Showing posts with label couples. Show all posts
Showing posts with label couples. Show all posts

Thursday, August 28, 2025

Burning Man Day 4: Orgy Dome, mud


Art, creativity, and awe - it's all here.
What really happens at Burning Man? Everything's free, life lived by principles, not a music festival but rather a festival of lights and lifestyle, standup comedy, Orgy Dome, acid (LSD) trip, the afterglow, Buddhist insight: "Desire what you don't have a little less, desire more what you do have." Put the phone away. Ride a bike. Stare at the sky and into different dimensions that are just as far away as the doors of the perception. Mario Adrion explains, concluding, "Namaste, b*tches."


24 hours at Burning Man 2025 – Daily Playa Survival Vlog

(Escaping Normal Life) Aug. 28, 2025: In this daily playa survival vlog, I go inside the heart of Black Rock City – where 70,000 people come together in the Nevada desert to create the most unbelievable temporary city on Earth.

🌵✨ Yes, it's muddy and messy, but that doesn’t stop the fun, the phenomenal art, massive sound camps, live music, free spa treatments, caked mud, no showers, and unbelievable energy all around.

Beyond the parties, Burning Man is also a place for self-growth, spirituality, and community – with religious temples, AA meetings, weddings, families, kids, and powerful moments of togetherness that make this city feel like home.

Too often, people focus only on the negatives, but the truth is Burning Man is a functioning city full of creativity, connection, and human spirit. Join me for 24 hours of survival, dust, mud, art, music, and magic at Burning Man 2025! Venmo: venmo.com/u/escaping_normal_life

  • Margaret Qualley, "Reality Is Not For Me" t-shirt; Mario AdrionDouble Dusted Podcast, Burning Man Orgy Dome experience, posted March 2025; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Stacey sleeps with polyamorous throuple

Stacey Dooley, Origin, Oct. 26, 2023; Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Stacey Dooley sleeps over with polyamorous throuple
(Origin) Nosey Stacey Dooley visits married swingers couple Thomas and Cathy and their 7-year-old son Stanley. Cathy and Thomas have an open relationship and practice polyamory.

They share their home with Nicole, an attractive Australian who has been the "third wheel" in their marriage -- making them a polyamorous throuple.

Snoop scooper Dooley is fascinated by modern family life and wants to find out how the more unusual households across Britain live, particularly in wild London. These families have lifestyles that others might judge, but Stacey isn't here to judge, just to gawk. She's not here to visit, she's here to stay, experiencing all aspects of family life to find out what really makes them tick/sick.

Subscribe for more: https://bit.ly/3oNs1Lv. More full documentaries: https://bit.ly/3r0BGBD. NEW on Origin: https://bit.ly/37dq4UC Pregnancy Timelapses: https://bit.ly/3r389ap. The biggest families: https://bit.ly/2VXXkGJ. Parenting documentaries: https://bit.ly/3m10TpX.

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Mean Girls Day+Nat'l Boyfriend Day (10/3)

Jen Bradford (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly
I fell in love with his fashion sense and love of cats. - I pretend to love cats with this tee for her.
Mean Girls launched Lindsay L.
October 3 has some odd observances and holidays associated with it. First of all, it's National Boyfriend Day. Who thought of that, some crafty boyfriend looking for a little loving or a hopelessly in love galpal?

Bet it was the boy because they fall harder and faster even though girls have the reputation as being the lovelorn victims.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand | iHeart.com
Listen to Dr. Wendy Walsh and you, too, would know this. She's on iheart.com (KFI 640 AM Los Angeles) on Sunday nights and is a pretty balanced radio host compared to DJs like Delilah on the radio (or whoever does the dedication show nowadays that promotes the view that men and chivalrous and in love but just can't say it too well and/or women are devoted and not cheating).

What's a "soulmate"? My bestie-partner?

Men hunt. Women wait? That sucks.
They're probably cheating, guys, so man up for the shock. You may never find out, and what's better, to know or not to know? Get a home camera to find out. Ladies, you pick up what I'm putting down. Why?

Because it's Mean Girls Day today, too. We're petty, vindictive, and very competitive with one another while currying favor with the boss. The boss, who's the boss? The men. It's a man's world, not because it has to be -- not because it always was -- but because they've taken over and built a hierarchy called The Patriarchy.

Ask Ken. Or ask the Pope (Catholic), the Russian Patriarch (Eastern Orthodox), the Boogeyman (the "Grand Dragon" or whoever unofficially calls the shots in a Protestant Council of Elders). Someone, for example, decides even for Presbyterians, and "presbyrs" means something like "the people." So if the People's Church has a boss, the majority Christians are not just running wild, except maybe in the USA.

Boyfriend troubles? Female frenemies?
Cupid (Eros, Kamadeva, Mara Devaputra), who encourages "clinging" is evil.
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The Dr. Wendy Walsh Show on dating is available online as "Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand." Listen live Sundays or play the newest episode. Dr. Wendy is America's (self-proclaimed) thought leader on relationships and the authority on love, sex, and romantic relationships.

EPISODES @DrWendyWalsh (10/01) Hour 1: Oct. 1, 2023 • 30 mins Dr. Wendy talks about all the health benefits of love. Why do women still take a man's last name? Is this an outdated tradition? Also, marriage after children and myths about love. It's all on KFIAM-640.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Poet Olivia Gatwood on sex; Doja Cat rap

Maxim George, glamourbiz.com, 8/31/20; Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
My looks have nothing to do with my success. Well, it doesn't hurt to be easy on the eyes.
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Who is Olivia Gatwood? Brief career details
Do you think I'm pretty? I'm grown up now and have a newer book I want people to see.
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Olivia Gatwood is an American poet and sex ed enthusiast, whose works on topics include coming of age, feminism, gendered violence, and true crime.

She gained "recognition for her outstanding poetry, writing workshops, and work as a Title IX Compliant educator in sexual assault prevention and recovery."

My "What Sex Becomes" poem
Some of her literary works include "Hey Science," "Two Poems," "Poetry Suite," "Ode to the Women on Long Island," "Back-Pedal," "Mans/Laughter," "The Autocross," "Manic Pixie Dream Girl," "Ode to my Bitch Face," and many others.

Well, I suppose rhyming is hard work, too.
Who is she? Olivia Gatwood, 28 [31 in 2023], is a poet, writer, and activist. She is a feminist and advocate through her literary works. She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.

Her birthday falls on Feb. 23, daughter of Jill and [Lord] Byron Gatwood, who spent three years in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Tobago. It was at this time that she began writing, at the age of 11, at the suggestion of a librarian. More

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

When women get rejected (video)

Alpha Central, May 17, 2023; Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The best of when women get rejected
(Alpha Central) When women get rejected was inspired by ARAKO TV, MGTOW, The Poor Man's Podcast Reacts, MxRPlays... Watch the entire compilation.

NOTE: These videos are not encouragement for viewers to harass these people. They are for entertainment purposes only. We do not condone any harassment or hate. Alpha Central makes these compilations solely and strictly for comedic and artistic purposes. No offense is intended towards any individual featured.


Attention content creators who have been featured and would like to be credited differently, for those with copyright issues, or who would like to be removed, please contact alphacentralTV@gmail.com, who will happily do that. To submit clips, please email.

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Nothing Higher to Live For: Romantic Love

Yung Gravy; Jimmy Kimmel; Leonard Price (Ven. Nyanasobhano), Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love (ATI); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
If we accept that it's a truism that "white men can't jump," what can be said of their rapping?
.
I should be dressed like a Central Asian royal.
...They have nothing but love to live for.

This is not to say that such a surrender must be bad, only that it happens out of instinct and uninformed passion.

Love is sweet, and it is our nature to give in. But why do we worship relationships so ardently, and why do we break off our search for real fulfillment here? Perhaps it's because we see no other gods.

Yet if love is the highest thing to live for then this is a hopeless universe, because we should see in a calm hour that Cupid's arrows not only thrill us but make us bleed and endanger our loves, leaving pathetic and clingy.

Can I love the Buddha, my teacher?
"Man Kills Estranged Lover Then Self," "Wife Stabs Husband in Domestic Quarrel," "Love Triangle Leads To Shooting" -- so read the headlines with depressing regularity.

The stories behind them are only the most shocking of countless tales of passion, but they forcefully suggest that romantic love is not always a blessing.

One might object that hate, not love, spawns such tragedies. But where has such hate come from if not from a prior attachment now broken?

We should know from experience how easily what we call love can turn to bitterness, jealousy, and malice. And though we protest that this is not the fault of love, we ought to notice that where one passion arises another is likely to follow.

Passions are unreliable, volatile, dangerous, and a poor foundation for our happiness.

Divorces, suicides, dissipation, violence, depravity, fanaticism, and other miseries great and small follow from passion. Yet passion is still, in the public mind, considered commendable, a mark of vigor and liveliness.


Though everyone will admit that passion gone awry is dangerous, few realize that passion is by its nature likely to go awry.

Romantic love is a chancy passion that may result in the opposite of what is desired. It may have happy consequences, too — else it would not have so many devotees — but it raises the stakes in the gamble of life and makes us more vulnerable both to our own weaknesses and to unpredictable fortune.

As most of us count the joys of successful love (however one defines it) worth the pain involved in its pursuit, we must learn to step lightly and with intelligence.

We believe, with some reason, that love can ennoble and redeem us and call forth our purest energies, but we are slower to see that when the lamp of love flickers out, as it tragically tends to do, we might lose our way in a fearful labyrinth of suffering.

Granted that few will shun the pursuit of romance out of fear of unhappy consequences, what can be done to soften those consequences?

If we really have nothing higher to live for, nothing to fall back on, the sad truth is that nothing much can be done to ameliorate them, given the volatile nature of human affections.

So it would be wise to make sure there really is no superior, sustaining ideal before committing ourselves exclusively to the chase.

Nirvana
Man in front of Maitreya in Himalayas
Buddhism, of course, teaches such an ideal, which is nothing less than freedom from all sorrow, called nirvana.

While worldly joys are mutable and fleeting, nirvana is established, sorrowless, stainless, and secure.

While worldly pains are piercing, unpredictable, and unavoidable, nirvana is altogether free from pain. It is the end of suffering, the supreme refuge, the ultimate liberation.

The Buddha himself applied many terms of praise to nirvana while recognizing the essential inadequacy of words and concepts.

Nirvana cannot be grasped by language or concept, but it can be known and realized by direct experience for one who makes the right effort. This is a critical point.

Nirvana is not something that happens to us through an external agency. Rather it is something that we ourselves may experience by our efforts in calm and insight.

The Buddha certainly never would have troubled himself to teach had he not understood that his own realization was not a chance event but rightly won and that those who followed the instructions to realize it could also experience direct realization for themselves.

Yolandi Visser and motorcyclist house guest (Die Antwoord, "Baby's on Fire")
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This understanding, passed down, has sustained the Buddhist Dharma or religion to the present day. The diligent are powerful. Suffering can be overcome.

What is the Path?
Knowing ourselves to be sunk in confusion and beset by myriad defilements, we might regard nirvana as too remote to do us much good here and now.

We persist in seeing an unbridgeable chasm between enlightened beings (saints) and ordinary people like ourselves. We think practically everybody is like us (or worse), while maybe there are one or two genuine saints in the world.

Presumably they have just been born in that awakened condition or with the exceptional good luck to get themselves elevated — who knows how?

Yet the human condition is not, according to Buddhism, a fixed sentence to this or that level of wisdom and virtue. Beings are living at all stages of attainment. They do not stay in the same place.

They rise through their own good efforts and decline through their own negligence in the endless action and reaction of intentional deeds (karma) and the results of those deeds (karma-vipaka). More

White rapper Yung Gravy goes on a date with horrendous hag Aunt Chippy
Valentine's Day on Jimmy Kimmel Live! just got depraved and deplorable because Aunt Chippy is the opposite of a sport, while Yung Gravy is just about the coolest hipster around.

Who is this guy "Yung Gravy"?

Monday, July 27, 2020

How to see each other in future lives (sutra)

Key & Peele, "I Said Bitch" (Comedy Central); Ven. Thanissaro (trans.) Samajivina Sutra: "Living in Tune" (AN 4.55, PTS: A ii 61) edited by Dhr. Seven, Sheldon S., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly


Karma is the key to events.
Once the Blessed One was staying among the Bhaggas in the Deer Park at Bhesakala Grove, near the Crocodile Haunt. Then early in the morning he dressed and, with robe and bowl, went to the home of the householder Nakula's father (Nakulapitā).

When he arrived he sat on a seat made ready. Nakula's father and Nakula's mother (Nakhulamātā) greeted the Blessed One, bowed, and sat respectfully to one side. Sitting there, Nakula's father said:

The Buddha's parents reunited in this life.
"Venerable sir, ever since Nakula's mother was a young girl brought to me [to be my future wife as arranged by our loving parents] when I was a young boy, I am not aware of being unfaithful to her even in thought, much less in body. We want to see one another in this life and in the future in lives to come."

Nakula's mother then said to the Blessed One: "Venerable sir, ever since I was a young girl brought to Nakula's father [to be his future wife] when he was a young boy, I am not aware of being unfaithful to him even in thought, much less in body. We want to see one another in this life and in the future in lives to come."

"Karma: It's Everywhere You're Going To Be."
[The Buddha advised them in karmic terms:] "If both husband and wife wish to see one another in this life and also in lives to come, they should [seek to] be in tune [with one another]
Then they will see one another in this life and also in lives to come."

Spouses alike in
confidence,
morality, restraint,
living by the Dharma,
addressing one another
with loving words
benefit in many ways.
To them comes bliss.
Their enemies are dejected
when they are seen in tune in virtue.
having followed the Dharma
here in this world,
in tune in precepts and practices,
they delight in the world of the devas,
enjoying what pleasures they desire.

Friday, June 7, 2019

Veg Speed Dating, Hollywood, July 7 (video)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; FindVegLove.com

July 7, 2019, 2:00-4:00 PM, ages 21+, pairing format: male/female, Saint Felix Hollywood
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Veg Speed Date is the only singles event just for vegans and vegetarians in cities across North America. Think of this as a mini chat, just getting to know someone for a few minutes. There's no judgment or rejection, just conversation. There's zero pressure to tell anyone whether you like them. No exchanging contact info at the event. In short, it's dating free of all the usual awkwardness. Details
Eat Drink Vegan is coming soon, Los Angeles
    .
    VegOut LA MagazineOUTSTANDING IN THE FIELD BY EAT DRINK VEGAN SUNDAY, JUNE 2: Join Eat Drink Vegan at Wattles Farm for an unforgettable four-course, plant-based dining experience, featuring specialty cocktails from Jason Eisner paired with dishes from Chef Steven Fretz and Chef Ryan Ososky of Nic’s on Beverly.

    OC VEGAN FEST SUN, JUNE 2: A free street fest in the heart of Downtown Santa Ana featuring some of our favorite pop-ups, including Munchie Diner, My Vegan Panda, Vaffls, and many more!

    Thursday, April 11, 2019

    Thich Nhat Hanh on romantic love (video)

    Thich Nhat Hanh (plumvillageonline, 1/17/15); CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly


    "Why doesn't Buddhism support romantic love?"
    Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Thich Nhat Hanh, or "Thay" as his adoring followers call him, answers questions on June 21, 2014. This was Question 5.
     
    Want to help caption and translate this video? Go to amara.org/v/FzFP.

    Friday, March 10, 2017

    Science: How to give a woman an orgasm

    IFLScience; Archives of Sexual Behavior; Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
    No one knows how I work down there; even I don't know! (Olga Zaretska/Shutterstock)
     
    "Mind the gap" as they say in England.
    Gaps, for the most part, are considered bad. The gender pay gap, for example, is notoriously awful. 

    The “orgasm gap” -- the fact that men achieve orgasm a lot more [easily and] frequently than women during sexual frivolities -- is also decidedly rubbish.

    And now science has waltzed in to save the day by trying to close it.
      Have a hang up(s) about sex? Let it go.
    • What does Buddhism say about sex for Buddhists? Avoid sexual misconduct, and it's fine. Sensual craving (trying to pain in life, real or perceived, by hedonistic means) can become an obsession, and it doesn't work. But most earthlings are predisposed to sensual desire, and there's a healthy way to approach it -- not guilt, shame, a sexist double-standard, repression, or acting out.
    A group of researchers from Indiana University and Chapman University surveyed over 52,000 people  -- which included a range of straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women between the ages of 18 and 65.
     
    They concluded that there is a “golden trio” of actions that will all-but-ensure female orgasm occurs. That, ladies and gentlemen, is deep kissing, genital stimulation, and oral sex.
     
    The study, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, is a curious insight into just how bad the orgasm gap actually is. Of those surveyed, 95 percent of heterosexual men reported that they orgasmed during sexual acts with a partner, whereas just 65 percent of heterosexual women [reported that they] did.
     
    Heterosexual women actually fared the worst of any category, with bisexual women reaching that hallowed state 66 percent of the time, rising to 86 percent for lesbian women. For bisexual men, the figure was 88 percent, and this rose to 89 percent for gay men.
     
    I learned nothing from Vogue!
    The aforementioned golden trio is the key way to close this orgasm gap -- and as the authors of the study note that education is key. Nearly 30 percent of men think that vaginal intercourse is the best way for women to achieve orgasm.

    And as co-author Elisabeth Lloyd, a professor of biology at Indiana University, told The Guardian: “This couldn’t be further from the truth.”

    Just 35 percent of heterosexual women orgasmed during vaginal sex alone. On the other hand, 80 percent of heterosexual women and 91 percent of lesbians orgasmed after the golden trio was applied.
     
    The trio isn’t the only thing that helps. Writing in their study, the authors explain that women were more likely to orgasm if they were “more satisfied with their relationship, ask for what they want in bed, praise their partner for something they did in bed, call/email to tease about doing something sexual, wear sexy lingerie, try anal stimulation" and “act out fantasies.” More

    Sunday, February 15, 2015

    Love, Sex, and Attachment (video)

    Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Helen Fisher, Krista Tippett (onbeing.org)

    Love and Sex and Attachment
    Meeting my match (pinterest.com)
    "Americans love romantic love. We just love romantic love. But we don't pay much attention to attachment," says Helen Fisher, chief scientist at Match.com.

    In her TED talks, which have been viewed by millions of people, and the scientific research she does for Match.com, she uses science as a sobering, if entertaining, instrument to see and understand what feels like the most meaningful encounters of our lives.

    She is a leading anthropologist/explorer on the new frontier of seeing into our brains during sex and when we are in love. And she reveals how we can take this knowledge as a form of power -- to give conscious new meaning to the thrilling and sometimes treacherous human realms of love, sex, attachment, and marriage. More
    In the Room The whole interview includes fascinating insights from this biological anthropologist that did not fit into the radio hour. Arranged marriages create the conditions for love and romance to happen, brain science gives nuance to the term “animal attraction.”

    Prof. Helen Fisher, Ph.D. is a Visiting Research Associate and member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. She is also the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Internet dating site Match.com. Her books include Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage and Why We Stray, and Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.
    Famous Amy Fischer, teen lover (CBS News)
    Juvenile accused of running child porn Instagram site Pembroke Pines police are asking parents in South Florida to check the online accounts of their children after three juveniles were accused of creating an Instagram account to solicit and post explicit photos of other minors. They arrested two boys, ages 12 and 13, and a girl, 13, on Thursday, following a 10-week investigation. They face charges of electronic transmission of child pornography.
    Police keep killing with impunity. But he was drunk with a rock in hand. Kill. (cbsnews.com)
    Parker J. Palmer, Feb. 11, 2015
    Cynicism beckons to us with ease at times. But how do we remain open to the good within and around us? Here is a reminder to keep hope alive when the demon inside us bites down, plus lyrical lines from Mary Oliver.
     
    Anastasia Hacopian, Feb. 15, 2015
    When age and experience dwindle our capacity for wonder, the books of our childhood may be our salvation and our "thin places" where the boundary between the material and the magical opens ourselves to wonder all over again. 
      
    Science on Human Frontiers
    On Being’s special series, "Science on Human Frontiers," delves into new wisdom about the complex mysteries of the universe. From string theory to the search for life on other planets to the science of well being, we explore how science is informing what it means to be human and how we can live.
    The Disease of Being Busy Our overscheduled lives leave little time for contemplation and reflection. How do we enable each other to pause and reflect together and ask how our hearts are doing? 
    Dark Browns, Peaches, and the Wisdom of Children Children ask questions that challenge the best of parents. They also expose the weaknesses of our responses. A set of reflections from a black South African mother and activist who is confronted by the truth of her daughter's words and embracing the "weirdness" of their "dark brown and peach" family. 
    Human identity is more fluid than ever before. How do we live gracefully in this moment of change, helping to shape it? How do we nurture common life, even as we are reinventing it? With Imani Perry, Richard Rodriguez, Michel Martin, and Nathan Schneider.
    Omid Safi, Feb. 12, 2015
    Islamophobia. The killing of three American college students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina has shaken the Muslim community to its core. Omid Safi remembers the extraordinary human beings we lost and the pain that may lead to a new civil rights movement.
    New iPad App. Work with Us. Omid on Grieving. Harry Potter Teaches Us About Reckoning with Evil. More Than an Icon, a Man Executive editor wraps up the week with stories on thinking about MLK differently and the horrors happening in the news. Trent Gilliss also shares the new On Being iPad app and some openings at On Being for you to consider. More