In my book, 11 Minutes, there’s the following passage:
"‘I’m the one who should feel ashamed for being unable to arouse them, but, no, they always blame themselves.’
To avoid such embarrassments, Maria always tried to put men at their ease, and if someone seemed drunker or more fragile than usual, she would avoid full sex and concentrate instead on caresses and masturbation, which always seemed to please them immensely, absurd though this might seem, since they could perfectly well masturbate on their own.
She had to make sure that they didn’t feel ashamed. These men, so powerful and arrogant at work, constantly having to deal with employees, customers, suppliers, prejudices, secrets, posturings, hypocrisy, fear and oppression, ended their day in a nightclub and they didn’t mind spending three hundred and fifty Swiss francs to stop being themselves for a night.
‘For a night? Now come on, Maria, you’re exaggerating. It’s really only forty-five minutes, and if you allow time for taking off clothes, making some phony gesture of affection, having a bit of banal conversation and getting dressed again, the amount of time spent actually having sex is about eleven minutes.’
Eleven minutes. The world revolved around something that only took eleven minutes.
And because of those eleven minutes in any one twenty-four-hour day (assuming that they all made love to their wives every day, which is patently absurd and a complete lie) they got married, supported a family, put up with screaming kids, thought up ridiculous excuses to justify getting home late, ogled dozens, if not hundreds of other women with whom they would like to go for a walk around Lake Geneva, bought expensive clothes for themselves and even more expensive clothes for their wives, paid prostitutes to try to give them what they were missing, and thus sustained a vast industry of cosmetics, diet foods, exercise, pornography and power, and yet when they got together with other men, contrary to popular belief, they never talked about women. They talked about jobs, money and sport.
Something was very wrong with civilisation, and it wasn’t the destruction of the Amazon rainforest or the ozone layer, the death of the panda, cigarettes, carcinogenic foodstuffs or prison conditions, as the newspapers would have it.
It was precisely the thing she was working with: sex."
Do you agree?
Do you think sex is dominating the human civilization?
Previous post: The Witch Of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
Next post: on Innocence
Previous post: The Witch Of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
Next post: on Innocence
{ 133 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
O vício é o abuso das paixões porém nem todas ás paixões se transformam em vício,mas se transformadas,seus excessos causam danos á pessoa.Para o cérebro toda recompensa é bem vinda,os neurônios reconhecem o que é prazer e ás pessoas mais vulneráveis se tornam dependentes, por isso pessoas fumam, bebem,usam drogas jogam todo o salário do mês,comem demais,compram o que não podem pagar,fazem exercícios físicos compulsivamente,fazem sexo compulsivamente,etc.O mal uso do sexo domina o mundo pelo vício.As pessoas procuram por prazeres narcísicos e pouco se importam com os seres humanos.Um estudo feito no sul do Brasil revelou que 70 % das garotas de programa sofrem de depressão.Quem lucra com a desgraça alheia se importa com isso ?
O sexo realmente é importante a nós ( óbvio).Através dele se fortalece o amor entre um homem e uma mulher.O sexo domina o mundo pelo amor e o ódio.
Quando digo pelo ódio me refiro a todas ás más atitudes humanas.( prostituição, pedofilia,parafilias).Fica evidente como as pessoas viraram mercadorias.Se alguém está triste com a vida,estressado,ou até com baixa alto estima a pessoa procura por sexo e não por amor e companheirismo.Usa uma pessoa do mesmo modo que se usa uma caneta,quando acaba a tinta e a caneta já não serve para nada joga no lixo e vai a procura de outra caneta.Isso é muito triste,principalmente por saber que as pessoas são muito fáceis de se influenciar,e que tem muita gente lucrando com a desgraça alheia.Uma pesquisa cientifica revelou que o sexo vicia tanto quanto cocaína,ele age através de neurotransmissores que deixa a pessoa em estado de euforia e imenso prazer na hora do orgasmo.E porque o marketing sexual é tão explorado ? porque muitas meninas engravidam tão jovens quando ainda nem decidiram o que querem da vida ? Com certeza tem alguém ganhando ( e muito ) com isso.È muito difícil na sociedade encontrar um homem que olhe uma mulher como se fosse uma irmã,geralmente um homem olha uma mulher como se ela fosse uma garrafa de cerveja pronta para ser consumida e descartada logo em seguida sem se importar nem um pouco com seus sentimentos.E cada vez mais ficamos individualistas.
WEll sex has to be by humans with LOve and that is our difference to animals that purely use sex as a form of repocriate ! Sex has been used in the book as a way to Maria’s means of having her dream come true…the better live for herself and her family, the farm “shacra” back in BRazil. Money means power and that is the message of it and unfortunately ruling the world, whereby people with power and money think they can ever buy feelings…untrue. LOve d the book and will read again has it was when originally came out and it was different to all other Paulo’s stories and a story of a lot of girls that go to Switzerland not only Brazilian but many other Nationalities too. xxxxxxxxx
Sex, a mere act of love..
The question that lies beneath the word ‘love’ in that; is a Mystery though!
Is it an act of loving one’s own self, that relating to pleasure, lust, passion, greed, and simply that last orgasmic minute of joy?
Or is it an act of loving the other, giving unconditionally, when one forgets own’s own self and focuses on the other, their existence, their feelings, what they want, and how they feel?
Or is it both, mixed into each other, one overcoming the other in moments of angry passion and other moments we wish we could freeze endlessly into the shadows of time…
There’s always room for questions, and even more for answers; the real one is inside a split second of a thought!
I would like to add to my previous post that we are part of a transitional time when the energy of the mass is moving up. The fact that writings about pursuit of a personal legend and taking fate in one’s own hands show that the third chakra is being activated on mass level. There is more and more concern about other’s wellbeing – which is a testimony for reaching and wroking through the fourth chakra. Progress is being made and it is made at phenomenal pace. We are all part of it. How amazing that is!
The act of sex is intended to be an act of creation. All creative acts tend to give us pleasure and satisfaction. Be it the creation of a piece of art or experiencing a divine vision and tapping into higher laws of nature. For all acts of creation we use the same energy, except we run it through different chakras. Therefore the final result is different. Therefore if we focus exceptionally on sex we live through a very low charka and we end up living a primitive life.
The sex charka is accessible for most of humanity. Because the joy and exaltation of experiencing the creative energy through the other chakras is unknown to the majority of people, they tend to focus on sex. From there the commercial advertisements take off and sell everything by implying some sort of sexual experience. Therefore the focus on sex shows the level of development of a certain civilizaiton. Sales focus the masses, the majority. They a thermometer of where we all as a mass stand. The answer is at the SECDOND CHAKRA.
But it is also a promise how much more is there to discover. Moving up and up in learning to use this same divine energy that runs through us. UP AND UP. Where there is a lot of light. LIGHT!
I believe sex is another way to human perfection of mind and soul, but it depends on the way of having sex …we need to respect our souls
el sexo domina y a dominado siempre a la humanidad sin el sexo no existirìa la raza humana , a travez del conocimiento se puede educar para mantener el tabù y que no se salga fuera de los lìmites permitidos es decir respetando a las diferentes edades condiciones sociales pero eso es lo que vemos mientras tanto en muchos paìses llamados civilizados se abusa del sexo e incluso sin conocimiento de las ofendidas que son menores de edad y mujeres llevadas con engaños y obligadas a trabajar enla profesioòn mas antigua que es la prostituciòn las mismas que son esclavas y en su tierra de origen talvez ya las olvidarony nadie sabe lo que estan padeciendo solo por el deseado sexo que piden a gritos a cualquier precio los hombres que aùn teniendo compañeras de alcoba siguen deseando encuentros furtivos con damas pagadas
Sex is an ideal to achieve; society, religion, and other institutions will try to control it, reject it, and over embellish it for the sake of controlling you. But how you go about achieving your own ideal of sex (or any for that matter) requires your soul, heart, and intuition which in turn guide your intentions. You, my friend, need to have an ideal in mind for sex, love and life itself. These are beautiful ideals which have been blurred and broken down by institutions we will undoubtedly have to co-exist with but we can do so freely so long as we think as individuals. Continue to ask yourselves (and especially the universe) what these forces mean and what it means to have them. And always remember, that these forces can be found in nature. The way we see these things in society is not necessarily the absolute truth, but just an interpretation.
In fact, society to me is just a compilation of conflicting realities, some far more aggressive or dominant than others. What’s yours though? That’s what’s important and beautiful. What is YOUR reality?
Thank You and Peace Be With You,
Adriana
as what you have said in the book that being a prostitute is one of the oldest profession in the world, so, it’s sad but it’s true. Sex has dominated our world, our lives, in many ways that we can imagine.
I don’t think it is dominating the human civilization, in fact it is being suppressed as governments and religions have been always afraid of its power…the real sex and satisfaction comes from totally letting go of everything and breaking the boundaries; while governments and religions are about making the boundaries to control everything, therefore not allowing it to dominate the society.
Sex is natural, sex is nature, therefore it has the power of mother nature.
after reading the novel eleven minutes and comparing my thoughts with maria;s thoughts the nice girl of beautiful novel i come to realise one things that the dominating things in life is not the sex but THE SOUL, as maria says in this novel,i see that those who touhed my soul failed to arouse my body and those who aroused my body failed to touch my soul that is how i understand the sex as well , sex is the mediuam, sex is the tool and sex is the bridge to join the two bank of the river , soul has been closed in side our body, our body lives with the breath and the soul live with the love. in pure sex, the sex which is not for only eleven minutes but for ever would only provide love, only allow us to flot in the vast ocean of love ,which would be not only love but the gift of god, in a sentense i like to say if sex is not for sex shake, if it is for love shake we could understand the soul if we understand the soul we would able to understand the dominating things of life.the very importent things in life is to understand the soul which is enclosed, sealed and dumped in side body we can only find it with the help of love, we get love when we surrender everythings infornt of even nothings then we become total, in totality we understand sex love and soul after that we could aroused from soul to body.
Sex is the pathway for survival, for which every species races across. More than sex, may be the derivatives of sex, such as lust and its parent, survival instinct dominate the human civilisation.Dont you think?
Oh yes, sex does!
Sex is an ongoing dominating factor for the human race and it always will dominate us.
Sex is too strong to let go of.
It has been dominated and it also depends on how you see it??
Life may improve and be fun with sex or life may get destroyed when you try to have it with more than one.
← Previous Comments