FROM THE BOUNDARY: Sex and soul – Part eight

THE ‘sexual revolution’ of the ’60s recognised the rightful place of women in the world, and made it entirely normal to speak openly about sex. In ordinary discourse, sex is no longer hole-in-the-corner, shabby and nasty. That’s not to license making total fools of ourselves, or cause harm to ourselves and others. It’s not a licence to cheat and lie. But it does recognise how people actually behave. What’s the point of ‘rules’, opposed to the expression of love though labelled ‘divine’, if they’ve never truly been respected? If two people consummate their sexual attraction, they do no more than confirm their humanity, even their wholeness.

In exercising our freedom of personal choice, we’re accepting our own responsibilities. In all the highs and lows of our lives, the door is opened to warmth, companionship, fantasy, blissful moments, and love. To take off our clothes in another’s presence is to strip away the masks we habitually wear, and to transition from the profane to the sacred, the process of ‘holy knowing’, begins. Maybe too it will be an escape from the habitual feelings of emptiness we too often share, and reveal the sensitivity or selfishness in those in whom we’ve put our trust. Through the other, the world may assume a meaning otherwise lost or elusive in ordinary life. In the context of relationship, we’ve abandoned ourselves to the other, died to each other, if only for a moment. It’s divine bliss. Throw away the apple.

There are risks. Sexual activity has its heavy clouds. There may be a seamy side – exploiting, commercialising, pressuring for sex. The ground rules may not be what they seemed. There may be pain and heartache, as with any relationship. If you must have sugary food, be prepared for obesity and diabetes. Do we consent because we’re weak and vulnerable? If we’d known, would we have consented in the first place? We’re learning.

What of the ‘one-night stand’, or sex with a stranger, which Erica Jong identifies in ‘Fear of Flying’, or the contemporary ‘buddy’ – pure pleasure or adventure? Are these ‘promiscuity’? Yes, perhaps, if rampant. But they don’t inevitably degrade love, which doesn’t always precede sex. Even these relationships may have an emotional underpinning and so the capacity to cause hurt. And sex without strings may bring friendship, companionship, empathy. There’s more than simply ‘taking’. There’ll be giving and sharing, the same abandonment of self and momentary bliss. Most sexual encounters ARE about pleasure for its own sake, whatever else they bring. They worship the joy and fun in life.

It’s time to recognise the mystery of sex. It arises ultimately from a sense of longing, an awareness of our incompleteness, our hunger for wholeness. Love may not enter, but ecstasy and radiant intimacy certainly do, and they penetrate all human relationships. The holy moments don’t last, of course. What does?

For too long, chastity has been constricted by the prohibition of sex.

But surely chastity is the pursuit of wholeness within ourselves, a wholeness which makes us authentic people to whom we’re true not lie-living. It arises in the context of freedom to make our own discoveries about ourselves, and those with whom we’re in relationship. We travel different paths but share a responsibility, as strangers and hosts, as guests not parasites, to discriminate what’s right for us. In this sense our hearts are clean and generous. We learn that life’s about giving not just taking, and certainly not about harming others or ourselves. The way of sex is not the only way to this, but shorn of all the judgmental and hypocritical nastiness some routinely give it, the fig leaves of fear, shame and guilt, it’s not dishonourable. No, for it gives expression to that most sacred principle, philoxenia, hospitality, the empathy given to strangers as we gather experiences as a child gathers flowers. We must never take the beauty from it and succumb to prison walls. Never. Sex and soul. Namaste my love.

Go safely, then – until the next time.

Reality, from the boundary: “In relationship with others… the other is nothing but a mirror” (Osho).