Bananapants Body Shame and Rediscovering the Erotic Body

Everyone’s relationship with their body is unique, but all bodies are designed for erotic experience. The erotic experience is comprised of three streams: creativity, spirituality, and sensuality. Just at the Earth is designed for pleasure and interdependence, bodies are designed to balance and re-balance in enjoyment and ease. We did not inherit a lot of thinking that supports an authentic and erotic experience in the the body. Most systems (patriarchy, capitalism, puritanism, Calvinism, racism, sexism, and gender norms) actively shut down, shame, or subvert the erotic experience… but that’s all about to change. In fact, it’s already changing. The only questions to ask are,

“What will it feel like after I have let go of trying to fix, control, or dominate my body?”

“What would it be like to actually unconditionally enjoy and love my body exactly as it is right now, but WITHOUT giving up the desires I have for how I want to feel differently in the future?

Reconnecting with the erotic body isn’t about self-indulgence — automatically giving the body whatever it wants. It’s a balanced, somatic guidance that is connected with wise consumption and wise expression.

Because our relationship with nature and the Earth mirrors our perceptions of and relationship with our body, our attunement with somatic guidance and individual spiritual guidance can help us on a path out of consumption and consumerism, out of project-based perspectives, and into an authentic, warts-and-all, humorful relationship with these beautiful and gnarly body vehicles.

What in nature shows us the way to perceive our bodies accurately and with love but without whitewashing the stuff that really sucks?

Developing somatic, intuitive, and spiritual intelligence allows us to come into an experience of the body that is respectful and responsible, full of pleasure and eros. At the same time, it opens natural pathways for us to be in wise relationship with the Earth as well. We can own our malfeasance instead of ignoring it, we can be responsible instead of feeling guilty. We can open to erotic, easeful paths of stewardship that allow the Earth to support us instead of us trying to dominate natural resources.

Ultimately, there is no difference between the Earth and your body. The stuff of you is temporarily expressing as this body and is deeply and without exception intertwined with all other expressions of life on the planet. So it makes sense that you you perceive your body and the experiences you have in your body mirror your perceptions and relationship with the Earth.