i can't speak for others but i tend to have my surges of religious feeling in periods of low libido so , to me the elephant in the room when talking about religion the whale in the Sanctuary , as it were is sex the old New England church at the beginning of John Huston's film-version of Moby Dick (1956) this Congregationalist sanctuary feels like the bony-innards of a whale a church erected upon the economics of the whale-hunt in 19th-century New England , so that the film-viewer feels like a latter-day Jonah & the white whale of Herman Melville's story is some type of sexual symbol , a force of nature which Puritan economics is trying to destroy the achieving of economic prosperity as a kind of spiritual castration as if a genuinely healthy sex-life will have no need of religion x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y strange year while the rest of the USA has broiled in record-high spring/summer heat the Pacific Northwest has remained abnormally cool Portland not breaking into 80-degree temperatures till late July the Oregon coast where i live rarely reaches into the 80s , anyway even in a normally warm July/August for the Pacific Northwest but last weekend the heat finally comes & Portland tops the 90-degree mark , thrice & the temp shows 85-Fahrenheit on my balcony thermometer , overlooking the Pacific Ocean which is about as high as i ever remember seeing my thermometer go no one (except hotels) here on the coast have built-in air-conditioning & , as my father oft said ......a properly insulated house will never need it ......even a house unprotected from sunlight Pa was big on a deep overhanging roof & foliage & other passive cooling-techniques & 18 inches of insulation inside the roof just finished selling the family home , up the coast a-ways small & not particularly attractive to look at needing a new composition roof & bolder hue of paint on the siding but it will be as warm in winter & as cool in summer as u could want both Pa (heart disease) then Ma (pneumonia) have died in the past 12 months hold Ma's hand for her last 5 hours rough year my ex-roommate Betsy is currently out-west for a visit which gives me some perspective Betsy's seen duty in Iraq & Afghanistan & i think in Somalia & other places she can't tell me about so hot temperatures are nothing new to her neither is being with people u care about , while they die x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y x y i'm temperamentally heterosexual but with Betsy i make an exception Betsy is Buddhist ......i believe in nothing she tells me , last weekend ......& this makes me happy it is my day-off & , even with my 18-inches of insulation my place bakes , reaching near 90-degrees indoors Betsy & i lie naked on my futon all day long sweat & talk , & talk & sweat tangled in each others' limbs sweating together losing ourselves in each others' glands & skin no longer 2 individuals , just one big dumb/intelligent sweatcreature & this helps me thru these days of pain & despair & loss to me there is Gyd & there is extinction & both are equally real , each spiritually manifest each , equally ego-free each , an 8-limbed 2-headed sweatcreature
Dear Salishan, I think, to those of us raised in the Protestant tradition, wherein the word "church" evokes the smell of varnish on old church pews, the sound of pantyhose squishing on the large lady's thighs as she walks up the aisle, and the sight of black-robed preachers, like Ezra all those years before them, standing before the largely somber congregation and reading from the equally black-bound Book of the Law, that is to say, the Bible, it essentially boils down to this: physical orgasm is bad for the soul. In my early '20's, I overheard what I considered an uproariously hilarious (at least I was amused) and insightful religious discussion, of a type, between my older (by 1 year) sister and my girlfriend, both of whom had, until recently, been off at a strict, religious boarding school. "It wasn't until I had my first orgasm," I overheard my sister say, "that I finally realized what it was that I had been praying for all along." I laughed from the adjoining room. I do sometimes wonder, now some 30 years later, if Freud's thesis, that sexual (libidinal) repression is necessary in order for Civilization to exist, is not highly valid. Maybe we are all still living on the moral, spiritual and civilizational constructs of our sexually repressed great-grandparents. What I fear, then, is this: that what remains of Western Civilization will collapse if we stop building Cathedrals within which to pray and go off, instead, as sort of missionaries in reverse, in search of the g-spot. My fears aside, may this year bring, for you, an upward turn in the Wheel of Fortuna! Love, Servie
Servetus exquisite creature throughout my promiscuous 20s i have lain around naked with many a boy talking & talking but i will not sleep with him till i (with certitude) feel his ego drop away the utter selfishness of orgasm (fornication as sport) is not what sex is about , for me that kind of "selfishness" may well be the bane of civilization as Freud suggests , the height of sinfulness as Catholicism (& much of Protestantism) assumes but , to me moral & spiritual feelings (the base of religion) are virtually identical to the generous-interpersonal & expansive-physical sensations which i experience during egoless sex as if meaningful sex is an early software , the primordial template (a trial run) for genuine religion where the real (the ultimate underlying) G-spot is Gyd
the puritanical prudishness of the US has affected so many negatively...from denying a generation of mothers the bonding with their children and that generation of children the benefit of breast milk....that over accentuation of the sexuality of breasts and nudity, to our current gender pref issues.. I'd like to say that I have sympathy for the loss in your life....and admiration how you are handling ALL of it.
Dear Salishan, Good one (or should I say "g-spot" on)! Given the self-confessional nature of this thread, let this be clear: it wasn't until after I had fornicated myself half-way around the globe and abominated myself all the way back that, in mid-life, I woke from an Ecstasy binge, reconsidered Freud's thesis, freaked out, and began wondering if, by so consistently not repressing my libido, I might have been contributing, in some strange way, to the collapse of one of my all-time favorite civilizations, the Western Civilization. Now I cannot enjoy sex without worrying, in the back of my mind, if, for instance, I might be in the process of endangering the Cathedral at Notre Dame. But seriously, to modify Pink Floyd's lyric: "Shine on you blue diamond." Love, Servie
