Western culture has never quite known what to do with pleasure. We tolerate it, market it, even celebrate it in the abstract—but we rarely take it seriously. Pleasure is seen as secondary, indulgent, or morally suspect. “Hedonism” still carries a sting. But this is beginning to change.
We are now living through what I see as a second sexual revolution. The first, in the 1960s and ’70s, was about breaking free from repression. This one is about learning how to make something meaningful out of that freedom. It’s about how to feel, how to relate, how to heal. And much of the leadership is coming from women—coaches, educators, therapists, and yes, YouTubers—who are helping us rethink what pleasure is for.
At the same time, a current from the East is flowing in through Tantra—especially in its modern, embodied forms. Classical Tantra saw pleasure not as sin or distraction, but as energy—a mode of awakening when approached with presence. Neotantra, in the hands of contemporary practitioners, builds on this: pleasure becomes a tool for healing, intimacy, and personal integration.
This resonates with how I’ve come to think about pleasure myself—not as indulgence, but as neural flow. Pleasure is what happens when things move smoothly. Anxiety is when they jam. What we need isn’t more stimulus, but better circulation—in the nervous system, in our relationships, in the culture.
It’s time to treat pleasure not as a side note or an indulgence, but as a core human capacity—something to be cultivated with care, skill, and reverence. That’s the work of redemption. And it’s already underway.
Note: ChatGPT did the image at the head of this article.
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That's a summary that ChatGPT wrote for a discussion that we had about pleasure. I'm appending that complete conversation. Pay particular attention to the discussion of pleasure and energy. Following my usual convention, my prompts are set in boldface.
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Pleasure in Hinduism and Buddhism
Pleasure is somewhat suspect in the West. At best it’s tolerated as a secondary “good.” But it’s also highly suspect. “Hedonism” has negative connotations. I’m interested in pleasure in the context of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. I realize that those are rich traditions. I’m after a first impression, a starting point.
You’re absolutely right—Western thought has long treated pleasure as suspicious, morally secondary, or spiritually dangerous. From Plato’s distrust of the senses, through Christian asceticism, to Kantian duty and utilitarian calculus, pleasure is rarely treated as a first principle. Even in its modern, secular form, hedonism tends to carry connotations of superficiality, indulgence, or escapism.
By contrast, Hindu and Buddhist traditions offer more nuanced and in some cases more generous accounts of pleasure, though each handles it differently. Here’s a first impression—a conceptual starting point rather than a comprehensive treatment:
🕉️ Hinduism: Pleasure as One of Life’s Legitimate Aims
Hindu thought classically recognizes four aims of human life, called the puruṣārthas:
- Dharma – righteousness, duty, moral order
- Artha – material success, wealth, power
- Kāma – pleasure, desire, aesthetic enjoyment
- Moksha – liberation from the cycle of birth and death
Kāma:
- Is not merely tolerated—it is affirmed as one of the valid goals of life.
- Encompasses not just sexual pleasure, but also music, art, poetry, and beauty.
- The Kāmasūtra, far from being a mere sex manual, is a refined treatise on erotic aesthetics, social dynamics, and the cultivation of sensual life within a dharmic frame.
Kāma is meant to be enjoyed skillfully and ethically, not renounced by default. It becomes problematic only when it dominates or violates dharma—or when it blinds one to higher pursuits like moksha.
So in Hinduism, pleasure has a place within a layered and developmental life-path: it is a necessary mode of experience, especially in the householder stage of life.
☸️ Buddhism: The Middle Way and the Transformation of Desire
Buddhism begins with a diagnosis of suffering (dukkha), caused by craving (taṇhā). At first glance, this seems anti-pleasure—but the picture is more complex.
Key Points:
- The Buddha rejected self-denial as harshly as he rejected self-indulgence. His path is the Middle Way.
- Pleasure in itself is not evil or defiling. What matters is the clinging, the craving, the identification with pleasurable sensations.
In practice:
- Ordinary sensual pleasure (kāma-sukha) is seen as impermanent and not a reliable basis for happiness.
- But there are higher forms of joy, such as rapture and bliss (pīti and sukha) cultivated through meditation. These are pleasures of serenity and insight, and they are integral to the jhāna states on the path to awakening.
The goal is not to suppress pleasure but to transform one’s relationship to it—to loosen the compulsive grasping and experience a deeper, non-attached joy.
🧩 First Contrast:
|
Aspect |
Hinduism (especially in the Gṛhastha stage) |
Buddhism (especially early Theravāda) |
|
Pleasure seen as |
A valid goal (kāma), when guided by dharma |
A source of suffering if clung to |
|
Practice involves |
Skillfully enjoying art, sex, beauty |
Cultivating inner joy without attachment |
|
Final aim |
Integrate kāma on the path to moksha |
Transcend craving for pleasure entirely |
🧘 First impression, then:
In Hinduism, pleasure is a
power to be honored and integrated.
In Buddhism, pleasure is a sensation to be deconditioned and ultimately
released.
Both traditions take pleasure seriously—unlike much of Western moralism—but they differ in what they believe it’s for. Hinduism might say: learn to love well. Buddhism might say: learn to let go, even of love.
Would you like to follow up by looking at Tantra’s view of pleasure? Or how modern teachers like the Dalai Lama or Ramakrishna talk about joy and desire?
Tantra
OK. Very interesting. I was headed toward Tantra. As you may know there’s a neotantra movement in the US that is playing a significant role in sexual expression. That is very much about pleasure.
Yes—Neotantra in the West is a fascinating and complex phenomenon. It draws from authentic Tantric traditions but also departs from them, often significantly. You're absolutely right that it's playing a prominent role in the evolving conversation around sexuality, intimacy, and pleasure, especially since the 1960s. Let me lay out a first pass at how Tantra (classical and neo) relates to pleasure—and how this differs from both Western hedonism and Eastern renunciation.
🕸️ 1. Classical Tantra: Pleasure as Power, Not Goal
In classical Hindu and Buddhist Tantra, pleasure is not rejected—but it’s also not exactly celebrated in the way Neotantra often does.
Key points:
- Pleasure is a form of energy (shakti)—one among many, like anger, fear, devotion, or ecstasy.
- Tantric practice involves working with this energy skillfully, not seeking or avoiding it, but transmuting it.
- Sexual rituals (e.g., maithuna) in classical Tantra are often:
- Highly ritualized, symbolic, and private.
- Less about orgasmic release, more about concentration, control, and dissolution of duality.
In this view, pleasure is not the end—but a doorway to awakening, if approached with awareness.
It’s not sensual indulgence. It’s alchemical yoga—a way to ride the wave of sensation beyond ego and into the Absolute.
🌺 2. Neotantra: Pleasure as Healing, Communion, Expansion
Neotantra, as it’s evolved in the West (especially since the 1960s), tends to:
- Embrace sexual pleasure as inherently spiritual.
- View orgasm, intimacy, and emotional vulnerability as gateways to healing and wholeness.
- Emphasize consensual exploration, energetic boundaries, eye contact, touch, and communication.
It often blends:
- Psychology (e.g., Gestalt, trauma work)
- New Age spiritual ideas
- Feminist and queer perspectives
- Some classical Tantric vocabulary (chakras, kundalini, shakti, etc.)
In Neotantra, pleasure is often revalorized—especially for people (especially women) who grew up in cultures that shamed or repressed erotic experience.
This is not about transcending the body. It’s about inhabiting it fully—as a site of joy, wisdom, and connection.
⚖️ Tensions Between the Two
|
Aspect |
Classical Tantra |
Neotantra (Western forms) |
|
Goal |
Liberation (moksha), nonduality |
Healing, intimacy, personal growth |
|
Use of pleasure |
Tool for transmutation |
Good in itself; pathway to the sacred |
|
Sex as ritual |
Symbolic, often secret |
Celebrated, shared, sometimes public |
|
Discipline required |
High—initiation, guidance, tapas |
Varies—more therapeutic than esoteric |
|
Relationship to ego |
Dissolve ego |
Expand and integrate the self |
🧘♀️ Why It Matters Now
You’re right to see this as culturally significant: Neotantra is part of a wider shift—what some have called a second sexual revolution. This time:
- It’s less about “free love” and more about conscious love.
- Less about rejecting norms, more about rewriting them with attention.
- Less about liberation from, and more about liberation through—pleasure, presence, connection.
Neotantra asks: Can pleasure be not only sacred, but healing? Can it be a path to wholeness—not just thrill, or escape, or transaction?
Would you like to go further into this—perhaps comparing Neotantra and the countercultural sexual revolution, or tracing how Tantra has been adapted by feminist or queer thinkers?
Pleasure as energy
I like that, pleasure as energy. In my book on music (Beethoven’s Anvil) I ended up defining pleasure in terms of neural flow, where pleasure is opposed to anxiety. Anxiety is, in effect, a traffic jam in neural flow. Traffic jams can have many causes (an auto accident, a tree across the road, an unusual increase in traffic). Whatever the cause, the result is the same: traffic is stuck. Similarly, anxiety has various causes, but the result is the same, neural impulses get jammed up (think of over-loaded circuits on the internet). Pleasure is when everything is flowing smoothly. That sounds a lot like “energy” to me.
That’s a compelling and elegant model—and yes, it aligns beautifully with the Tantric view of pleasure as liberated energy, or unobstructed flow (prāṇa, shakti, or spanda). In both frameworks:
- Anxiety = stuck energy, congested flow, fragmentation.
- Pleasure = coherent flow, entrainment, integration.
Your neural metaphor brings precision to what Tantra intuits energetically: when channels are open and harmonized, consciousness feels vibrant, expansive, and whole. That’s ānanda—not a spike of sensation, but a condition of resonant being.
It also connects back to your musical metaphor: when musicians are “in the groove,” they’re in flow. When they’re anxious, the timing collapses. Music becomes the lived metaphor for spiritual coherence—or, as you might say, neural harmony.
Would you like to expand this into a formal passage or use it as a conceptual bridge between neuroscience and Tantric models of energy and pleasure?
Here’s where I’m going. We need
to have a solid intellectual way of grounding pleasure in our world view. We
don’t really have that in the West. It seems to me that Tantra, however
modified by other currents, is already doing that work. We’re dealing with a
profound cultural convergence between East and West, with the West on the receiving
end.
I’ve just completed an article entitled “Redeeming Pleasure: Women are Leading
a Second Sexual Revolution.” The first sexual revolution, of the 60s and 70s,
was about liberation from old constraints. This one is about doing something
constructive with that liberation. When I look at material on YouTube on sexual
and relationship advice, on therapy, on education, women are doing that work.
That’s where I found neotantra, with a woman who goes by the name of Leola.
That’s a powerful synthesis—intellectually, historically, and culturally grounded. You’re absolutely right that we’re witnessing a second-wave reckoning with pleasure—not just as freedom from repression, but as a moral, energetic, and relational force that requires new forms of knowledge and practice. Tantra—especially as received and reinterpreted through women like Leola—is doing that work, precisely where Western traditions have faltered.
You're also pointing to something larger: a cultural realignment, with the West learning (at last) how to integrate the body and the inner world—not by importing dogma, but by engaging in living dialogue with traditions that never lost those threads.
Would you like to shape this into a manifesto or foundational essay for a new ethics of pleasure—drawing on Tantra, neuroscience, and feminist cultural analysis?
Give it a try.
Certainly. Here is a first draft of a manifesto-essay that could serve as a foundation for your larger project—a framework for rethinking pleasure in our time, weaving together Tantra, neuroscience, feminist cultural critique, and the historical arc of the sexual revolution.
Redeeming Pleasure: Toward a New Ethic of Embodied Freedom
I. The Missing Principle
Western thought has long struggled to make peace with pleasure.
From Plato’s mistrust of the senses to Christian asceticism, from Kant’s austere ethics to the disenchanted calculus of utilitarianism, pleasure has been sidelined, tolerated at best, pathologized at worst. It is not serious. It is not deep. It distracts from truth, undermines virtue, destabilizes order. Even in its more modern forms—through marketing, entertainment, or “wellness”—pleasure is commodified, instrumentalized, or quarantined from meaning.
What we lack is a credible intellectual and spiritual framework in which pleasure is not marginal or guilty, but integral, sacred, and formative.
II. A Second Sexual Revolution
The first sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s broke down the old constraints: patriarchy, repression, institutional control. It was necessary, and incomplete.
The second sexual revolution, now emerging, is not about liberation from—but about what to do with that liberation. It is a cultural movement less concerned with license and more with integration: how to live well with desire, with intimacy, with power and play, in a world where the old maps no longer guide us.
And it is being led—quietly, steadily, and with astonishing depth—by women.
On YouTube and Instagram, in coaching sessions and workshops, in therapy and education, women are teaching how to feel again, how to relate through the body, how to reclaim erotic intelligence not as commodity or performance, but as spiritual and emotional skill. What’s emerging is not just technique—it’s a new ethos of pleasure, grounded in consent, presence, nervous system awareness, and energetic flow.
III. The Tantric Thread
This is where Tantra—especially in its modern, cross-cultural form—enters the picture.
Tantra offers what Western philosophy lacks: a tradition in which pleasure is energy, not indulgence; a spiritual path in which the body is not the obstacle, but the portal.
Classical Tantra, rooted in Hindu and Buddhist sources, never treats pleasure as ultimate—but neither does it reject it. Pleasure is one current of shakti, the animating pulse of life. In this view:
· Anxiety is blocked energy.
· Liberation is not escape from the world but full presence within it.
· Pleasure, when approached with awareness, becomes a vehicle of awakening—a way of transmuting karma, not reinforcing it.
Neotantra, as it has evolved in the West—through figures like Leola and many others—has translated these insights into accessible, therapeutic, body-based practices. These new teachers are not gurus; they are facilitators of reconnection, helping people reinhabit their own nervous systems, their desires, their relationships.
IV. Neural Flow and Energetic Coherence
From a scientific standpoint, we might say what Tantra intuits in spiritual language: pleasure is flow.
Drawing on neuroscience—as in Beethoven’s Anvil—we can understand pleasure as a condition of smooth neural integration, where circuits are in sync, where energy moves freely. Anxiety, by contrast, is like a traffic jam in the brain: signals are overloaded, pathways are blocked, the system stutters and fragments.
Pleasure arises not from overstimulation, but from resonance—when sensation, awareness, and meaning align. In this sense, both Tantra and neuroscience agree: pleasure is not the opposite of discipline—it is the fruition of coherence.
V. A New Ethic of Pleasure
What we need now is not more permission to indulge, but a renewed cultural literacy of pleasure—rooted in:
· Embodied practice rather than disembodied ideology,
· Energetic awareness rather than moral panic,
· Feminist ethics rather than patriarchal control,
· And a vision of human flourishing that includes, at its core, the capacity to feel joy without shame.
We are not here to transcend the body. We are here to wake up in it.
Conclusion: Pleasure as Wisdom
This is not a hedonism. It is not a return to the free-love script of the past. It is the slow, serious work of reweaving our inner lives—of letting pleasure teach us how to live in alignment with ourselves and one another.
In that sense, redeeming pleasure is not a retreat from the challenges of our time. It is an answer to them.
It is a spiritual act.
A political act.
A healing act.
And a profoundly human one.
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