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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?
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I like Frances Kissling's comment that the real issue of sex and religion is power and control "when and under what circumstances sex is permitted" by the church, and by society.
Because the Christian tradition has linked sex with original sin, its main focus has not been on connecting sex and spirit, but on controlling the dangers of sexual pleasure by telling us who can have what kind of sex with whom, when and under what circumstances. Ordain an openly gay minister or rabbi, divorce and remarry as a Catholic, cohabit before marriage, and one faces the church's threat of mortal sin, excommunication and hell fire. Some churches have tried to baptize sexual pleasure, making it a sacrament, and limiting it to heterosexual marriage for making babies. Even Buddhist Tantra, which celebrates sexual union as a path to the divine, uses sacred rituals to control male ejaculation. It seems like one of the main problems in all religions is the obsession with controlling what people do sexually, as well as dictating what foods we eat when, and how and when we must pray.
But even secular societies have their own views of what kind of sex is socially acceptable with whom, when and under what circumstances. Violate a state's law on selling sex toys to women, engage in oral sex (whether you're married or single, heterosexual or gay) in other states, and one can end up in jail.
Has there ever been a religion or a civil society that was or truly is positive in its teachings about sexuality and sexual pleasure? What religion has ever challenged people to celebrate erotic pleasure, connect their sexuality and their spirituality and find transcendence beyond the island of self in communion with the Ultimate? Why is this so difficult for religions to do?
Francoeur responds to Paglia and Moore
©1999 Robert Francoeur and hooksexup.com
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