Sex and the Unity of Opposites (Part Two): Sacralizing the Sexes and their Sexuality
Sex, as a species of happiness, has an ascending order from the sensual to the sublime.
Sexuality is of the greatest importance as the expression of the chthonic spirit. That spirit is the “the other face of God,” the dark side of the God-image.
—C. G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections
In an article titled “Tiers of Joy,” I presented a tripartite model of happiness. To lay a little groundwork, I offer a brief summary.
Tier One: Joys of Now—These are immediate, sensory pleasures—such as gratification, amusement, or physical delight—that ground us in the present. While essential to a rich life, the joys of now are fleeting and can be addictive if overindulged. The key is to enjoy them in moderation, appreciating them without becoming dependent.
Tier Two: Joys of Engagement—These arise from deeper, sustained involvement in life through purposeful activity. Flow and fulfillment come from immersion in one’s work, creativity, relationships, and living according to one’s values. Though requiring effort and intention, these joys can be valued for the journey, not just the destination.
Tier Three: Joys of Transcendence—The rarest and most profound, these joys dissolve the boundaries of the self and connect us to something greater—ecstasy, sublimity, or transcendence. Often spontaneous and unbidden, they offer glimpses of the infinite. Their power lies in their rarity, which should be met with awe and reverence.
We break happiness into tiers to demonstrate that we are capable of more than the pursuit of dopamine hits arrayed as a series of plot points on a time axis. In eudaemonia, we operate according to our talents, undertakings, and values. And in sacred moments, we are visited by experiences that humble us in wonder.
Sex is no different.
The range of experiences goes from the sensual to the sublime. The order of the tiers cannot be skipped because any subsequent tier grows out of the prior tier. In other words, each subordinate tier terminates in an emergence vector, an open door.
In the complex plotting of sexual encounter it is by no means uncommon for the partners to have played a double game in which each is winner and loser, and each is an emblem for the other's seductive power.
As with all finite play, the goal of veiled sexuality is to bring itself to an end.
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
Tier One—Intercourse of Body and Sensation
In finite sexuality, partners view each other primarily as instruments of pleasure or gratification. Each engages in a mutually self-interested transaction driven by the desire for said gratification. This interaction unfolds within what James Carse describes as a “finite game,” which concludes when gratification is achieved, typically when one or both partners reach climax.
The nature of finite sexuality is base, centered on conquest or climax, and too often reduces the other to a body. It is marked by scripted and staged seductions. Encounters have clear endpoints. Partners focus on specific body parts, with success or failure marking the end of play. At their best these encounters earn one a cigarette, but otherwise amount to little more than narrow escapism or a notch on the butt of one’s gun.
The upper bound and limiting constraint for this tier is empathy.
The paradox of infinite sexuality is that by regarding sexuality as an expression of the person and not the body, it becomes fully embodied play.
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
Tier Two—Intercourse of Connection and Continuation
In infinite sexuality, partners shift their focus toward each other’s pleasure as a way of deepening connection and fostering reciprocity. Rather than approaching intimacy as a transaction, lovers become more empathic, taking joy in imagining what it must feel like for the other to receive both the physical and emotional gifts. Connection marks a move from finite to infinite play, where the experience is not so much about achieving a goal, but engaging in play for its own sake, and for the other’s sake.
Infinite sexuality engages the whole person, not just their body. Participants value touch, presence, and emotional resonance over targeted stimulation. It is not about conquest or climax, but about sustaining an open-ended and evolving connection. At this tier, the boundaries between partners soften. The couple values the shared experience over the merely performative or strategic. Sexuality becomes a continuous, expressive unfolding in a game of intimacy and discovery where two people can become lost in each other.
The upper bound and limiting constraint for this tier is love.
Sexual engagement is a poiesis of free persons. In this exposure they emerge as the persons they are. They meet others with their limitations, and not within their limitations. In doing so they expect to be transformed—and are transformed.
—James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
Tier Three—Intercourse of Sublimity and Unity
As infinite sexuality deepens in love, it can transcend even playful reciprocity and transform into a sublime experience of unity. Here, the lovers no longer feel themselves as separate agents but as subjects in a shared field of being. In this space, sexuality becomes less an act and more a mode of presence, a sacred dance in which the boundary between the two dissolves in mutual attunement. As with two molecules chemically bonded, each becomes transformed by the other.
Touch becomes a language of the spirit, and sensation a portal to something greater than either partner alone. No longer is the body a mere pleasure site, but a vessel through which transcendental affection flows. In such moments, lovers may glimpse a truth beyond words: an erotic communion unburdened by ego or agenda, flooded by love’s light. Such participation opens into something sacred but ineffable.
The upper bound and limiting constraint for this tier are unknown.
Jung reminds us that while each possesses aspects of the other, as animus and anima, a woman is more likely to tug a man into the higher strata:
Woman's psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and deliverer, while from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest.
That’s because, “In men, Eros, which is of a feminine character, is expressed as sentimentality and sensitiveness, or as encompassing understanding and friendly tolerance, not infrequently coupled with a real interest in personal relationships.”
Jung saw women as more attuned to the symbolic, intuitive, and transcendent dimensions of experience, especially in intimate relationships. Men could be more easily trapped in the baseness of the body. Yet neither can ascend without the other.
I’ve got to admit
It’s all fashion and Pimping
It’s all bullshit in the end
Until we fall into the real orgie
The way Things really are
The way You really are
The way Love really is
—Andrew Sweeny, from 10 More Songs for the Red Goddess
Desire’s Dialectics
Sadly, most encounters remain in Tier One. Today, many young people find these encounters on devices like food orders or game downloads. Young men want to be victorious. Young women want to be validated. But such hollow objectives leave both trapped in a futile wilderness devoid of genuine connection.
The emergence vectors that give rise to higher tiers of intercourse are born out of what had once been an upper bound. One breaks through, ascending into connection by integrating empathy. One breaks through, ascending into unity by integrating love. Occasionally, both partners will experience their unity as a divine presence, the significance of which helps them weave their lives together.
Even if you are skeptical of divine phenomena, you can still sacralize sex. While we depart from the theologians who argue that the outcome of sex is procreation, we can nod to Carse, who writes:
Metaphysically understood, sexuality has nothing to do with our existence as persons, for it views persons as expressions of sexuality, and not sexuality as the expression of persons.
Yet both can be true. And it is in this oscillation that sexual experience is a gift of existence, as our children are gifts in existence.
Join us for the….
