As this is Gay Pride Month, I want to give a shout-out to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, who have been on the front lines in the struggle to change our cultural perception of pleasure. Given how many people have been ostracized, tortured, and killed for their sexual preferences, their courage is nothing short of heroic. The LGBTQ community is claiming the human right for all of us to freely exchange pleasure—sexual and otherwise—with one another as consenting adults. Even more radical, they have demonstrated the strength of character to place love before fear, to shift from the conventional fear-centric operating system to a love-centric operating system.
We all know what the fear-centric operating system feels like. It is the usual “us against them” mindset that has ruled human affairs for millennia. But in a world where Ebola virus can travel from Kinshasa to London in a matter of hours, where the press of a button can wipe out humanity in a nuclear winter, and where burning fossil fuels anywhere heats up the planet everywhere, the fear-centric operating system is passé. As I argue in my book, aah . . . , if as individuals and a species, we don’t radically shift to a love-centric operating system of mutual care and cooperation, we will soon join the rest of the 99 percent of the fossil record.
Of course, for a conventional fear-centric society and for those whose livelihood depends on the control of others, pivoting to a love-centric operating system is extremely threatening. This is why autocrats and the purveyors of morality are dead set against the LGBTQ movement. Their opposition is not about morality, the family, or HIV; it is about maintaining power and control.
The LGBTQ movement, regardless of your gender or sexual preference, is inviting all of us to step out of the shadows of our own, personal pleasure closet into the light of day and live authentically. This could mean confronting an abusive relationship at work or at home, liberating yourself from guilt and shame for doing the things you enjoy, saying no to mindless consumption, and saying yes to a life with passion, meaning, and purpose.
Make no mistake about it: We are all combatants in the War on Consciousness and the war is taking place in your own head. At stake is nothing less than how we will live together or die together on this beautiful planet of ours.
To learn more about how you can unlock the power of pleasure for personal and planetary transformation, please visit drjiamd.com where you can check out our book trailer, learn the 7 Immutable Laws of Pleasure, read/hear excerpts from aah . . . The Pleasure Book, assess your Pleasure Quotient, and more.
