On the (Somewhat) Embarrassing Fact of the Popularity of My Lust Epidemic Post


SISTER KATHERINE: I want to understand lust. I feel it is my calling.

BRAD: A nun trying to understand sex… that can’t be normal.

SISTER KATHERINE: Normal? I’ll tell you what’s not normal. The men in this town have become animals.

     —some early dialog in Lust Epidemic


     As a general rule, I do not like to pass myself off as something that I am not. Hypocrisy and dishonesty bother me, in myself more than in others. As a consequence of this, I occasionally publish stuff largely out of a desire for brutal honesty, so that my supporters will not support or respect me out of false pretenses on my part. Plus I do simply like being edgy and even a little transgressive. Anyway, this desire of mine for blunt honesty (and edginess) occasionally results in me posting content that may be viewed, reasonably, as inappropriate for a well-behaved monk. I won’t provide you with a list of these, although one that I wrote last year, “Lust Epidemic: the Quest for a Voluptuous Adolescent Ideal,” is definitely along these lines.

     It is not my intention to write another post on this particular porn video game, and I did resist the urge to play it again—though who knows, I still might someday. Rather I would just like to discuss the somewhat embarrassing fact that that particular post has become one of the most popular posts on this blog! I sit and watch it slowly creep, month by month, up the most clicked-on list. I’ve written much better things of course, but there’s no accounting for taste. This does not reflect upon the lustfulness and carnality of my regular readers, as I have found that my most popular posts tend to be ones that come up on searches (like in this case maybe “Lust Epidemic gifs to wank to”) by people who usually don’t read the blog, and may have zero interest in Buddhist philosophy or even in gratuitous political incorrectness. I found that a totally non-pornographic post which is one of the most clicked-on on the old Nippapañca Blog, “Burmese Women,” is as popular as it is partly because it was coming up on searches for Burmese girlie pictures. Also it is a good post with some profundity to it, and even politically incorrect, though written for the older, more Buddhist blog.

     In my mild embarrassment I have reread the Lust Epidemic post, and I must admit it is not really endorsing rampant lustfulness, so at least that much is somewhat appropriate, kind of. Mostly I wrote about strange adolescent fantasy theories—though with some rather explicit illustrations. I am a lustful person by temperament, as anyone who has read my more personal writings may know well enough, and the game really did interest me for more than theoretical reasons (sort of like horny sex researchers following their own naughty inclinations while sublimating them into scientific research into human sexuality—I’ve gone that route also on this blog, for example with my two-part post entitled “The Female Erotic Object,” especially This part). Even at my strictest and most “yogic,” when living under a rock ledge at the edge of a Burmese jungle, and meditating pretty much full time, I still had a dirty mind.

     By reading the journals I wrote at that time, living under the rock ledge, one may see that even at my strictest and most conscientious, I still had regular pornographic dreams in my sleep, and a few porn daydreams also, as well as the occasional eye-bulging distraction of a Burmese hillbilly woman encountering me in the forest wearing her most worn-out, threadbare clothing, with maybe a few buttons of her blouse missing, and obviously wearing no underwear of any kind, with maybe even a light rain causing a wet T-shirt contest effect—which would have me staring in an entirely natural yet very inappropriate manner. As I’ve written several times before, we humans are burdened with animal instincts (also known as “human nature”), including mating instincts, and they don’t just go away by force of will. As I grow older my hot blood has been cooling, though at this point I would be more inclined to attribute that to age than to wisdom.

     Anyway, in my mild embarrassment I have briefly considered just taking the post down, and if I knew how to reset the view count to zero just to keep it off the most clicked-on list there’s a good chance I would have done so already…but I figure I may as well just keep it where it is, out of brutal honesty and a bit of transgressive edginess. In fact this here post discussing the (slightly) awkward situation will probably give it a small boost, and might even bring it over the top to number one, though I doubt it. It will probably never reach a mildly embarrassing number one because another post, “Evola on Buddhism: Dharma for Fascists,” also comes up on Google and Duck Duck Go searches (probably from searches on something like “Evola Buddhism”), and that one is currently way ahead of all the rest, and consistently gets lots of views. But the Lust Epidemic one could easily climb as high as second place. Oh well.

     Since writing the preceding paragraph I have scrutinized my blog stats, and I notice that lately the post in question has been receiving more views than even the notorious Evola post (though Evola still has more than twice as many views). So who knows, it may indeed attain to an embarrassing first place on the most clicked-on list someday. On the bright side though, it is attracting some people who normally don’t read this blog, and who knows, perhaps one or two of them might stick around for the Buddhist philosophy, or at least the political rants. It may even be beneficial for them. It’s good to look on the bright side of things.

     I will very probably, the gods willing, write and post more transgressively risqué articles in future, including a probable third installment of my Beauties of Meditation miniseries. After all, the main purpose of this blog is to say politically incorrect things for the sake of pushing boundaries and envelopes, for the sake of encouraging freedom of thought, even if the thought is a bit on the naughty side. Besides, I have read that the violation of taboos breaks down rigid structures and creates liminal states, from which magic and miracles can arise.




Comments

  1. Brutaly honest! Everybody should know that a normal person just can not stop his urges. But on the other hand, to be honest, it's strange to hear something like that from a monk. This is also a point that makes you a bit averse to buddhism, even though I'm very interested in Buddhism. You just can not run away from sexuality and have a full and normal life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You don't have to run away from it. You have to trascend it.

      Delete
  2. I think your inclinations would be more suited toward Vajrayana. The use of desire and lust as tools on the path is a very skilful and profound method in tantric Buddhism. Have you ever looked into it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It might be that my inclination would be suited to something more tantric, although as a young Buddhist I was intent upon following what the historical Buddha taught, and he very probably didn't teach much tantra. Anyway I assume I'd have to drop out of the Theravada monkhood to do anything along those lines.

      Delete

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