Remarks by Walter Last
Karezza is a spiritual way of making love; basically it is a love meditation. This has many personal and relationship benefits but at present it has also the potential of transforming our society from a crumbling capitalist system based on greed to a new world order based on compassion and cooperation.
It was, I believe, in the winter of 1915-16 that a woman-friend in California wrote and asked me why I did not write a special little book on Karezza.
As events had convinced me that there certainly was crying need of instruction on the matter, her suggestion took root and this small brochure is the fruit.
For though quite a number have written more or less concerning controlled intercourse, they have usually done so guardedly and so vaguely that to the average inquirer the subject remains a mystery and the beginner does not know how to proceed.
And still beyond the embrace that begets the body is the embrace that begets the soul, that invokes the soul from the Soul.
The wonderful embraces, sacred, occult and unspeakably tender, pure as prayer;
The hour-long, longer indwelling of him within her, conceiving her again like a child, the hour-long, longer, over-closing of her upon him, bearing him again like a babe in her womb.
The infinite understanding of each by the other, the transcendent uplift of each by the other;
Always in the sexual life there should be cleanness - that innocence, kindness, justice of feeling which instinctively prefers any sacrifice of immediate passional pleasure rather than befoul or degrade a high ideal, or to jeopardize the physical or spiritual health of the beloved, or of self, or of the tenderly considered, possible unborn.
Cleanness expresses itself in a reverent regard and considerate self-control at all times, concerning all things, thoughts, motions and relations of sex, and the conscientious use of all organs and functions in the service of the soul's ideal.
Sex is very close to soul. Whoso touches sex touches the secrets and centers of life. This is the Mid-Spot, the Origin, the Crux, the Mystery. In sex the soul is naked. At the contacts of sex the soul trembles, quivers, is shaken to its midmost. The voice of sex, in its power, is as the voice of God - the most imperious and certain-to-be-obeyed call known in Nature or to man.
Sex, soul, religion, morality, are not to be separated. They belong together. The first reverence we detect in Nature is that of the male for the female, of offspring for mother. There is fear elsewhere, but here are mysterious adumbrations and blendings of attraction, adoration, worshipful obedience and withdrawing respect. Sex-religion was the first religion of man and we shall never get back again to true religion until we again see God in His creative motions and worship and reverence the soul in flesh.
For all finer natures, sex relations are only satisfying when touched by moral and religious emotion - when they are serious - when they involve the depths - when they inspire to the heights.
When sex feels sacred in the use it gives a divine innocence to the moment, a satisfying sweetness of recollection in the memory.
Sex is only satisfying where it is absolutely free, in a liberty made new and genuine by glad, mutual consent at every moment of its being.
I believe that sex runs through all life, animal and vegetable - perhaps through the inorganic world also. And that the sexes are cannibals, feeding on each other - the sexes are food to each other.
I believe that both sexes are in the simplest uni-cell. That, afterwards, as life evolves, there is a tendency to a division of labor - to separate the sexes into two persons, but that always the two sexes are more or less in one - always the male is part female, the female part male in varying degrees of more or less.
The sexual elixir, essence, magnetism, whatever it is, in the human blood, is the true natural stimulant and joy-giver of life. It is this that gives the "illusion," the "glamour," the romance," the "blindness," the "madness," the "thrill," and all the rest of which the lore of love tells us. All other stimulants are artificial - this one is absolutely natural; all other stimulants are poisons - this one is food; all others have reactions, are finally narcotics and depressants - this one has no reactions; reaction only appears in its absence, when it is lost or wasted.
The opinion prevails that in Karezza the man does it all and the woman's co-operation is negligible. This error may have arisen in part from the old name, "Male Continence," for the method.
On the contrary, her co-operation, or at least acquiescence, is indispensable, and it is probable that a reckless woman, or one who deliberately and skillfully seeks to do so, can break the control of the most expert man in the art.
For instance, very sudden and unexpected leaps, plunges, or contortions on the woman's part, or wild and abandoned writhings are difficult to withstand, and there is one particular movement, in which the feminine organs clasp tenaciously their sensitive guest and then are drawn suddenly, powerfully backward and downward, which, if executed quickly and voluptuously enough and repeated, I feel sure must unlock the strongest man living.
The desire of a woman is seldom so comparatively constant and steady as with a man, but fickle and variable, often latent, though the practice in Karezza tends to equalize the sexes in this, but there are times when, from various reasons, a wave of intense craving suddenly sweeps over her. Particularly is this likely to happen just before the appearance of the menses. And at such times the woman's desire is very likely to exceed in wild, fiery force that of an ordinary man. Wherefore it follows that very few women at such times get complete satisfaction, leading to great disappointments and marital unhappiness. The unexpected violence of the woman's emotion, upsets the man's nerves and causes either a "too quick" orgasm, or complete psychic impotence.