Sexual Sublimation: A Chastity Retrospective
In My personal life, I have recently given up a very emotionally time-consuming habit. It has led to freeing up a LOT of time and energy, which I will use to be more productive in a BDSM capacity. And as soon as this liberation occurred, I considered just how draining it was to live the way I had for quite some time. This process of funneling led Me to reflect on our bodies, psychological states, and what we do with both. Which brought Me to Chastity.
Having seen a few divergent prevailing ideas regarding sexual energy as fuel, I am choosing to focus on those which require abstinence. But first, a few notes on sexual energy:
If you've been castrated, chemically or physically (without HRT), it's likely you'll note that you lost quite a bit of motivation due to the lack of hormones your body produces. Testosterone enhances desire to mate, and with that drive comes a host of competitive and potentially aggressive behaviors that lead to a focus on achieving higher social status, financial success, etc. That said, it's easy to conclude that the more sex someone has, the more testosterone they produce, thus a greater productivity level. Sex = Greater Productivity, right? Not necessarily so.
There are a few schools of thought (some with empirical evidence) that chastity can be used to increase productivity. I will examine NoFap, Ananda, and sexual transmutation. Lastly, I will discuss cage usage, problems, and relief.
NoFap is a website, online forum, and subreddit which seeks to help interested individuals reduce / eliminate masturbation and the usage of internet pornography in order to channel sexual energy into greater pursuits. This started as a result of a thread posted to Reddit discussing a 2003 study which found, "men who refrain from masturbation for seven days experience a 145.7% spike in testosterone levels on the seventh day." Dopamine debt and oversaturation of pleasure centers in the brain without a commensurate level of work are explored in this concept. Challenges and achieving goals are central to this practice. This specific phenomenon has been around for about 7 years and has a fairly large presence on YouTube (even down to this animated instructional video). This method has been criticized as being mired in misogyny and toxic masculinity, but these are not integral to obtain benefits. Those who practice NoFap are a varied group of individuals; predominantly men, but with a large disparity of religious, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Ananda is a global spiritual movement which includes “meditation, Kriya Yoga, spiritually-oriented Hatha Yoga, community, and divine friendship.” It explores using yoga and other methods to push sexual energy "upward" to make it a "higher" energy. There is a definitive 10 Ways to Transmute Sexual Energy guide on their website. They also have instructional articles about spiritualizing sexual force and overcoming sexual desire. They also discourage physical contact between two "unsuited" souls, which even extends to hugging or social niceties such as opening doors. Chastity is their purported key to godliness, here.
Sexual transmutation is a process used by many philosophies and intellectual traditions to achieve one of many things: purpose, achievement, higher awareness, and other ostensible benefits. Various dabblers include Taoists (who explore the power of "Jing"), self-help gurus (such as Scott Jeffrey), and I would be remiss to exclude a group that is mired in controversy: MGTOW (although arguably their approach extends into unhealthy coping strategies that pit them against women, as even Jordan Peterson has explained). To be clear, I am not endorsing any of these particular sources, but I do renounce disconnection from -- and hatred of -- women. Freud held that sublimation, specifically of the sexual variety, was key to being mature and integral to psychological balance.
In BDSM, Chastity occupies a very similar role. Depending on the perception of the submissive, employing a chastity device may create the conditions necessary to produce sexual sublimation easily. This can also involve transference of the sexual control to a third party, and act as an intensely bonding and romantic gesture. Just as monogamy (without infidelity) is seen as an ultimate commitment, chastity is seen as an even more acute sacrifice to a trusted loved one. There are also other uses for chastity, such as increasing sexual focus and awareness for sufferers of low drive or erectile dysfunction, but as I noted and as Ava Zhang emphasizes... it really depends on what the device is being used for.
For non-op (I hesitate to use "pre-op" since it isn't universal) trans women, it can be a source of comfort and calm to "lock away" their external genitals. This way, it is easy to think of them as both controlled and "out of sight, out of mind." Dysphoria can be mitigated with extensive chastity usage. My 24/7 slave is trans, and she is unhappy, moody, and overall less well-behaved than I prefer when she's out of her "dicklet" cage. Being locked confers a feeling of harmony within her. I prefer it as well!
