Avatar, along with its positive environmental messages and right-on anti-military stance, also has one of the hottest sex scenes I’ve seen onscreen years. Imagine fusing your mind with another through a “braid” (called the “queue”) that connects to your neural circuitry to your beloved. Asra Q. Nomani, writing for the Daily Beast, brilliantly explores the mind-blowing tantric union between Neytiri and Jake in the film.

Practitioners of tantra, an ancient Hindu art that celebrates spiritual union via physical intimacy, know that “soul gazing” is one of the most intense sex acts that two people can experience together. (Even when there’s no actual sex, in the way that we understand it.) Sure, tantra been cheesified by workshops run by sleazy men who call themselves “priests” in order to get a bunch of willing, nubile participants in a weekend workshop. But if you look past that, you’ll find that tantra is still one of the most pleasurable paths to enlightenment. It is the ultimate expression of all that is ecosexual. This is because to truly experience tantra, you must first go within and explore your own fears, desires, and capital “S” Self, before you can share your body, mind and soul with another. And when you go to that place, as Jake did in his hero’s journey (with props to Joseph Campbell), you usually find that your respect for the earth and all its creatures is the prime mover of your life. That’s why Jake chose Pandora over our polluted, corporatized, angry, violent planet.

In the movie, when Neytiri tells Jake: “Kissing is very good. But we have something better”, I don’t doubt that she knew what she was talking about. Queue me up, Scotty.