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Question I Why has Christianity rejected many expressions of sexuality as antithetical to spirituality while various Eastern traditions Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism have been more accepting of sexuality, have even embraced sex as a vehicle for spiritual transcendence? What do you think about the connection, if any, between sexuality and spirituality? In the Christian view, is Shakespeare's mortal coil, Milton's perfidious bark, just a weight holding us down, preventing us from achieving greater divinity, or is the body, as Blake explains, a portion of the soul discerned by the five senses?

I'm not sure about Robert Francoeur's statement that mortification is a denial of our human nature. I think it is in our nature to mortify, to try to kill the body and be free of it. The solution is not to condemn mortification but to raise it to a poetic art, where it is not reduced to actual suppression of the body but is the means by which we live both our bodily and our spiritual existence. I never expect this dual experience to be perfect. One side will always have trouble with the other. What is important is to sublimate the working out of this tension and make it subtle.      I can find joy in the restraints around sex in marriage because of my higher vision of marriage. I may have to mortify some of my passions as I discover the greater pleasure of stable, tranquil marital intimacy. Mortification ought to be done from pleasure, not from principle. I may also have to subdue and mortify my spiritual cravings, which may make me distrustful of sex and passion. My personal goal is to be a monk and a husband at the same time, but that requires me never to stop being a poet about everything that happens in life. Moore responds to Paglia

Introduction Question I Camille Paglia Thomas Moore Elaine Pagels Robert Francoeur Frances Kissling Question II Camille Paglia Thomas Moore Elaine Pagels Robert Francoeur Frances Kissling Question III Camille Paglia Thomas Moore Elaine Pagels Robert Francoeur Frances Kissling Question IV Camille Paglia Thomas Moore Elaine Pagels Robert Francoeur Frances Kissling Question V Camille Paglia Thomas Moore Elaine Pagels Robert Francoeur Frances Kissling ©1999 Thomas Moore and hooksexup.com