One of the biggest hurdles for anyone of non-standard sexual orientation interested in Buddhist practice is the Buddhist precept of not misusing sexuality. Just for reference to those of you who may not know, in Zen Buddhism there are ten precepts, or standards of moral behavior, which are:

1) Not to kill 2) Not to steal 3) Not to misuse sexuality 4) Not to lie 5) Not to cloud the mind with intoxicants 6) Not to criticize others 7) Not to be proud of oneself and slander others 8) Not to covet 9) Not to give way to anger and 10) Not to slander Buddha, Buddhist teachings or the Buddhist community.

Other forms of Buddhism have somewhat different precepts. But the first five are more-or-less standard throughout most forms of Buddhism.

People who are of variously “queer” sexual orientations – gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, BDSM and so on – are often especially troubled when they find out that as Buddhists they should not misuse sexuality. Given what we usually hear from teachers of our own Western religious traditions, it’s easy to imagine that anything outside of strictly vanilla, monogamous, one-on-one heterosexual relations in the standard missionary position might constitute a misuse of sexuality in the eyes of religious authority. And, unfortunately, there are those in the Buddhist community, including some of its teachers, who do seem to hold something akin to this belief.

But there’s a different way of looking at it. I’ve given precept # 3 the way it’s usually given these days in Buddhist centers in the West. However, my teacher has his own version of precept # 3, which doesn’t mention sex at all. His version is, “Don’t desire too much.” I like this version much better. Then there’s the version attributed to the great Indian Buddhist Master Bodhidharma, founder of the famous Shao Lin Temple all you kung-fu fans. That one goes, “In this Universe there is nothing to grasp. Not giving rise to attachment is the precept of not desiring too much.”

In Buddhist monasteries in the past rules of celibacy have often been strictly enforced. In many places they still are. I’ve been reading a neat book called The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality by Bernard Faure, all about the various ideas about sex that have been put forward by Buddhists throughout the centuries. In early Buddhism, a set of rules called the Vinaya laid (heh-heh, I said “laid”) down a smorgasbord of sexual offenses that could get a monk kicked out of the Buddhist order. Some of these rules go into ridiculous detail. Having vaginal sex with an iguana is a greater offense than sticking your weenie up the trunk of an elephant, for example. I’m not making this up. Yet the Vinaya rules are actually comparatively relaxed when it comes to homosexuality. In contemporary, Japanese-style Zen Buddhism, though, the Vinaya are ignored and there is no requirement of celibacy even for full priests and monks. In any case, most Buddhists are not monastics, so even if there were such rules they wouldn’t apply to lay people (heh-heh, I said "lay people") at all.

Although there are Buddhist sects in Asia where monks still follow the Vinaya rules, you’re not likely to come across any specific restrictions regarding what is and is not sexually permissible for Buddhist lay people in the West. It’s all pretty much up to each individual to determine for him or herself. Even if your teacher has definite ideas about what people should or shouldn’t do in the bedroom, you’re not likely to hear them unless you specifically ask.

This is as it should be. Morality is a personal matter. My teacher always says that the precepts are a list of the common habits of Buddhists, not rules Buddhists must follow.

So if men fucking men, and women fucking women, and people tying each other up and hitting each other with riding crops don’t automatically count as misuse of sexuality, what does? Again, it’s not for me to say. But looking at the recently released Gene Simmons sex tape, I’d have to say the activities depicted therein seem to me to be a clear case of the misuse of sexuality.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Gene Simmons and I’ll be a KISS fan till I die. And it’s really not for me to comment upon Gene’s personal life. But I will anyway, because it’s fun. That video is just sad. I mean the guy moistens his lady friend up by licking his fingers and then rubbing them on her. She refuses to kiss him. And he is chewing gum throughout the proceedings.

Look. If you don’t like or at least trust a girl enough to get your face up in there and make use of that famous tongue, if she won’t kiss you, and if you’re so blasé about the whole thing you can’t even spit out your gum, then what is the point of fucking at all?

I wouldn’t put it forth as the definition. But one clear indication that you’re desiring too much is when you fuck even though you aren’t even really that into it. This doesn’t just go for sex either. It goes for pretty much any instance where you do something just because you think it’s supposed to be fun, or because it was fun the last time you did it even though you really don’t care for it now. If you do that you're not even acting on your true desire anymore. You’re just acting on what you think you ought to desire. I can only say this because I’ve done so much of the same stuff myself.

Then there’s the way we over-stimulate ourselves, pushing the body/mind to its limits in the effort to find the ultimate high or the ultimate orgasm. But it’s like a rubber band. It’ll always snap back. As high as you go up, you’ll always crash just as low. This is just a fact of nature.

Ultimately, sex may be a case of what Dogen liked to called “arrowroot and wisteria.” Like those twisting twirling vines, it’s just too complicated to sort out all the various permutations of human sexuality and make a list of do’s and don’t’s that work for everyone in every situation. The complexity of the Vinaya regulations are a testament to just how ridiculous it can be to try and cover every possible angle. And the Gene Simmons sex tape is another testament about the ridiculousness of trying to cover every possible angle.

Joshu Sasaki, a contemporary Zen teacher, said, “Zen is not the way of saints. But sometimes it is useful to imitate their behavior.” When in doubt about sexual stuff, or just about anything else for that matter, you’re probably safer to err on the side of acting more saintly than you really are. It’s usually a lot less trouble that way. The fun you miss out on by doing so probably wouldn’t have been all that much fun anyway. Look how much fun Gene was having (not).

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up!. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff and a MySpace page too. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.