The fish rap: amorality reconsidered
Another entry in my more-honored-in-the-breach Saturday Non-salacious blogging series.
I think there are tremendous parallels between sex and food, enough so that I created a separate category called The Food Issue to talk about it.
I'd like to revive the analogizing as a way to revisit the naturalist/neutralist attitude towards sex I outlined last week about Babette's Feast.
In a touching post mulling the decisions of gay and lesbian Catholics to remain celebate rather than have sex with their preferred gender, Lynn Gassiz-Sax of Noli Irritare Leones, responded that
"What sort of makes sense all the same: sex is powerful, sex is important, sex is profound, sex matters! I suppose I'm not really a neutralist/naturalist ... about sex."
Though I fall into the naturalist/neutralist camp I too believe sex is powerful, sex is important, sex is profound, sex matters so I think I need to clarify.
In other religions I think observers of kosher, halal, or (I think) ayurvedic dietary restrictions might make the same arguments about food, i.e. "How can you just go around unconsciously eating whatever you like. How can you claim to be genuinely connected to faith if you can't even discipline yourself to choose what foods to eat and which to give up?"
Yet followers of other faiths can be as passionate, as observant, and as... well... *faithful* to their religions despite their amorality (in the literal sense of "moral neutrality") about food.
More to the point, one can be utterly amoral from a religious standpoint about diet while still placing great value on food in a social/family/personal context -- food can still powerful, be important, be profound, and matter.
The "naturalist/neutralist" position I referred to is simply amoral -- morally neutral -- about sex. That position has, nor needs to have, any bearing on ones ability to be devout, any more than your "failure" to keep kosher has any bearing on yours or Eve's or, say, Hugo's devotion.
In my family's Scandinavian/Anglo-Saxon Protestant/Congregationalist and American-Unitarian tradition neither Martin Luther nor the English and American Puritans believed that sex in marriage should be reserved strictly for recreation yet they distinguished themselves from, say, Catholics out of a belief that one could not be sufficiently devout in Catholicism. (I'm not claiming they *were* more devout, only that they believed they could be and they acted out of that belief.)
Coming from that religious perspective, the debate over homosexuality or celibacy feels as distracting from true faith is as frustrating and heartbreaking as would be a similar debate about whether one can have genuine faith if one eats the hindquarters of a cloven-hooved, cud-chewing animal (which, to be faithful to the letter of the Bible, no Protestant, let alone Jew or, I believe, Moslem should touch since it's unclean.)
At any rate, while I have a naturalist/neutralist stance towards sex I absolutely believe sex is powerful, sex is powerful, sex is important, sex is profound, sex matters socially, familially, and personally. But not religiously.
And with that stance every moment Nathan or Eve spends tormenting themselves about which parts they want to rub against is would be a moment spent alienating rather than reinforcing their faith. This seems particularly tragic because in every respect (not every *other* respect) they seem so clearly to be of enormous faith.
[Speaking of food prohibitions, in the early 1960s Pope John XXIII's Vatican II council declared the prohibition against eating meat on Fridays unnecessary for salvation after all. Half a billion people used to eat fish on Fridays because meat consumption was prohibited on pain of suffering in Purgatory, for thousands of years, before finally passing into Heaven. Vatican II rendered that prohibition inoperative. (To borrow another 60's era term.) Several years later counter-culture comedian George Carlin joked that "I'll bet there are still guys in Limbo doing time on the meat rap." One wonders how long before a future wag can quip "I'll bet there are still guys in Purgatory doing time on the gay rap." --fl]
Update: In a separate post Lynn points out the limits of analogy: they're only illuminating if the analogy works for you, and the food analogy doesn't work for her. A more fundamental analogy (maybe not an analogy at all -- also drawn from George Carlin's meditations on his Catholic upbringing) might be the once-held principle that one must go to confession and receive the sacrament at least once a year or face damnation. While most Christian denominations would state a strong preference for attending services at least once a year I'm not aware of any others with such strict calendar date-certains. Yet it's unlikely that people of those other denominations feel less connected or less devout if for some reason they don't make it to church in a year as long as they remain otherwise religiously faithful. And in terms of this post one would say that Protestants are *amoral* but not moral or immoral -- "naturalist" but not "jehovanist" or "gnostic" -- about the calendar. See also different stances on one's final destination if you fail to die before receiving last rites, a.k.a "dying unshriven."
Figleaf, thank you for these two articulate posts: The fish rap: amorality reconsidered and Babette's Feast, a neutralist answer to sexual famine. Your analogy between attitudes towards indulgence in food and indulgence in sex is a strong one because those attitudes speak of our acceptance or repulsion of the human body. I agree that we should not expect each act of sex to be transformative any more than we should expect every meal to be memorable. There are pleasures unique to a simple meal enjoyed alone as well as an extravagant dinner for two. Which one will be more memorable? That depends on our receptivity as well as other factors.
When you say that ... sex is powerful...sex matters socially, familially, and personally. But not religiously, I agree, to an extent. There are times when we are transformed by sex, psychologically and spiritually, and those experiences will affect future decisions and behaviors in our lives. If one experiences sex that has an ecstatic quality while making love with a partner, the bond with that partner is strengthened in a way that sex with a fuck buddy cannot approximate, no matter how enjoyable the buddy session may be. That bond will make it possible for the partners' relationship to endure, despite illness, separation, and other hardships.
I do agree with Gillette when she cited that, Orgasm and religious ecstasy both begin with the same neural paths. Another source that supports this view can be found in The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers, by Margo Anand:
.Note to self: Smut = must (purchase, that is).
[The book is out of print but you can still find it used on Amazon, among other places. (It's linked in my sidebar.) Also, while I don't know much about neurology I don't know much about metaphysics either, but my intuition tells me that you can travel the same paths and wind up in different places. And it's unquestionable that we can experience ecstacy both religious and sexual and it makes sense that both experiences use the same parts of the brain. However... I'm pretty sure I've been told about this by people who are really into Ken Wilbur and other neuro-spiritualists that there's an area of the brain that seems to be altered only by religious in-spiration (literally maning breathing in") or transformation. But again I don't know. The important thing to keep in mind, at least for me, is that whether they do or don't (and I believe they don't) neither sex nor spirituality is lessened for it. I appreciate your comment very much, Kochanie. Thank you. --fl]
...there's an area of the brain that seems to be altered only by religious in-spiration (literally maning breathing in") or transformation...The important thing to keep in mind, at least for me, is that whether they do or don't (and I believe they don't) neither sex nor spirituality is lessened for it.
Good point, fl.
If we know that fear, loss, and abuse can rewire the brain detrimentally, then it is a logical possibility that a transcendent experience, be it sexual or spiritual, can rewire the brain beneficially.
And hopefully our legal system will protect my right to choose who will do the wiring: a manifestation of the divine or a partner who can fuck me senseless.
[Yup. One of my concerns with my "true conversion changes this little part of the brain" friends (who say it's the same part that gets changed after near-death experiences) is that they'll figure out the mechanism and build a machine that just does it. Then we can get it out of the way somewhere between puberty and getting your drivers license. And then what? Morally it would be a tough question: on the one hand we feel more virtuous when we find it ourselves. On the other it's extremely difficult and relatively few people manage it. And since people who undergo it (regardless of the path by which they get there) appear to definitely be better off as far as feeling of belonging in the world off it's hard to imagine what would be the right thing to do? Thanks, Kochanie. --fl]