I
was raised in the very repressive American Catholic Church of the conformist 1950s and
early 1960s, when the nuns offered St. Maria Goretti, who was stabbed to death resisting a
rape, as the ultimate symbol of pious womanhood. Our rebellion during the mid- to late-
1960s counterculture and sexual revolution took many forms — such as our adoration of
raunchy, blues-based rock n roll.
However, in retrospect, after two decades of the carnage of AIDS, it seems fairly
obvious that promiscuity is just as destructive as sexual oppression. Right now, we're
sorting through the wreckage and trying to "place" sexuality accurately in the full spectrum
of human experience. All the great world religions contain profound and still-pertinent
symbolism about our relation to nature. We need to get a better sense of sex in history,
without the distortions of propaganda from the left or the right.
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