January 10, 2006

More to Life than Sex

I HAVE BEEN AMAZED At the number of hits that my blog has gotten in the past several weeks. A quick perusal of the search strings shocked me, however. There are folks that love poetry and have searched poems that I have quoted. There are those that have searched liberal politics, social ethics, and other ideals that I hold dear. The most active referrer was, by far, was this: http://www.blogwise.com/search?q=sex. Yikes.

Keywords Chosen Quickly
I suppose that I could have been more circumspect when I selected the keywords to associate with my blog on Blogwise. I put “sex” on the list naively. I was thinking that this is part of being human. My blog is an exploration of my humanity: of loving and loss, of politics and play. It was never intended to be an erotic blog. I have no difficulty with eroticism. Sex is good; it is full of emotional connections and has deep spiritual overtones. It is no mistake that all religious traditions have much to say about it. As a theologian, sex is a natural area for thought and discussion. Nevertheless, this is not porn! Out of twenty-five referrals today, 21 of them had to do with sex. I can only imagine what type of dance the fool might be doing!

In all fairness, let’s look at all of the keywords that I listed: music, life, sex, philosophy, god, mid-life, rock, jazz, death, theology, blues. Music and life were ahead of sex. Philosophy and God also got listed, right up there with mid-life, rock, jazz, death, theology and the blues. There has got to be a song in this. I think that in my mid-life that I am facing a curious turn in the road. But, come on people… sex is fun to do. Reading about it is just not the same. Besides, who wants to read about the sexual misadventures of a 48-year-old high school teacher? Who even wants to think about their high-school teachers having sex? I just did it (no you perves… not sex!), I just changed the keywords to read “liberal” where sex was and to include “politics” before “philosophy”.

Desire and the Will to Power
I think that the interest in sex as a prurient theme has to do with power and domination. The language of competition is used (scoring). Much of the language surrounding sex is violent (banging, screwing) and ultimately dehumanizing (doing him/her, getting some). The person becomes an object of an action rather than a participant in a shared experience. This is true whether a person is trying to dominate or control or is being humiliated and seeking to be controlled.

Control is predicated on a need and a desire to feed the ego. This differs from asserting one’s humanity. To assert humanity is to find joy in being physical, spiritual, intelligent, and in community. This means that we also recognize and celebrate our fellow humans. Some is sexual, to be certain. Most is not. Power is not evil. A will to dominate is and is ultimately a sign of weakness and fear. Love casts out fear. Love is powerful stuff. Make love, not war.

There is nothing wrong with physical pleasure. The question that needs to be asked is whether my pleasure is hurtful to another. This is as true for the food that I eat as it is for the people with whom I am physically intimate. It is a myth to say that my body is mine alone. It is the means by which I live in community and through which I encounter other people. We are somatic spirits. It is simply inconceivable to say that my physicality is divorced from my humanity or from others.

Happiness and Joy
These two words have regularly found their ways into my musings. While they are similar there is a significant difference in nuance and derivation: happiness has to do with luck, happenstance. Joy has an object and finds itself in relation to something or someone else. Happiness is concerned with luck and good fortune; it tends to pander to the ego. Joy reaches beyond the ego to stand in relation to another.

People, there is more to life than sex. There is joy.

Stacy's Image.  How appropriate! tDF
Ah, but I am only a fool…