Sexual excitation -- the amplification of which will be referred to from now on as charge -- is not just something that happens to us, but often is also something that we, however unknowingly, generate in ourselves.

We are in charge of our charge, however strongly we might be inclined to think of ourselves otherwise. It is natural to feel sexually attracted to certain people, but not so natural to translate and amplify that attraction -- or psychogravitational pull -- into charge.

The transition from attraction to charge is an unknown territory to most of us, a largely dehumanized zone overpopulated by the conviction that the seductive promises lining its hormonal highways are there of their own accord, independent of us. This leaves us in the position of innocent bystander or victim, conveniently separate from -- and far from responsible for -- the erotic heating-up we are experiencing.

So what is charge? It is fundamentally just biochemical thrill on the make, mixing together amplified sensation and erotic anticipation. A cocktail of sweet dynamite. Regardless of its outfitting and presentation, charge ordinarily is simply the leading edge -- or wedge -- of unilluminated lust.

Most of all, however, it is something that we are doing to ourselves, something erotically engrossing and excitingly compelling, something we engage in not so as to awaken from our conditioning, but rather so as to exploit its possibilities. Making out in prison makes it seem less like prison -- at least until charge wanes, and we once again busy ourselves rebuilding and restaging it, looking to its engorged meatiness and hotly enveloping dramatics for enough warmth to keep the chill realization of what we are really up to at bay.

The creation of charge, and especially the repetitive creation of charge, mostly is just compensation for the apparent loss of -- or, more accurately, estrangement from -- what we naturally are. In short, a pleasurably consoling refuge from what troubles us. Something that quickly makes us feel better, efficiently distracting us from what we’d rather not face.

The craving to create charge, to suffuse (and even overwhelm) ourselves with its sweetly surging sensations, is mostly just a confession of being marooned from our depths. A booby prize in the making. Beneath its pinkened periphery and hormonal heights, charge is actually quite desperate, overly concerned with both its satisfaction and its continuation.

But just what gets satisfied? Not us.

Sex cannot truly satisfy and nourish us if charge persists as its foundation and central characteristic. In fact, sex can then only degenerate, until the distance or numbness or turned-off-ness that was there all along is at last undeniably present, daylight naked, soaking up attention and energy (thereby leaving lovers wondering where their original passion went).

Real sex does not depend upon charge. Its passion arises not so much from stimulation, as from an intimacy rooted in deep mutual trust, an intimacy that relies on the most potent of all aphrodisiacs: wide-awake, unconditioned love, soul-anchored love, love in the raw, love that is but the feeling of edgeless, already-sentient openness

As it is usually employed, charge is little more than erotic self-advertising, serving to proclaim our sexual readiness, availability, and potency. When we are thus possessed by charge -- overvaluing it to the point where we are unresistingly seeing through its eyes -- just about everything around us with any sexual valence tends to be considered as a potential object for its appetite, a possible harbinger of erotic possibility, to be classified as fuckable, unfuckable, or worth checking out.

Nevertheless, charge can be a very positive thing, as when it arises in the crucible of real intimacy; then charge becomes but a juicy rush and richly thrilling swell that supports and celebrates our intimacy.

When we, however, create charge with those with whom we are not lovers, we usually then only create (or reinforce) distance between ourselves and our lover, all but ensuring that our intimacy with our lover won’t go any deeper. Which may be what “we” actually want.

Flirting -- teasing spiked with sexual innuendo -- with those other than our lover more often than not keeps us “safely” in the shallows, regardless of the depths suggested by our bedroom eyes. Animating and indulging our promiscuous capacity, however subtly or discretely, generally keeps our intimacies unnecessarily unstable, for we, through our irresponsibly eroticized wandering of attention, are then betraying -- or are at least dangerously close to betraying -- our relationship with our partner.

Thus do we “protect” ourselves from reaching the point with our partner where we’ve gone too far to have an exit from intimacy’s demands, distracting and immunizing ourselves with neurotic suggestiveness and its titillating payoffs. In so doing, we only are screwing ourselves.

The point, however, isn’t to repress charge, but rather to become as conscious as possible of our relationship to it, so that we might cease needing to advertise our sexual availability, and cease being slaves to the creation and imperatives of charge, and cease relying on the presence of charge to make us feel better.

When we genuinely move beyond teasing ourselves and others with the promises and possibilities of eroticism, we are in a position to embody a deeper pleasure, a pleasure that eventually transmutes into Ecstasy. Then we can feel the Presence of the Beloved, the One with Whom we are forever already lovers, letting that feeling permeate and light up our bond with our partner.

When we let our charge be in charge, when we overassociate sexuality with sensation, God then is reduced to the Ultimate Orgasm. When we hobble charge with guilt, God is then reduced to the Ultimate Peeping Tom.

At the same time, however, squashing charge keeps us playing vigilant zookeeper or leak-inspector, trying to ensure that our erotic heatedness remains properly or nicely contained. Eviscerating charge simply desiccates us, creating in us an exaggerated interest in religious, philosophical, or political watering holes.

The fantasies we erect and inhabit through the engineering of charge don’t necessarily need a wrecking ball, nor quarantine, nor moral righteousness, nor more fire exits, but only sufficient compassion to touch the loneliness, fear, and pain that crouch in their shadows. When we undress charge and give it heart, it becomes but liberated energy, revealing what we’re all dying to see and feel.

Taking charge of our charge involves a no that makes possible a deeper yes. And in that yes is a Joy beyond imagination, a Joy that is our birthright, pulsing in -- and as -- our very cells, welcoming all that we are.