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Published by Heart Space Publications 
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Copyright © 2007, 2011 Adele Gruber.

All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. 

First published (2007) under the name Hanna G Ruby by Booksurge. (ISBN 978-1419676819) 

Published 2011 by Graysonian Press, an imprint of Heart Space Publications.

Originally printed in South Africa 

Printed book designed by Rachel Brown indigoconcepts@gmail.com 

All epub rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise without written permission from Graysonian Press.

Whilst every care has been taken to check the accuracy of the information in this book, the publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors, omissions or originality.

Printed Book: 
ISBN: 978-0-620-46120-7 

ePub: 
ISBN: 978-0-9874997-8-3

PREFACE 

This book is called Towards a Soulful Sexuality because it is an initial step in the direction of a destination towards which I believe we should journey. This is a renewed consciousness of a feminine sexual holiness firmly grounded in our bodies and our psyches that should apply throughout a women’s life, even, and most especially, in the post-menopausal years. 

The first steps must be to know why you should take the journey at all. For this I offer my Manifesto that informs and explains the cultural, historical background to our deep ambivalences around these matters. It attempts to separate fact from fiction regarding the nature of sex, love and spirituality, women’s sexual anatomy and the concept (and history) of menopause & aging. 

This book represents my sincere attempt to work towards a soulful sexuality. To start with, we are required to review, redefine and re-imagine our core beliefs and feelings around these subjects. The Manifesto incorporates three condensed histories full of intriguing facts: 

• past perceptions of menopause and stereotypes of aging women; 
• the history of female sexual anatomy, modern Western sexology and Eastern esoteric secrets; and
• overviews the essential nature of sex, from the physical to the metaphysical, to challenge your core beliefs about body, mind, spirit – and sex.

I then encourage you to re-examine your own sexuality and be prepared to heal your deepest psychic wounds. In this respect I offer a short Self-Assessment Questionnaire so that you can review your sexual self to determine how ‘clear’ you may be on sexual issues? 

The Healing Workbook “Working with my Sexuality” is a personal program of reflections, memories, exercises and meditations that will  enable you to better understand your own personal patterns and history around the issues raised in the Manifesto. 

Having read the Manifesto and completed the Healing Workbook, you can say at best, that you are en route to or on the way towards to a more soulful sexuality. There is much more to read, personal issues to heal, techniques to learn, meditations to practice and awareness to raise, wisdoms to internalize.

It is still a field being uncovered by psychologists, spiritual teachers,  body practitioners, sexologists and others. 

I hope you enjoy your journey towards… 

PART ONE

MANIFESTO: Sex, Age & Menopause 

CHAPTER 1

SEXUAL DICHOTOMIES 

She is wise: she is witch 
She is spiritual: she is material 
She is asexual; or dangerously sexual 
She is benign and useless: ugly and evil 
She is the good aunt, grandmother, or activist 
Or the evil stepmother; and old hag who 
keeps princesses locked in towers. 

1.1. A DEEPLY DIVIDED LEGACY

Deep dichotomies in the perception of older women run like fault lines through our culture, confusing and confining us. 

Women in general have been defined by their sexuality – or at least by the prevailing ‘scientific’ understanding of that sexuality. Conflicting viewpoints recur endlessly: women were idealized, or derided; revered, or reviled as evil, messy matter – inherently bad, inferior, or banal at best. 

The matter of the ageing feminine is worse; images of witches, ugliness, and uselessness. The duality, the dichotomy of good and evil, is ever present in the evaluation of women in general, and older women in particular. When they are good, they are very, very good, and when they are bad, they are sexual! 

The duality is primeval; as reflected in these words from an ancient mysterious female oracle:

For I am the first and the last,  
I am the honoured one and the scorned one 
I am the whore and the holy one. 
I am the wife and the virgin.¹

 

“Within Western experience lies a long legacy of denigrating ageing women, especially in their postmenopausal years,” writes Louis Banner.² Older women generally had a very hard time: only the authority of money, class, or political clout lessened the sting. They were considered in league with the devil (sorcery and witchcraft were always connected to older women), or in the clutch of a deep pathology – menopause and old age as illness, madness, or, at least, a deficiency of sorts.

Women in general have been defined by their sexuality – or at least by the prevailing ‘scientific’ understanding of that sexuality.

 

Contradictory theories abound; older women were not supposed to have sexual feelings, or else they had too many and needed to be controlled. “The whole of woman is sex,” insists an old Latin proverb.³

On the other hand... “The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind. What men are habitually, women are only exceptionally,” wrote a medical authority of the 1850s.⁴

We, the baby boomers, were born into a world with another version of this dichotomy: we could be respectable (meaning a virgin before marriage and sexually passive as wife), or we could choose to be a “besmirched, worldly woman who enjoyed sex”.⁵ The 1960s sexual revolution exploded these restricted sexual options. 

But freshly unplugged repression is still rebellious, adolescent, uncontained. We knew what we were being liberated from – or so we thought. Oral contraception, legalized abortion and the focus on female orgasm supported a drastic break from the past. But the sense of freedom held illusions as well. Sex without consequence was a liberty of sorts; but still masculine in nature. There was no essential feminine sensibility to imbue this liberation with consciousness of a different order.

But freshly unplugged repression is still rebellious, adolescent, uncontained. We knew what we were being liberated from – or so we thought.

 

Opposition to restrictive values is not enough; we must be FOR something valuable as well. The initial unbridled enthusiasm faltered in mindless swinging; it never really matured nor found a link to an alternate universe of value and meaning. Without such a container, the momentum stalled. The rise of fundamentalist religion facilitated an overt return to the certainties of the old morality for many, reinforced by fear of the Aids pandemic which began in the 1980s. 

Now that the children of the swinging 1960s are approaching their own 60s, the sexual challenge renews itself in a different way. What kind of sexuality is relevant now – if any at all? So many seem to be embracing – or resigning themselves to – an asexual old age; not only becoming sexually inactive because there might be no one to ‘have sex’ with, but by switching off the living active awareness of sexual energy in their lives. 

‘Sexually active’ and an active sexuality are confused.

Now that the children of the swinging 1960s are approaching their own 60s, the sexual challenge renews itself in a different way. What kind of sexuality is relevant now – if any at all?

1.2. WHEN SEX BECAME DIRTY 

Once upon a time sex was enjoyed without shame, as a gift of God, Goddess, the Great Spirit – an act of joy, of devotion, something perfectly natural and wholly divine – all at the same time. 

Once upon a time the goddesses were venerated as the embodiment of love, passion, and sex, which were considered holy when performed in reverence for and in service of the female divinity. 

But the mindset of patriarchy killed off the Goddess more than five thousand years ago. She was constrained to submission at worst, or virginal purity and celibacy at best; her divinity denied. With that, the idea of sexuality as spirituality, as something inherently divine, was eradicated for all women – young and old. Indeed, for all men as well! 

Sexuality was severed from spirituality and became its extreme opposite; sex was dirty, primitive, and instinctual (and feminine in nature), while spirituality was pure and clean and transcendent (and masculine in nature). 

In the West, however, it was only from our Bible onwards that sexuality became a sin, the means by which the devil could tempt mankind into damnation, a shameful necessity of physical gratification that was obscene and dirty. Only from our Bible onwards, were women considered inherently sinful and destined for eternal punishment.

Only from our Bible onwards, were women considered inherently sinful and destined for eternal punishment.

 

Even before Eve bit that apple, there was poor, feisty Lilith (born initially as one with Adam – “male and female created He them” says the first Biblical reference), who, according to legend, preferred to have sex on top. Lilith represents lunar consciousness (waxing and waning, death and rebirth), sexuality, body, and intuitive wisdom – all of which patriarchy degraded and denied. She got a terribly bad press. 

Previously, the Goddess had ruled the mysteries of sexuality, birth, life, and death. Now the patriarchal God took control of life and death, and split procreation and motherhood from sexuality and ‘magic and mystery’. Lilith refused to submit and flew off in a rage. Until recent decades, she has been universally demonized as seductive, witch, outcast – the enraged, avenging goddess, wife of Satan. 

Solar was split from lunar; psyche from soma or physical, corresponding to a general disassociation from the body. Mind and body, spirit and body, soul and body were split entities, and unequal. The body was inferior, an unfortunate necessity – together with its most basic of functions, sex; and it was associated with the feminine. (I once read an old text that described women as “bags of filth”. The males’ organs of excretion were not referred to.) 

Male and female were unequal; spirit and nature were unequal. Man headed the chain of command – after God. As women, and as a culture, we have paid dearly for this division. The misogyny of the patriarchy affected all cultures in the last 2000 years, one way or another. 

Mind and body, spirit and body, soul and body were split entities, and unequal.  
The body was inferior, an unfortunate necessity... 

 

The fierce, sexual, independent-spirited wise dark goddess aspect of Lilith was replaced by submissive Eve, who was yet blamed for the whole messy business anyway. She was the sinful one, secondary to Adam, and cursed forever to give birth in pain. (Medieval midwives were sinning when they alleviated the pain of childbirth.) 

As long as Eve is sinful and physical matter corrupt in any way whatsoever, our sexuality is compromised – and our liberation incomplete. This split must be healed. 

I am proposing that sexuality and spirituality are aspects of the same thing; that the split between psyche and soma (the physical) is resolved in the energetic unity of a higher order. “We have lost contact with what unites them,” says Alexander Lowen in The Spirituality of the Body.⁶ Sexuality is psychosomatic – and by that I mean, not that it’s some kind of illness, in the more common meaning of the word, but that it overtly operates on both the physical and the psychic level. 

Where science and religion are finding rapprochement in the infinite wave world of quantum physics, we find fresh metaphors for the lost unifying element. Waves of sexual sensations that emanate from the body can be visualized as cosmic, psychic energy, high-frequency vibrations that bridge us to higher consciousness. 

These metaphors indicate possibilities that have profound implications generally, and more so for you and me now, as ageing women today.

The fierce, sexual, independent-spirited wise dark goddess aspect of Lilith was replaced by submissive Eve, who was yet blamed for the whole messy business anyway.

1.3. POST-MENOPAUSAL CHALLENGE OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM 

Female baby boomers are well into menopause – and beyond; part of a giant wave of grey (even though the grey has been tinted somewhat). 

There are more woman over the age of 50 in the world today than probably ever before in history; 45 million US women born in the baby boom years alone are now doing the critical menopause passage, and 11 million UK women. Globally, age distribution in the older category is increasing in all the more developed countries. 

“One of the blessings of being part of that enormous wave of women moving past age fifty today is that we are more authoritative, assertive and self assured than any generation of menopausal women before us. And we have more economic power,” writes feminist author Nancy Friday.⁷ (She was controversial among feminists for proclaiming feminism and appreciating men and sex. They were for her not mutually exclusive.) 

Nevertheless, there seems to be a pronounced loss of confidence as age advances. Death might or might not scare us, but ageing confuses and confounds us so! The old stereotypes won’t do; but they haunt us still – especially sexually. 

Why is it that so many of my contemporaries who also ‘did’ the 1960s as teenagers or young adults, and spent the last 40 plus years as modern women applying dedication and commitment to their homes, families, and work, are now faltering and wilting as they approach their 60s? Without admirable models of being postmenopausal in our time, the once feisty, wobble. 

Female baby boomers are well into menopause – and beyond; part of a giant wave of grey (even though the grey has been tinted somewhat). 

 

Menopause is a transitional experience leading to the rest of our lives. And it’s this ‘rest of our life’ we need to reinvent. I would like to think that as we baby boomers enter the other side of 50 with a reasonable lifespan and quality of life ahead we can redefine ageing – and sexuality. 

Statistically, we have a chunk of good years ahead of us. How do we intend to live them? 

What have the health advances, new technologies, economic empowerment, psychological process, and spirituality, previously inaccessible to the mainstream, made realistically achievable for us as the ‘ageing’ boomers of the early 21st century? 

What is reasonably possible? What is wishful thinking? What is optimum? What is delusional narcissism? That is the question and the challenge. In this new millennium (provided extremism doesn’t catapult us into Armageddon), ageing can be different – should be different – and much, much better. 

For personal perspective... 

Menopause is a transitional experience leading to the rest of our lives. And it’s this “rest of our life” we need to reinvent.

 

Little more than a hundred years ago, without the advances in medical and eye technology (and the chemistry of hair colour, dare I say), I would probably have been a toothless, blind old ‘hag’ in my mid-fifties, if I was alive at all. My life choices would have been constrained by my plebeian, non-aristocratic status to much onerous duty, since – had I otherwise been who I am today – I would have been no rich Lady of rank. 

I am glad to be alive in these times. The ordinary person has so many more options than ever before. No longer living the harsh grind of daily subsistence and inferior legal status, we can look at ourselves as woman over 50 and say – OK, now what? We have the opportunity to live differently. The cliché applies; another new stage has only just begun. Post-menopause and ‘ageing’ is the new frontier. 

But first we must disentangle ourselves from the absurd and awful stereotypes of older women, specifically, and sex and ageing in general, that infect our culture – and deeply affect our own self-evaluations. These nasty assumptions define who we become; they are the inevitable facts of our reality. They undermine our courage and our self-image. 

We are terrified of becoming ugly old hags. The word hagia, which means ‘holy’ in Greek,⁸ was once a reverential title for wise and respected older women; it degraded to ‘hag’. How did the revered and sacred come to mean old and ugly? 

Being sexual AFTER the biological time for childbirth is, theoretically, a time of freedom to explore, to enjoy all that sex is and can be. At least we can explore other aspects when we don’t have to worry about getting physically pregnant -or not.

We must disentangle ourselves from the absurd and awful stereotypes of older women, specifically, and sex and ageing in general, that infect our culture – and deeply affect our own self-evaluations.

 

So why is menopause so often the death of sex itself – too ridiculous to contemplate? What is the nature of our current sexuality? Does our mature sexuality embarrass or inspire us, or has menopause killed all interest? Do we want an asexual old age, or do we want to be sexual ‘forever’?

So why is menopause so often the death of sex itself – too ridiculous to contemplate?

1.4. FEAR OF AGEING -FEAR OF SEX 

“Our sexual appetites aren’t lost as we age; it is the image of ourselves as sexual that we dutifully abandon to fit the bygone stereotype of patriarchy,” says Friday.⁹ There are many conflicting stereotypes, and they are all contaminated with a deep-seated fear of ageing, of women – and of sex. 

Is old age about progressive, inevitable, inexorable decline, or is old age about living healthily until it is time to pass over; a time of wisdom, joy, and delight? An adventure in evolution! 

Attitudes to ageing have themselves changed. And with the health support we have these days, from conventional medicine to alternative healing, our humble earth-suit of flesh and bones in which we navigate this beautiful planet can support a meaningful life for a long time – well, a longer time, for sure. 

“Old age can be pitiful and a time for deep regret,” says the Indian god Shiva in Sexual Secrets.¹⁰ It can also be “transcendental, glorious, potentially divine”. 

Deepak Chopra¹¹ suggests that death by severe illness is the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy with which our culture has indoctrinated us. Yes, we have to pass over some time. But we don’t have to get so terribly ill and ail for years in order to die. We can perhaps depart this life, when it’s our time, in reasonable health, at senior years – with grace? (Tibetan monks have been doing just that for aeons.)