The Soul of Sex

Whenever we think of sex, a flood of images may jostle in our mind: scantily clad female forms in bikinis with mounds of fat enveloped in delicious spheres swaying smoothly under the sun, six packs mounted below broad shoulders with bulging biceps of the male bodies, and eyes bursting with desires and longing, nights in luscious beds which one wish would never end etc. And any one who has been remotely related to the adverstising and promotion of consumer products will tell you that "sex sells". There is simply no denying that sex is an extremely importnat part of modern life. And life in ancient times too! In fact, for as long as there is a need for pro-creation of all kinds of animals, birds, fishes, insects and even plants. And that is just another way of saying that sex has been around for as long as there is life! And Freud said in his Civilization and Its Discontents "Sexual love has given us our most intense experience of an overwhelming sensation of pleasure and has thus furnished us with a pattern for our search for happiness." So it was with a sense of surprise that when I opened one of my recent acquisitions at random, I discovered the interesting title "Sex and the Soul" in Thomas Moore's "The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life" (1996). (Thomas Moore is one of my favourite spiritual writers) Has sex anything to do with our soul? One concerns our body, the other our spirit! I read on.

 

Moore opens with a surprising statement. He said that he could never imagine Jesus or Buddha or Moses or any other great religious figure as asexual or as speaking against sex nor that spiritual dedication,  even the taking of a vow of celibacy, as being necessarily a statement against sex or as precluding a sexual life. But he was there referring to sex as being "beyond the literal or the biological". To him, the idea that renunciation of intercourse implies a judgment against sex and the presentation of a statue of Jesus without his genitals may be a rather "unnatural" presentation of the "importance" of the human body as God created it.

 

This "unnatural" and unbalanced view of the role of sex may in fact have stemmed precisely from the power of sex in human life. Sex is a most potent force. As it is potent, it may be most difficult to control or suppress, the best intentions notwithstanding. Perhaps it is for this reason that "saints" who gave up a former "licentious" life of the flesh are so highly revered. But then, natural forces can never be dammed up or repressed. Physics has taught us a simple rule. The force of the "reaction" is always equal  and opposite to the force of the "action", all other conditions being equal.  The need for control has become a focus of a strict "moralism". "Spirituality" then tries as Moore says, "vehemently to be disconnected from body and soul, to deny the desires and needs that press from within and without as though they were merely biological and therefore to be transcended".

 

Is there a way out of this dilemma? Can sex somehow be tamed? To Freud, our sex drive may be "sublimated". Sexual energy may be "diverted" into creativity, into productive work and thereby become channeled and dissipated. But before Freud, many societies have already pondered about this problem. What is more, they have worked out a solution. They have invented a social institution. It is called "carnival" or "festival". Every year, at stated times, either spring or summer, they will have a "carnival" or "festival", either to celebrate fertility through worshipping some god or other. In ancient Greece, we have got the festival of "Dionysius" or the Roman "Pan", the god of "wine" and of "madness", where people can lawfully or legitimately be released for a short while from the normal social controls or prohibitions and allow full display of all their repressed sexual energies in bouts of wild drinking, merrymaking and sex. 

 

According to Moore, even in early 19th century America, there has been a commune of about 400 called the Oneida Community in upstate New York , led by one John Humprhey Noyes whereby each member of the community might have sex with another member provided it was through the mediation of a third but on condition that no members be allowed to be emotionally involved with each other in an exclusive manner but once they were  found out to have done so, they would be segregated. Sexual desire is notoriously difficult to repress and the desire to have sex with more than one partner may have biological origins.  According to a recent survey, over half of Americans engage in extra-marital sex in one form or another. Pornography often portrays group sex. So it is clear that there is a strong communal desire to be released from the constraints of the established moral prohibition against anonymous sex.

 

Moore suggests that we should seriously consider exploring the possibilities of giving back to sex its magic, its mystery, its values in a socially controlled way so that whilst on the one hand, we may protect the security and sacredness of the vows of marriage and on the other hand relax a little the strict prohibition of extra-marital sex in an organized manner, with proper ritual and suitable forms. To Moore, religious orgies normally take place in the context of a ritual, which to him is a "heightened form of imagination". In a ritual, nothing is to be taken literally. In such a ritual, the human and the divine are engaged in an intercourse, and the fertility sought is not just purely personal. It concerns the welfare of the family and the wider community. To him, sex is not to be understood only as "two individuals expressing their love; the community and the cosmos are involved as well". He thus recommends a "re-enchantment" of sex at a social level so that sex may be released from its current materialistic, biological and behaviorist values and be restored to its "spiritual" level as a form of celeberation of the productive and creative union of the body with the spirit.

 

To Moore, a ritual is "an act that is performed primarily for its sympbolic and imagistic import and for its effect on the soul." Sex is more than a physical need. It is also a need for companionship, for solidarity, for unity with another human being, with certain higher values, with God. Such a need must be acknowledged and incorporated as part of the common good of a society. He says that as we fragment our society, as we make sex mainly a medical and moral issue, we lose track of the its soul because any human act stripped of its ritual aspects becomes materialistic and therefore problematical. If we ignore the legitimate expression of the sexual desire, we may force it into contorted and exaggerated and pathological forms. The child abuse and sex scandals afflicting various priests and pastors are clear evidence of the failure of traditional religion to deal with its problems.  Sweeping them under the carpet is not a long term solution.

 

In modern life, we have reduced sex to a purely mechanical, biological act of two human bodies. We have ignored the personal, the spiritual and the ritual aspect of such a relationship. As St. Augustine has suggested, what goes on in the marriage bed is a union of great consequence. If we live a holy sex life, we might be able to live together with nature and in community the same way. To Moore, there is a close connection between eros and enchantment. He says that just as we might be enchanted with another person and be filled with desire and pleasure, so we might experience a parallel interaction with nature and with culture.

 

Should we seriously think about restoring the magic, the ritual and the cosmic significance of sex for humanity in a socially permitted way if we do not wish to live fragmented, pathological lives and learn to become whole again? Is one of the original meanings of the word "holy" not "to be whole" or its present day equivalent "holistic"? Shall we continue to live like an ostrich and be blinded by the desert sands of our ignorance, our untutored will and our unrealistic and impossible and extremely restricted view of the ideal of spiritual "purity" ? Should we not start thinking about relaxing or altering the conditions for their "vow of celibacy " so as to permit periodic (say once a month) sex and about the corresponding institution of "holy whores" for our priests under clearly laid down and regulated conditions so that they may cease to be described as "depraved" when they may simply be unfairly sexually "deprived"? I am quite sure if those in authority in the Vatican were to make an effort to free themselves from the shackles of past dogma and encrusted thinking and really think about Life as it is lived and not as it is conceived by their prececessers hundreds of years ago, then only can we begin to have any possibility of hope that our church will once again be the kind of living vibrant faith community which Jesus intended it to be! I am also quite sure if they really start to implement such a practice which is much more in line with the biological needs of its priests and its laity, then they will probably not have to worry any more about the dwindling number of "servants of God"!