Author: Todd Vickers

Dispute monogamy for 5 more reasons

  By
dispute monogamy

I dispute monogamy and I hope that my monogamous brothers and sisters understand that it is not just the failures of monogamy that provoke the contempt, ever perceptible in my writing. The world is imperfect and I accept the imperfections of society, yet I do not condone bad ideals or a society that refuses to realize the good ideals it possesses. We are always free to choose monogamy. Elsewhere I’ve published five very different reasons to question monogamy. I state plainly here that monogamy is a… Read More

What we think about love, sex and art changes things

  By
about love

In the west the propaganda of religion is probably not as pervasive as are the songs, representations, and symbolism about love. We know how different religious influences change the interpretation of a fact. Now consider how everyone is a philosopher about love over coffee, but most people, do not want their love philosophies scrutinized. Most love philosophies are not concerned with the truth, but with a means to some other end. Our beliefs change what we see, it is a weakness of the immense conceptual power… Read More

Changing our views of love

  By
love like water

Love like water. Instead of saying we have different kinds of love, such as, one kind for friends, another for family, and another then lovers. I ask, what if we have only one love that takes different forms, like the way water conforms itself to the present situation? If love like water resonates with you, rather than trying to pour our love into containers shaped like our ideals that assume what love should be. Instead, I suggest, we hold standards of harm that tell us… Read More

Sex Education | Video with John Oliver

  By
Sex Education

Once again the inimitable John Oliver exposes the weakness of American abstinance sex eduducation and with humor at the end, offers his own sex education video. Watch and enjoy.       Photo of John Oliver By TechCrunch – The 7th Annual Crunchies Awards on February 10, 2014 in San Francisco, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45899540 Read More

One sexually daring woman degraded by custom

  By
sexually daring

I want to respect the trial and error of a sexually daring woman who is now dead, and expose the all too common error for the sake of others. This writing is not merely a eulogy for a sexually daring woman whom I will refer to by her first name, these words are more than a remembrance for a sexual rebel. Her life touched me deeply and offers a lesson, a gift for those people still living. I speak of the unnecessary degradation of a… Read More

Removing Condoms Without Consent | Via Huffington Post

  By ,
Condom

“Stealthing,” the fact that there is an online comunity encouraging such behavior suggests to me complisity in a crime. Stealthing is non-consensual sex and is potentially fatal. A new study explores the phenomenon of “stealthing” ― the purposefully nonconsensual removal of condoms during sex ― and how those who fall victim to the practice can move forward. The study, written by Alexandra Brodsky for the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, features interviews with victims of stealthing. Brodsky also does a deep dive into the online world… Read More

How to question love ideals | By Todd Vickers at Vivriti.org

  By
Love ideals

Intimate relationships and love ideals are a touchy topic anywhere, but the consequences of marriage, relationship breakups, and vengeance for rejection should make us willing to scrutinize our beliefs.  Ideals should not blind us to facts. In some countries, divorce is almost impossible due to the force of custom, but custom itself does not make any belief true. Love ideals tend to hide when the ideals are merely self-serving and when they, in fact, don’t serve us We forget concepts are mental and treat love… Read More

4 reasons a sense of wonder is important in a beautiful life

  By
Wonder

Wonder in a beautiful life | Todd Vickers via Vivriti.org “1. There can be no surprise without discovery. Discovery is like a free fall; a new understanding of something previously taken for granted; a surprise affection, something beautiful or new knowledge. With discovery we are thrust into the moment. The experience is vitalizing, it awakens our senses. Think of a child who first sees a butterfly, they chase it, its colors are so beautiful, it’s dance is so erratic. We can envision the child laughing… Read More

How to truthfully have intimate relationship | Todd Vickers via Vivriti.org

  By ,
intimate relationship

Excerpt: “…To be unaware of how we conceive intimate relationship leads to treating our questionable beliefs as fact. Let’s look at some problems and then solutions. Don’t become cynical in intimate relationship. Find those people who value the truth. On one hand, the hope for something better drives human discovery; meaning trial and error. On the other, unrealistic expectations suck the life out of our love. We can’t ignore the valuable experience of the past. But if we mistake our beliefs as evidence about ourselves,… Read More

Sex Impact – Indian Youth Suicide | Published at Vivriti.org

  By
Youth Suicide

Youth Suicide; more educated young people kill themselves in India, why? Todd Vickers looks at one part of the problem, the stifling of sexuality to conform with tradition. Remember the problem is youth suicide, not the emotional discomfort of  those who adhere to a custom. Let’s keep the priorities straight. “The truthfulness needed may go far beyond what our parents ever imagined. Every human advance today came about as an alternative to what went before, that process of advance is still ongoing. The conventional mind feels certainty… Read More

Sex Power – Media Offering Vicarious Pleasure

  By

What is sex power? It’s no trivial fact that almost every human being you meet  longs for sexual joy, and those who understand that fact have power. Unfortunately, shame, possessive-ness, questionable beliefs and the tendency to use people as a means place sex power in the hands of advertisers, religion, and people who are willing to take advantage or deceive. Our instinctive joy gets repeatedly associated with products like food or deodorant. To take back the usurped sex power requires more than talk, it requires risking an innovation, an… Read More

How to Find Your New Life | Todd writes for Vivriti.org

  By
Finding New Life

“How to find new life? You follow the impulses toward a better life, even when it’s hard. That is what I do, and it’s not easy but the alternative is a prison of routine and amusement seeking to avoid feeling dead. Remember the sprout struggles out of the seed. The chick struggles out of the shell, the bud struggles to open, the fledgling struggles on the edge of the nest, for the sky beckons. I’m sure it’s terrifying, those wings have never had the chance… Read More

Understanding Relationships Nurturing Love | Todd Vickers writes for Vivriti.org

  By
Understanding Relationships

Understanding relationships means understanding pain. This is vital if we wish to bring relief to useless suffering. To reduce useless pain is nurturing to love.  But what does that actually mean? Understand two sources of suffering. One source is fact based, some event like a toothache, the loss of someone loved, an abuse etc. The other suffering our mind generates, we make stuff up and believe it, like the real fear created when imagining you’ve lost your wallet when you’ve put it in another pocket and… Read More

Slut Shaming Cultural Differences | Todd Vickers writing at Vivriti.org

  By
slut shaming

Anyone involved in slut shaming does not want girls to have freedom, to wear whatever they want, to like whoever they like (including boys), to speak boldly etc., whatever excuse these ‘perhaps’ well-meaning people offer, they indulge in power over girls when they use shame. This shame is an abuse. We can train a cat to fear a mouse by shocking it with loud noise when we expose it to a mouse. A cat becomes conditioned to expect the shock and fear, it learns to run away from a mouse when it sees one…. Read More

How to improve our love

  By
No Shame in Sex

How to improve our love? First let’s begin with a short alagory to set the tone ‘When born into a den of thieves, a Buddha learns to steal.’   We’re born into a Machiavellian world of love songs, stories, religion, ads, movies, half-truths and falsehoods about love. How to improve our love after we’ve tasted so much failure? If there were no creativity in love, we would be loving like our ancestors. When expectations arise from the past, the pain of any flawed beliefs we must… Read More

Todd Vickers writing at Vivriti.org – Freedom – Women’s day

  By

What is Freedom A donkey chooses to pursue a carrot dangled in front of its face and thereby pulls the farmers cart. That isn’t what we mean by freedom. The donkeys choice is constrained by bondage. The denial of alternatives let’s us know it is something far less than freedom…. Read more at Vivriti.org   Read More

Love wants to live

  By

We want love. Many of us will say that it’s one of the most important things in our lives. Love wants to live! When we distinguish what we see in relationships from our sentiment ABOUT relationships, it seems that a great deal of what passes for love rests on fear: practical fears, fear of the unknown, fear of being alone. People confuse agreeable circumstances with love. We like sex, money, amusements, and leisure. Those things are worth having, but they are not love. Sometimes, people… Read More

Renouncing the limits of love | Todd Vickers on Vivriti.org

  By

Why aren’t we renouncing loves limits? “Who do you know who does not place a boundary around his love? We are afraid others will use us and that our desire for love makes us foolish. In deference to this fear, we try to be smart and use others in the name of love for our own ends. We become what we fear and keep things hidden from our mates, especially the secrets that…”  Read more at Vivriti.org Read More

Leaving dead relationships

  By

Let’s start leaving dead relationships. Some people hold love hostage. Hiding behind a mask, they threaten to kill love if another doesn’t submit to spoken or unspoken demands. Sometimes a piece of love is cut off, a warning, just to prove that they are serious. Only the mind perpetrates such terrorism, mind with its boundless expectations. Such people will never set love free. Any love that once was alive will probably be killed. Regardless, such a relationship might continue to last, even for a lifetime…. Read More