Friday, April 26, 2019
SOULFUL SEX I
FRIENDS
THIS IS THE FIRST OF A SIX PART SERIES
ON
SOULFUL SEX.
THIS SERIES IS OFFERED HUMBLY.
IT DRAWS FROM
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE,
PASTORAL CARE,
STUDY -
MUCH OF ALL THREE.
IT IS OFFERED BECAUSE OF
THE INTIMATE BOND
BETWEEN OUR
SEXUALITY
AND OUR
SPIRITUAL LIVES.
EACH EFFECTS THE OTHER
MILES MORE THAN A LITTLE.
WHAT FOLLOWS IS
OBSERVATION
ANALYSIS
REFLECTION
INTERPRETATION.
LIKE ME, IT IS LIMITED.
NO DOUBT IT IS INCOMPLETE AND FLAWED.
HOPEFULLY ELEMENTS OF IT
WILL CLARIFY AND SUPPORT.
IF IT HELPS, PLEASE LET IT.
IF IT DOES NOT, PLEASE DISCOUNT IT.
IN EITHER OR BOTH CASES
PLEASE ASK YOURSELF
"WHY?"
THANKS
JOHN FRANK
*****
Dear All Of Us,
So, I sure hope you're having
a great sex life!
I really mean it.
Pretty sassy, right ?
Well, not really.
Sad to say, for far too long,
far too many have come up far too short
when it comes to having a great sexual life.
Yes, yes, I read the papers, watch the news,
go to parties, walk the streets of right now.
There's a lot going on sexually for sure,
but it does not all translate
to a great sexual life
for too,too many.
In sad fact, it's just the opposite.
Our sexual life and our spiritual life
are profoundly interwoven.
They are deep down dynamics
of an under-girding whole.
Each profoundly effects the other.
All is not well there.
That negatively impacts self and society,
the spiritual life of both.
This series tries to sort out
just what is sex at its core,
and its interface with soul.
To do that it is important to see
our current sexual situation,
for what it is and for what it isn't,
and how it got the way it is,
and certainly its effects on soulful sex.
The goal here is to clarify
and work to an appreciation of
the beautiful, the pure potential of
SOULFUL SEX.
****
PART I
REPRESSION
For starters, let's use the word
"sex"
as it is currently and commonly
understood and used.
Hopefully as we progress,
we will see sex is a lot more,
and way better than
the going thing in our culture right now.
Regrettably, so too has it been throughout
much of our history.
Yes and for sure,
there have been persons
and peoples throughout western history,
as there are many today,
who have experienced a positive,
"whole"some, sexual/spiritual synthesis.
It has meant a freeing fullness,
a divine oneness.
They are, sadly, the exceptions
that prove the rule of sexual
repression/obsession
and their consequent,
deleterious effect
on life,
that of the self
and
that shared as a society,
and the very core of both,
SOUL.
For the most part, the "going thing"
ever since we humans went agrarian
and needed offspring
to work and protect the family farm,
has meant a sexuality of
genitals and genital activity,
procreation and pleasure
- workers for land holdings,
- pleasure for some sometimes,
male dominated and dominating.
Land rights were passed
by procreation through blood lines.
There has always been
more of a pleasure focus
for men than for women.
This sense and experience of sexuality
has been analyzed, described, codified,
regulated, ritualized, restricted,
celebrated, in all sorts of ways
by every western culture and religion.
That's where most of us come from and
where most of us are right now as we seek to live
our sexual/spiritual lives out here
on the street of everyday living.
We are effected!!
And we effect!!
Going way back,
and consistently over the centuries,
people have been led down
a road of sexual repression.
Sex is energy.
When energy is repressed,
it builds up stress
and eventually finds some sort
of explosive release.
In the case of western sexuality,
repression has lead to
a lot less and worse
than was in nature's original blueprints
for natural, healthy sexuality.
The ensuing sexual stress and repression
are now exploding in a sexual obsession.
Centuries of sexual repression
can be traced back to
- ancient Greek philosophers,
- economic needs,
- civil rulers,
- and leading the pack,
so, so sad to say,
the Christian church.
This repression and stress runs
throughout western history
to our right now, right here.
A few of too many horrible examples:
- Aristotle, and later Augustine,
insisted that intercourse
was only permissible and natural
for married couples attempting
to get pregnant
( offspring to work and protect
the family farm ).
Any other sexual communion
was deemed unnatural, a perversion,
and for Augustine, sinful.
Imagine what that did to
a naturalness and ease
in marital sharing,
much less as a door
to divine ecstasy.
What about couples
that just could not
raise more children?
What about older couples
past child bearing years?
What about
"Male and female
he created them...
It is not good that
the man should be alone...
a man ... clings to his wife,
and they become one flesh."
Genesis 1 and 2
???
That sure as heaven
does not sound like
you can only "cling"
and "one flesh" it
to make a baby !!
Seems there were no clocks, calendars,
timers or baby counts
in the original Genesis blueprints !!!
Talk about "perversion" !
Throughout western history
coupes didn't have
stressful work commutes to deal with,
but Aristotle, Augustine and so sadly many
made sure that couples had to deal with
stressful sexual commuting/communion.
The church got into excluding
from communion early on.
If a couple had relations simply for a pure, loving,
"clinging," "one fleshing" it a la Genesis 1 and 2,
and used a contraceptive,
they were deemed ( dammed ) to be
in mortal sin and were exclude from Holy Communion
How God denying !!
Imagine all the marital stress,
promiscuity and infidelity
all this
engendered
( pun and punch intended !).
REPRESSION!
- Some of those Greek philosophers
considered women slightly to decidedly
less than fully human.
For them,
women came nowhere close
to the rationality
and thus superiority of men.
- Basically women were
for the pleasure of men and
incubators for the male seed,
which by the way,
contained the whole child
to be developed and born.
- Women were basically domestics
to look after house and children,
and to provide comfort in bed for men.
- The Romans, with their patriarchal
social sense and structure,
furthered the subjugation of women.
- With some exceptions,
this attitude toward and treatment of women
continued right up to recent times.
When my mother was born (1912)
women here in the states could not vote.
Often to own property, or get a bank loan,
a male relative had to cosign for a woman.
REPRESSION!
- The Puritans have negatively effected us
and our culture. They were so tainted by
sexual "dis - ease" and shame.
They spun sex negative.
Read
The Scarlet Letter
and blush deeply in rage at what
we have inherited and still suffer,
directly or in reaction.
REPRESSION!
- Daniel A. Lord, S.J.:
he and a host of other
Roman Catholic writers
authored pamphlets
on sexuality
in my youth ( the 1950's )
for Catholic pubescent boys.
They unequivocally taught that
masturbation was a mortal sin.
Unconfessed, it meant
being sent to hell after death
for all eternity.
That was "the" official teaching of
the Roman Church.
Well, let me tell you
there were long, long lines
of pubescent boys
at the confessionals
every Saturday night!!
I was one of them
beginning in 1951
when I was eleven
( got an early start! ).
We didn't go to confess
mass murder or highway robbery!
We grew up feeling dirty,
sinful and shameful.
It had a life long, negative and
terribly detrimental effect
on generations of Catholic men.
And yet, we were expected
to have a close,
loving relationship
with God our Father -
a father who would reject us
and send us to horrid,
hellish torture forever
if just once we did
what every boy
in the world does
a lot more than once
as he tries to develop
his sexual sea legs.
This ranks as one
of the worst types
of sexual abuse
in the Roman Church.
- Protestant boys
didn't fair any better.
There were all sorts of
pamphlets and youth manuals
condemning them as unnatural,
unmanly, unscriptural and sinful
when they fell into the "perversion" of
pubescent masturbation.
Again, consider what all this has meant
for faith in God as Father,
what it has meant
for a sense of healthy sexuality
for millions upon millions of men.
Ever wonder why worldwide,
so many men don't go to church very much?.
- Sexual intimacy,
or even a vigorous
desire for/imagining of it,
were considered
morally evil and punishable
by excruciating pain
in hell for all of eternity
in miles more cases than not.
According to church leaders,
God and sex
were not on cordial terms!!
To have the more common
desires/experiences of sex
outside a narrow corridor
of marital permissibility
pretty much cut the legs out from under
any kind of pure, calm,
natural sexual spirituality.
REPRESSION!
This first part of our series
isn't a bit cheery.
But, hopefully it
and what follows
next week will give
context and clarity
to what ruptured into the
pervasive sexual
obsession and chaos
current in western culture.
It is the obverse of repression,
but equally detrimental to
pure, free, health, holy
SOULFUL SEX.
Next week a bit more on repression
and a long look at obsession.
"Not Nice,"
but necessary to sort our way through
how things got he way they did.
Again, that is critical given
the intimate interface of
soul and sex.
After that a look at
what sex is at its core,
sex as creative and wonder filled,
the difference between
sex and gender,
gender fluidity
as we are experiencing it today
PLUS
the creativity and bliss,
the freedom and fullness,
the spirituality,
the sacredness
of
SOULFUL SEX
Let's wrap up with a
PONDERABLE:
" Sex is a flame
which uncontrolled
may scorch;
properly guided,
it will light
the torch of eternity."
Joseph Fetterman
See you next week.
Holding one and all in
God's Dear Love,
John Frank
*****
PS
If you will, please invite others
to join in as we explore
SOULFUL SEX
in this six part series.
Thanks!
Warm Welcome to those new to
"frankly speaking"
- It is posted online each Friday at
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
and can be bookmarked
for ready access
- It is available each Saturday
by automatic email -
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of the online version
- Past Postings are available at
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online version
THANK YOU!
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