The river of joy

It isn't sex, until someone gets wet.

The change from our walking state, where we are so drive and divorced from the sensations of our body, to that other state, where rain comes to the mountains and the rivers flow, is the transformation that we must leap over, from that cold winter of waking life, to the spring of fertility, passion and desire. It is why the slut trick of talking about how wet she is works, and always will.

But this transformation is far more complex than simply the flowing of effluvia itself. It is the chnage from a body, and a self, that are trying to protect, to one that is receptive, sensitive, and ready to have life leap across the gap from one physicality to another, and to bond tightly with that other being.

From the perspective of fertility, the crucial task is to create a river over which will flow the sperm and down which will float the ovum. From the perspective of bringing the results of that union to fruit and harvest, the task is to create a bond within two people so powerful that over time they will be attached to each other as powefully that they will be attached, as well, to that fruit. It is not just the body that becomes fluid, but the brain as well, where hard nerves bend like stone that has heated until it burns.

It must also be a bond so powerful that either of the two people involved must be willing to give their lives for the results. Hence the power of water in sex and death paintings and music. Women throw themselves into the sea for their lost lovers, it is a ship and the sea that flows around the sex and death of Tristan and Isolde, and potion which draws them into it. Andromache is chained above the sea. The failed love in Schubert ends with the brook taking in the wanderer.

But this is the teleology of this river, it is not the phenomenology. Or to put it a simpler way, the end isn't the ride.

/me shifts her hips back and forth as she leans first on one foot and then the other.

In second life, describing the visible mechanics of the coming of spring, wetness flowing, touching oneself, chats that talk about "how hot it is in here" are often the way to to create the impression that sex is about happen. When working a club floor and there are many men about, it creates the compulsion for the men to pay for sex. They know someone is going to get it, and they aren't paying for sex per se, but to cut to the front of the line.

The orgiastic female who holds the troop over is fertile and all the boys want their throw with her. She is the physical goddess, a reflection of something more primal even, than humanity itself. And corresponding to the woman's river of fertility, must be the man's own moisture, that drop of rain that falls down.

/me flushes as she takes the rose from your hand and looks down shyly.

But these outside forces are pale to use, compared to the solidity of our own feeling. While the weight of ages may weigh on us, we could care less at that moment that our whole consciousness drops from our heads, down into our lower body, and we stare at a person or avatar and can only say "uhhhhhn." Feeling that is easy on sl, we can all be pretty if we want. It is easier and safer to send the signals of availability. And it is easier and safer to express sexual apprecation for someone else.

/me looks softly into your eyes, and gently lets her fingers play over the back of your hand, half leading, half pleading, to take the dance floor.

But what is most seductive about Second Life, is that it is possible to be drawn across the line by one's avatar. I, and I know other people, have slid into intimacy with others, because of the lethal effectiveness of the slow dance pose balls, whose touching and kissing and swaying make the mind imagine a pulsing rhythm and warm touch. The mind can imagine the body doing by seeing, so long as there is that all important identification between avatar and player. His hand caresses your hip, your mouth touches his neck, your breasts ache to slip out of your dress.

Blood flows to the skin, and its ice thins as the warmth wells up from below, and showers down from above. The river is flowing.

Once this moment has happened, there is a powerful urge to unclench that that band that runs round the inside of our skull, like an iron mask from Dumas, that is the tight grasp of our inhibitions and control. The mental dam that is meant to hold back the flood. Once unclenched, the spirit flows down, the muscles relax, and the warmth flood to the midriff with it. The exposed midriff is sexy because it is through there and from there, that the animal emotions must be controlled.

/me rolls her abdomen and gyrates her hips wildly.

Every society knows that the inhibtions of the working days, where raising food and building houses are the order of the day, are also lethal to formation of this flood of river. As the savannah needs its rainy season, so does the sexual spirit. We have carnivals, both fixed in time, and impromptu, to help this unclenching. Second life is such a carnival.

/me places her hand over yours, and slides it down the curve of her waist, pulling at the fabric from the pressure, until it is firmly planted on the back of her hips.

In such moments, the flow ceases to go from player to avatar, and goes in the other direction. In such moments it is clear that on the screen the inevitable animal logic is to follow the warmth to wear it leads, and seek the moisture that is welling up from below.

At this point there is a need to imagine closeness, and reinforce virtual physical intimacy with emotional intimacy. The next step of spring is to make the spirit flow. To admit some deep fear, feeling or fantasy. To look into a soul, even across the ether, and allow a some hidden part to coallesce into words, from scattered droplets.

Intimacy is what created the bond. And around the fear of loss must flood that intimacy. It is perfectly reasonable, how better to know whether someone will desert you or hurt you, then by giving them a chance to do so right at the outset? Sometimes the harsh put down is really just the test of the other person, to see if they will take rebuke as a challenge to do better.

/me fixes her gaze on yours, her face seemis to fall towards you and places her lips close to your ear until you can feel the breath from her pursed lips. She whispers in a very low, barely audible tone.

This is the floating time, when your feet have been lifted up off the floor, your spirit up off the pedastal of its every day repose. You are waiting and hoping. Either hoping for that admission, or hoping that it will flutter and alight, and be handled with care like a butterfly.

Once this moment has come, the rest is preparation, anticipation, because already within, there is flowing that river of join, and it seeks nothing more, than to meet a passionate tide, from distant sea.