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sex, the final frontier...
hey there everyone,
i've been reading your little list here for awhile, but i've yet to write in
for lack of anything to say. i thought, however, this was as good a time as
any, and since i actually have opinions on this topic, here is my first
e-mail to all of you:
sex...what is it? how do we treat it? how should we treat it? so many
questions, so little time.
first, sex seems to have always been a topic that poets and authors tend to
write about. i don't know for certain, but i'm guessing this is because
they've all had the same questions about it that we do and their writings
were their attempts to answer those questions. obviously, since people are
still writing about it, no one has really found a perfect answer yet. but
here are some thoughts i have on it.
one: in the bible, god tells adam and eve to be fruitful and multiply, thus,
if you believe in the bible, it is your duty to god to have sex (though not
with just any random person, of course). still in the bible, god also tells
moses (as one of the ten commandments) that no one should ever commit adultry
OR even covet someone else's spouse, thus bringing into effect the concept of
monogamy. there are also, scattered throughout the bible, various passages
about how sex with anyone related to you or aside from your spouse will lead
you straight to hell. so obviously, for the bible-believing crowd, sex is
something that you should do, but only with the person you're married to.
two: there's the whole medieval concept of chivalry. the woman swoons for the
man...the man lives his life for the woman. "loving, chaste, from afar." nice
idea. didn't exactly work (don't believe me, just read Morte D'Arthur or
Astrophil and Stella). this concept is also found in the neo-platonic view of
love, love without sex. here, man struggles to reach divine love, but not
being divine, can't. the neo-platonic poem, "the courtier", sets up a nice
little ladder of love in which man climbs from the animal level (appetite or
sense) to the human level (choice or reason) to the divine level (will or
understanding). also a nice concept, but not very effective.
three: the english poet, donne, writes about sex in almost all of his poems.
in "the canonization" he writes a metaphore in which sex is likened to the
miracle of christ's death and resurrection. (my how sex has moved up in the
world.)
fourth: in milton's "paradise lost" adam is warned by the angel that though
sex is a good thing, there is more to love than sex ("in loving thou dost
well, in passion not...").
and so on and so on....the list continues and i won't bore you with anymore
of it. the point, however, is this...throughout history, people have written
about sex, how it is percieved, and how it should be dealt with (in their
opinions). and despite our ever-changing societies and times, the same idea
seems to have been projected by all of the important writers- sex is a good
thing...but not the be-all, end-all of love.
my personal view? sex is a wonderous miracle to be shared with the one person
you love more than anyone else. it is a far more intimate act than anything
else i can imagine, and thus, a far scarier act than anything else i can
imagine. because of this, sex should be shown the deepest respect (which, in
my opinion, it is not- at least in our american society). i do believe sex is
a sacred act (although i know some of you disagree) because not only may it
lead to the creation of life, but it is also a spiritual experience...or at
least it should be. and no, by saying that sex creates life, i'm not saying
that humans are creating life...god is creating life through humans and it
seems to me that any human act in which god has a hand is seen, at least in
christianity, as scared....and now for the big question on the list...does
the use of the word "fuck" profane the act of sex?...i don't think so. i
think the word simply refers to a certain view point about sex and can be
used (in poetry) without disgracing the act of sex. it wouldn't be the word
that would profane it anyway, it would be the feelings behind it. you only
disgrace sex if you do it out of pure lust and have no love for the person or
respect for the act. getting laid merely to get laid profanes the act of sex.
saying "fuck" does not.
or at least this is what i think. thanks for your time. hope i made you think.
luci edwards
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