Color Purple Boosts Sex and Imagination

Purple is the most amorous color, according to a new study, which found that people who decorate their bedrooms in the color have the most active sex lives. A survey of 2,000 British adults by retailer Littlewoods found that those with purple bedding or furniture had 3.49 “intimate encounters” per week. Those with grey rooms can expect to have less sex than everyone else – an average of just 1.8 times per week. Green and yellow bedrooms are not conducive to having tremendous amounts of sex.

What does the color purple have to do with sex and the imagination? When people say that a great part of sex is in the mind what they are really talking about is the imagination—with the violet part of us. That part of us that likes to play with magic and enchantment. This does not mean that we should be focused on sexual fantasy necessarily but it does mean openness to play and to be sensitive, which artistic people are accustomed to.

The erotic side of life belongs to the imagination, to the young spirit inside of us that does not want to die, but too often does in modern civilization. Modern education beats the imagination out of children, and religions do not want their followers’ imaginations to drift off well-established religious rules of behavior.

Jack Morin, in his book The Erotic Mind,  came to some conclusions about eroticism, the most important being that it is paradoxical in nature: both joyful and dangerous, life-giving and troublesome. Eroticism has four cornerstones: longing and anticipation, violating prohibitions, searching for power, and overcoming ambivalence. The best sex is dynamic and unpredictable, rather than static and safe according to Morin.

The Erotic Mind is an exploration of the least understood dimensions of human sexuality—the psychology of desire, arousal, and fulfillment. The idea of eroticism is to stimulate sexual feelings and an appreciation for beauty and other subtle feelings. Pornography is something quite different. Dr. Leon F Seltzer writes, “Erotica and pornography both present the human organism in a manner that’s sexually compelling. But the aim of the pornographer is hardly to help his or her (most likely his) audience rejoice in the human form–or in some way honor physical intimacy, or the joys of the flesh. Rather, the objective (typically leaving little or nothing to the imagination) is to “turn on” the viewer. It’s less evocative or suggestive than exhibitionist. The unabashed goal is simple and straightforward: titillation and immediate, intense arousal (skip the foreplay, please!). Or, to put it even more bluntly, an instantaneous stirring of the genitals.”

The common ground to everything in this discussion is the imagination and its active or passive involvement in our sexuality. One does not have to have much imagination to be stimulated with pornography, for in both visual and written form it directly stimulates the imagination into sexual feelings. However to live a life of passion, and to experience adventure and novelty in sexuality over the long haul, one needs the violet level of intelligence brought into play.

Esther Perel, author best known for “Mating In Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence,” a book that introduced couples to the conflict between intimacy and sex, and how to be married and hot at the same time. Perel’s TED talk attracted more than a million hits in the first month. Unlocking Erotic Intelligence is her idea that depends on the depth and sensitivity of our imaginations.

Perel, who puts her fingers on deep issues that few people explore, says, “When a woman wants a man to ravish her, what she is actually after is two things that are crucial to experiencing excitement and pleasure. One is her narcissistic affirmation that she is irresistible–and his persistence is a proof of that. His force with which he wants to grab her has nothing to do with his aggression–it has to do with how irresistible she is. That’s the turn on. The turn-on is how it makes her feel. That’s the narcissistic affirmation. Second is that it makes [men] not be needy. If you are aggressive that means you are confident…in erotic terms. It means you know what you want. And you’re going after it and it is me. Therefore, you are not fragile. You are not needy… which means you don’t require care-taking. Care-taking is the most powerful anti-aphrodisiac for women. If I am in care-taking mode, I am in mothering mode, not lovemaking mode. I am in taking-care-of-others mode. If care-taking is the biggest impediment in women, the predatory fear is the biggest fear in men.”

Love and sex are intimate bedfellows and in successful long-term relationships, love dominates. The imagination is also often a make-it or break-it issue that can drive us to the shores of boredom and eventual infidelity or hot sex in the context of love and intimacy.

My book on Love and Sex Medicine is a complex weave of love, sex and spirituality. The eventual aim with lovemaking is to attain a true state of bliss where the heart opens widely.

The book is about a divine romance with love and life and establishing a perfect union with others. It is about creating heaven on earth together. Not an easy thing to do in modern or any time.

Sexuality is a force and power that can lift us up to the divine but unfortunately, there is brutality in human sexuality that brings our race into the darkness. Religions did not help by making some sexual acts punishable by death. So many people suffer from different degrees of sexual stress. Our race is shamed by allowing so many of the young to be sexual raped and abused. There are so many sexual barbarians it is impossible to count.