; and House of Numbers by Brent Leung.

Dr. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD, gave the opening remarks at the world's first Symposium on Ecosexuality in Los Angeles on Oct 24, 2010.  She is the author of Gaia and the New Politics of Love, a seminal text of ecosexual theory.  She blogs at http://polyplanet.blogspot.com
       Excellent reading knowledge of English necessary, Spanish used in class.  
       Research paper expected at end of course.
       !Una oportunidad de no perder!
Offered as Humanities 4995 to begin in January 2011, Tues and Thurs at 5-6:15 PM.
Enroll: see Dr. Noemi Maldonado, Associate Director, Department of Humanities, Chardon 504, Noemi.maldonado@upr.edu
Email questions for Dr. Anderlini at serena.anderlini@gmail.com

The Earth as Lover, art credit to Megan Morman and Cindy Baker.

Message from Gaia - Ecosexuality: Purple Wedding to the Moon, LA, Oct 23, 2010

At the Purple Wedding to the Moon, yours truly was invited to deliver a message from Gaia.  Performance art at its best.  Annie and Beth, and the whole ecosex weddings crowd!  What an honor.  What inspiring company around!
She felt the energy of the third planet shiver into her body, and was inspired to speak with the voice of the third planet, thus:

Message from Gaia

Gaia is very happy that we are marrying her satellite.  She is not jealous, she is a very generous lover who is willing to share her favorite astral partner with us.

Gaia, the web of life that sustains us humans on the third planet, is asking us here to imagine the full moon over a body of water with the shimmering light of the moonwake like a magic staircase that brings the moon s magnetism into our lives.

Gaia also asks me to invite you to the world s first symposium about ecosexuality, where, inspired by this ceremony, we are going to be part of the brides honey moon.

Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, 3-6 pm, limited space, show up on time!

This meeting of the minds (and bodies, bring your bodies too!) is designed to invent and discover together what is ecosexuality? This symposium, where arts meets theory meets practice, is where we will invent a million ways to bring the sacred and the erotic back together, to become the expanded resources of love for one another that will persuade Gaia that we humans are still welcome guests on the third planet.




Click on video to see the message delivered alive!

Aren't you falling in love with ecosexuality? Remember, ecosexuality is good for everyone. The author's page has a whole range of books where you can start learning about it, as well a string of other sources! It's all good, what you've been doing all along or always dreamed of doing and are about ready to start. Find out why expanded practices of love help humanity make peace with our hostess planet!

Ecosexuality: a way of being sexual that's ecological, natural, balanced, amorous, exploring, playful, inclusive, adventurous, holistic, sacred, Gaian, erotic, considerate, consensual, responsible, and healthy, all simultaneously, separately, and in different proportions.

Oh the sweet music of Gaia, can you hear it? Ecosensual Water Kiss

Perhaps you'll find this waaaaaaay too romantic and syrupy, one more video of the full moon, what could be more conventional, trite, deja vu?

And yet, and yet, when we put these things in the context of ecosexuality they acquire a completely new, fresh meaning. Yours truly was honored to be at Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens' ecosexual Wedding to the Moon in Altadena last month, and she came home with this impulse to honor her moon rituals with this video. Living near the Moon, as she comes close to your window and as the moon wake whispers her sweet songs to you over the ripples that kiss the beach. Oh my goddess! That's where the inspiration comes from! How could I not see it before? Or at least, perhaps I did, but not so tangibly, not so completely. The Moon is kissing with the silver ripples that caress the shore of Playa Azul. What is she telling me? She is urging me to bring Gaia's message of hospitality to people! Oh Moon, oh changing Luna, you are a satellite to our mother, lover, sister, hostess, the third planet, the only celestial body willing to have us in her. Annie and Beth are now married to you, and Gaia is cool with that. Listen to the ecosensual water kiss . . . .



And when you decide what to read this Solstice/Holiday Season, make the right choice for you and the planet too! Learn all about ecosexual theory from Gaia, yours truly's favorite book, and find out how to live your life as an experiment in ecological practices of love from her memoir Eros.

You can get both for $ 53.23, with the added bonus of a Taormino book. What a treat! What a thoughtful Solstice/holiday Season gift!

Even better, visit her author's page on Amazon.com and choose what really inspires you to live the ecosexual life of your dreams while you become an artist of love whose creativity helps humanity make peace with our sacred hostess.


Listen to this video again on winter Solstice, and on Christmas Eve, and on New Year's Eve. The whole concept of making love to nature, making love with nature will come true to you. Feel the caressing wake of the full moon kissing the beach with its water lips. Choose ecosexuality and start to learn all about it immediately!

Your truly sends her grateful greetings to you. She sends warm wishes for a delightful Solstice/Holiday season. And remember, it's not ALL about the water kiss!

Namaste ((-:~

Ecosexuality: A Course in the Arts of Conscious Loving

Ecosexuality: A Course in the Arts of Conscious Loving

What's ecosexuality?  Just a new buzz word for vegetarian with green bed sheets?  A new sexual orientation to connect with a new-age dreamy date in a chat room?  A new theory? 

It is of course all of these--and none of them.  In this course, we propose Ecosexuality as a new style in the arts of loving that is conscious of how important these arts are in process of making peace with humanitiy's hostess, the third planet Gaia.

Ecosexuality is a way of being sexual that's ecological, natural, balanced, amorous, exploring, playful, inclusive, adventurous, holistic, sacred, Gaian, erotic, considerate, consensual, responsible, and healthy, all simultaneously, separately, and in different proportions.

The emphasis in the course is on teaching styles of being amorous that are also ecological.   Ecoloogy has to do with balance and proportion.  For example, if a species reproduces excessively, the balance of an ecosystem is lost.  But when all species are present in sustainable proportions, the ecosystem is healthy and whole.

There is an ecology to sexuality too.  Many paths allow lovers and amorous people to access the ecstasy, the joy, the communion, the bliss of conscious erotic love.  Some include 'natural' intermediaries: the ocean, the sky, the moon, mountains, lakes, rivers have all been known to inspire lovers to ecstatic bliss.  Other intermediaries are more 'human made': the arts, poetry, scents, foods, wines, jacuzzis, watsu pools, leather, silk, floggers, film, fetishes, videos, sex toys, and a whole assortment of other aphrodisiacs inspire people to become amorous in a variety of sexual ways and paths to erotic ecstasy.  The contemplation of other people in love and the feeling of inclusiveness that emanates therein can be a powerful erotic inspiration too. 

We believe that love is an art that can be learned consciously.  We do not make conclusive statements on that the 'nature' of human love can be.  However, we affirm that every person has a very special talent to love.  The intent of the course is to nurture that talent into an artistic form that graces the person and his/her amorous communities with an abundant healthy dosage of the arts of loving.

We propose a wide sampling of these arts, including elements of meditation, touch, sensuality, cuddling, massage, pleasuring, self-pleasuring, communication, mirroring, witnessing, compersion, polyamory, bi-sensuality, sexual play, bonding and domination, fetishism, sexual play, tantra, and more.  These practices are taught as styles of amorous expression that help participants develop their talents as artists of love.

The encouragement is for students to become better resources of love for their communities.  We do not encourage the formation of identities around any of these practices more than any other.  Any combination of them that develops the amorous talents of participants is ecosexual to the extent that it makes the world more abundant with resources of conscious love.

This course is a work in progress.  So far, the main areas are:
Compersion: The Spirit of Polyamory
Fluid Bonding and the Health/Safety of Erotic Communities
The Pleasure of the Other: Becoming a Resource of Love
Flogassage: The Bioenergetics of Multiple Loves

Developed by Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD, for the intellectual property of 3WayKiss

Workshop 1 - Compersion: The Spirit of Polyamory

Workshop 1 - Compersion: The Spirit of Polyamory

In the wisdom of love, we understand that the arts of loving can save Gaia, the live planet, because they are part of the arts of healing.  A key concept in these arts is compersion, which comes from polyamory and is often understood as 'the opposite of jealousy.'  Compersion is the joy of sharing the amorous resources that bless our lives.  It is the bliss of witnessing the love our partners receive from others than ourselves.  Jealousy often registers as a humiliating emotion.  How can this emotion transform into joy?  The 2 1/2 hour workshop is designed to teach this transformation in a series of small-group exercises that impact our inner and outer landscapes.  Compersion, the spirit of polyamory, is a vibration that animates our bodies with joy and participation, once we become familiar with the bioenergetics of this inclusive, liberating emotion.

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD, is a professor of humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez.  She is the author of Eros: A Journey of Multiple Loves, and the editor of numerous collections.  She teaches courses, workshops, and seminars on the practice of love and the science of Gaia.

Scheduled for July 8, 2010, in Bellingham, WA

Contact: Laya Shriaberg, laya@spiralsun.com

Workshop 2 - Fluid Bonding and the Health/Safety of Erotic Communities

Workshop 2 - Fluid Bonding and the Health/Safety of Erotic Communities

This workshop discusses how changes to fluid-bonding agreements can impact individuals in an erotic community, the community’s notification and negotiation processes, screening protocols, and reactions to disease outbreaks and breaches in agreement.  A general introduction to the topic will be followed by open discussion, with a few anecdotes to break the ice if necessary.

Why is the practice of safer sex important to an erotic community?

The protection of each participant is proportional to the health of the community.  In practicing safer sex, a participant in an erotic community protects other participants from pathogens that might be inadvertently stored in this participant’s body.  Physical safety is conducive of emotional safety too.

Fluid-bonding is the practice of exchanging deep and not-so-deep body fluids with sexual and erotic partners, and the emotional bonding that this implies.  On the pair level, fluid bonding can be viewed as a trading of risk for pleasure and intimacy.  In a given erotic community, it is more complicated; there are implications, both positive and negative, to each participant and to the community as a whole.   In general, one might say that fluid bonding contributes to the health of a community to the extent that it is based on rules that are defined quite explicitly and followed quite closely.

Workshop Design by Serena Anderlini and Murray Schechter

Workshop 3 - The Pleasure of the Other: Becoming a Resource for Love

Workshop 3 - The Pleasure of the Other: Becoming a Resource for Love

The ecstasy our lovers feel is proportional to our ability to experience it as our own pleasure.  When we get to access this experience our education in the arts of loving can be considered complete.  As artists of love, we will be the source of erotic ecstasy for our lovers in such sublime communion that the pleasure of the other will become our own.

As a principle of erotic/ecstatic communion, the pleasure of the other is not new.  We can read about it in Sappho, Ovid, Veronica Franco, Giacomo Casanova, and others whose love lives have been celebrated in literature.  But how can we learn to generate this pleasure in our own love lives?  This workshop is designed to provide access to this experience.

The exercise intends to initiate participants in the practice of forming a pleasure team and receiving pleasure from multiple sources.  It can be done in a conventional or clothing-optional environment.  Participants form groups of 5 to 7 people and sit on the floor in a circle.  One participant volunteers to be the ‘pleasure emitter,’ the others form the ‘pleasure team.’  The ‘pleasure emitter’ lies down at the center while members of the ‘pleasure team’ sit around in a circle.  Boundaries are set as to what areas of the ‘pleasure emitter’s’ body are open for receiving pleasure and what areas are off limits.  The pleasure team begins to focus on pleasuring the emitter.  Members will stay tuned into each other and listen for signs of pleasure from the emitter.   The emitter will express pleasure with words, moans, and body movements.  These will reverberate as feed back with the team whose members will enhance the pleasure as they respond to the expressions of the emitter.

The exercise can be repeated as many times as there are volunteer pleasure emitters in the group.  Each round lasts about 10-15 minutes.  After two or three rounds, the group will discuss the experience.  Participants will share about what it felt like to be in either position and why.  What did participants learn about pleasure?  Is the pleasure of the other better than our own? 

A group hug can be used as a closing ritual.

A workshop designed by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD