Fifty shades of shadow work: What happens when integral gets kinky

Yes, folks, I went to see Fifty Shades of Grey…by myself…wearing an overcoat (it’s cold here in Boulder!). I sat off to the side by myself with a tub of popcorn on my lap. It was creepy, but this is what I do for you people.

I wish the movie had been creepy. Actually, I wish the movie had been anything at all, besides empty and boring. It read like a two-hour fashion commercial where the characters were modeled rather than transmitted. But, alas, this isn’t a movie review. If you want to know just how bad Fifty Shades of Grey is you can go to Rotten Tomatoes and see 198 reviews averaging a 25 out of 100 rating.

Far more interesting is the subject of the movie: BDSM. BD stands for bondage and discipline, and SM stands for sadism and masochism. Fifty Shades of Grey is mainstreaming these practices into the bloodstream of our culture. The movie itself made close to $250 million in less than a week and is expected to exceed $600 million when all is said and done. The Fifty Shades trilogy of books is a huge phenomenon in the publishing industry as well, selling over 100 million copies worldwide. For perspective, the last big publishing blockbuster was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which sold a mere twenty million copies.

Why the success of Fifty Shades? Because we’re ready. We’re comfortable with gay everything at this point and send nothing but blessings to Bruce Jenner. But God is too good to let us rest, so … meet the kink community!

Don’t you love the name? The kink community! These are the folks who tie other people up, hang them from the ceiling and flog them with a whip. Who bring back the master-slave thing, complete with boot-licking. Who burn, brand, force-feed and sexually penetrate each other with objects including their fists, as we learned in a strangely blasé scene in the movie. [Spoiler alert: regarding anal and vaginal fisting he was pro and she was con.]

It sounds like an expose of the secret police in some third world country. But, no, it’s the kink community!

In this week’s podcast I bring an integral lens to the emergence of kink into the popular culture. I look at how BDSM allows us to bring primitive energies — including juicy polarities such as predator / prey, and dominance / submission — back online as art and play. And how “experiences of extremis” break us out of our contracted identities into a larger sense of self that is more connected, fluid and fulfilling.

Kink is a tonic for the denatured nature of modern and postmodern life. Think about it: when do any of us get to express our pure red energies? When do I get to slap anybody around? Who trembles when I walk into the room? Who begs me for anything? Who in my life is just there to serve my every carnal desire? Nobody, that’s who.

And from the submissive polarity: when do I ever get to just really give myself up to another person, to submit utterly? When do I get to lose myself? When do I ever consciously experience pain, humiliation and surrender–these things that I’ve been exhausting my life force trying to avoid?

Click here to hear a full conversation between Robin and Jeff.

The rise of BDSM in our culture feels like it is right on schedule, not just as sheer experience, but as a therapeutic vehicle for healing into more energy and power. I’m no aficionado of kink, and have never been particularly attracted. But I must say I’m interested, as are a lot of people these days, apparently. In the podcast I explore the fascination, the challenges, and the character of the emerging kink community. I’m joined for the last half by my long-time friend in the integral scene, Robin Reinach, who is a wise and seasoned explorer of this new territory.

Who knows? In the sacred world to come we may be busy beating the crap out of each other. Devouring each other. And the lion will lay down with the lamb.

FULL TRANSCRIPT