Catholicism
is deep, deep in my bones. I have lived it in many different ways over the past
fifty-odd years. It has affected my sexuality and my sexual views in several ways. I have
some deep anxieties. On the other hand, I have had a real love of my sexuality ever since I
can remember, and that devotion has always been stronger than the influence of the Church.
I think we do find some creativity in reacting against those things that have hemmed us in. I
find it liberating to write about sex. My book on sex was the more pleasurable of them all in
the writing. I want to write another. I'd like to do a picture book, a movie.
People asked me on my book tour: Why would a former monk write about sex? I
usually answered: I don't know anyone who thinks more about sex than a monk. I don't
mean monks are anxious about it or obsessed with sex, but having decided to keep its literal
enactment out of their lives, they are free to think about it on many levels. And, as I keep
saying, sex and religion are both about keeping life open-ended.
I agree, too, with many Catholics who see the core of this religion in its rich,
sensuous rituals. Catholicism may have given me a good dose of guilt and anxiety, but it
also taught me about beauty and a sensuous life. Maybe that's a good way to approach sex:
start by living a life of deep pleasure and sensuality and then find your way toward
rewarding sex.
For all the blatant sexual images in our society, I don't sense our culture as a sexual
one in any serious sense of the word. We are at least as asexual and anti-sexual as the
Catholic Church. Our obsession with sex betrays our anxiety and our puritanism. I have
found more relaxed attitudes about sex everywhere I have gone outside this country while
promoting my book on sex. When we can relax, stop working so hard, make a less speed-
conscious society, construct sensuous buildings, give nature and animals a chance, develop a
deep appreciation for the whole side of life that woman represents, give gays a break, let our
president and each other work out our sexuality privately, and take care of our children —
then I will allow myself to hope that we are getting over our anti-sexual puritanism. For
now, I find more sensuousness in Catholicism, for all its neuroses, than in modern
American life.
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