Sometimes one asks whether it is right to indulge in sexual promiscuity because of urgent desires and thus to get the thing out of his system, as it were. The answer is given in The Voice of the Silence, which says: "Do not believe that lust can ever be killed out if gratified or satiated, for this is an abomination inspired by Satan. It is by feeding vice that it expands and waxes strong, like to the worm that fattens on the blossom's heart." Such methods of gratification never get it out of anyone's system. There are more effective and safer ways.
Meanwhile, meditation may help by mentally retracing premarital or even extramarital experiences of sex, but to see them this time from the ugly and repulsive side, with all the sordid little details and low principles, the risks and confusions, the futility and disappointment that mark the end, and thus get the other side of the picture. This kind of meditation is to be analytic and reflective. It is intended to create certain associative thoughts which will immediately manifest themselves whenever the desire itself manifests. Some attach too much importance to physical asceticism such as fasting and not enough to following out the evil consequences of sex desire by repeated thoughts and imaginations, until they are etched into his outlook.
-- Notebooks Category 5: The Body > Chapter 7 : Sex > # 48
