Introductions

NOTE: Also visit this page if you have questions about the actual practice of controlled intercourse.

What is Peace Between the Sheets about?

It's a clear, accurate explanation of why relationships that start out with so much potential often end up in frustration, miscommunication and hurt feelings. Peace offers a solution: making love differently.

Welcome! This website highlights the intriguing parallels between (1) modern neuroscience discoveries and (2) sacred sexuality traditions that emphasize the importance of using sex to achieve inner balance. Every major religion and many other traditions, both secular and spiritual, contain clues about the wisdom of learning to manage sex carefully to achieve greater wellbeing, relationship harmony and even heightened spiritual awareness.

Yet for the most part, sacred sex mysteries have remained in the shadows of mankind's awareness because they run counter to our most fundamental instincts. Now, however, science is revealing how those instincts, in the form of our primitive brain programming, may be acting as an emotional wedge between couples, negatively affecting our health and longevity, and contributing to our resistance. Indirectly they reveal why we might want to take a closer look at some of the wisdom of the past.

Fascinated by the neurochemistry of sex? Inspired by the ideals of sacred sexuality traditions? Tired of relationship disharmony?

For thousands of years, around the globe, spiritual teachers have taught that sex without orgasm improves harmony between mates, reduces cravings, increases wellbeing, and heightens spiritual awareness. Ancient Taoist master Lao Tzu taught this practice as "angelic dual cultivation." Jesus called it "the sacrament of the bridal chamber." Ninteenth-century American gynecologist Alice Bunker Stockham, MD christened it "Karezza." Fainter echoes survived in Tantric traditions, Chinese sexology treatises, Sufi writings, Jewish mysticism, and even in the courtly love literature of the Middle Ages.

What can science tell us about sex, orgasm and mating? Recent brain science discoveries reveal that sex is governed by the reward center of the limbic system in the brain. A Dutch scientist discovered that brain scans of orgasm closely resemble scans of shooting heroin. Other studies show that after orgasm a "sexual-satiation" neurochemical shoots up, and the neurochemistry affecting libido changes radically. In short, conventional sex can cause a hangover.

Any psychiatrist will confirm that our feelings are projected onto those around us. The natural neurochemical fluctuations that accompany fertilization-driven sex can therefore radically distort how we see our lover, both before and after sex.

Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships is an entertaining blend of personal experiences, the latest neuroscience, and forgotten insights from around the globe. It confronts current assumptions about sex and love and offers a refreshing, practical approach to sexuality.

Human behavior varies a lot. As compared with other primates, we're heavily influenced by culture, religion, family upbringing, and so forth. As a consequence, it's logical to conclude that our fitful monogamy is purely culturally induced and not instinctual. (On the other hand, we readily seem to accept that promiscuous tendencies are wired into our brains.) 

• Ever wonder why intimate relationships are so fragile?
• Ever wish someone would just hand you a reliable set of instructions for relationship harmony?
• Ever feel like a malevolent force was undermining your love life despite your desperate efforts?

This website is about relationships, spirituality and sexuality. It's based on the rather startling premise that fertilization-driven sex creates an unsuspected problem for humanity...beyond the obvious crises of overpopulation, environmental devastation, and widespread starvation. Yet the message of this site is one of hope. Humankind possesses untapped potential for harmony and wellbeing through the medium of intimate relationships.