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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 Nerve.com
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