c. 1998 Religion News Service
UNDATED _ President Clinton wanted at least one part of his legacy to be initiating a new national conversation on race. What he may be remembered for, however, is the cultural conversation he sparked around matters of sexual ethics.
Who, for instance, hasn’t gossiped on the phone, sat over drinks at the bar, or lingered around the dinner table debating the president’s alleged infidelities as a litmus test of their own sexual ethics? Who, as well, hasn’t been shocked by a close friend’s indifference to unfaithfulness _ or, on the other hand, felt chilled by the condemnations of others?
And according to some experts and writers on sexual mores and moralities, this is not all bad because in the way the Clinton drama is playing itself out in the media, the scandal has become a kind of morality play, bringing to light deeply held beliefs about sexual behavior.
But, these experts argue, the discussion needs to be reframed and to go beyond the media’s superficial concern with blame to the fundamental role sexuality plays in human life and relationships.
Thomas Moore, author of the forthcoming”The Soul of Sex: Cultivating Life as an Act of Love,”(HarperCollins), for example, said it is important to ask”what is the myth, the deeper story”going on behind the shallow media hype?
To Moore, the heated debate on adulterous behavior is a modern re-enactment of”an ancient story _ one of the deepest dilemmas”marking the human condition. The conflicting claims of spirit and passion, he said, are”a timeless struggle portrayed in Greek mythology and tragedy, and are lived out again and again in cultures around the world.” But according to Moore, who lived as a Catholic monk for 12 years, modern society has tilted too far in the direction of spirit over body, repressing sensuality and desire in favor of control and productivity.
In Moore’s view, this imbalance is the source of society’s inability to find a”comfortable”understanding of human sexuality. “We have created a public life, a machine culture, that is asexual,”he said in an interview.”The Judeo-Christian tradition has very little in it that supports a sexual life _ it mainly tries to control it.” Like someone addicted to junk food who needs the nutrition of”real food,”Moore writes in his new book, people are obsessed with sex as a society because they have not found the way to integrate a soulful sexuality”deeper and better into our body, soul and spirit.””We’ve got to lighten up,”he said.”We’ve got to allow ourselves a bit more latitude with pleasure and desire and not be so productive and correct. We’re moralistic about everything _ about food and marriage and relationships. We don’t allow people to have good times anymore; we expect everyone to be correct and psychologically healthy.” But Moore isn’t just advocating a return to a free-sex society with no ethical guidelines. Rather, he stressed that sex”is not just a physical thing. We treat sex as if it were a matter of hormones and genes and chemistry. But if we take it as a part of the human experience then we have to include the erotic: The desire to live a life that has emotional and sensual reward.” Catherine Wallace, author of”For Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich Our LIves”(Knopf), said sex should be seen more in terms of cultivating an art, rather than squelching an unseemly impulse.
According to Wallace, repression and dutiful obedience to authority are no longer reliable methods to ensure sexual faithfulness. The premise of the sexual revolution, she said,”was to say that repression disrupts the natural balance.” Yet Wallace, who says she is trying to”demonstrate the truth of the Christian tradition in secular ways,”said there is a way to strike a balance between the extremes of repression and promiscuity _ valuing fidelity for its own sake. “Ethical maturity means coming to the understanding that (these things) are part of our inherited moral tradition because they are wise, humane and life-enhancing _ not just because they were written in stone,”she said.
Thus, like the violinist who practices daily in order to perfect her talent, Wallace described fidelity as an artistic discipline that builds slowly to the crescendo of abiding love.
It is”a disposition toward relationships with all people which is characterized by compassion, self-respect, generosity and integrity. If it is a sexual relationship, that turns naturally into monogamy,”she said.
Both Moore and Wallace find in the life of Jesus, despite the Gospels’ portrait of him as sexually celibate, clues to a contemporary moral sensibility with regard to sexual ethics.
To begin with, said Moore, Jesus was someone who seemed”very physical. He was shown doing wonderful things by touch. Some of the priests didn’t like him because he had crowds around him and his friends ate and drank too much. His first miracle was to make wine at a wedding; later, he gave bread and fish to people who came to hear him talk.” All of this suggests, Moore said,”that Jesus was a person who lived in this world with a body and, while he didn’t have a sex life proper, was comfortably sensuous, embodied and tolerant of other people’s sex lives.” Indeed, according to Moore, Jesus”would be a scandal in our time, as he was in his own, because he tolerated so much humanity.”He pointed to the New Testament story of the attempted stoning of the woman caught in adultery as an example.”When Jesus is pressed to respond, he replies that whoever hasn’t sinned can go ahead and throw a stone,”Moore said.
Jesus’ tolerance, Wallace said, reflects”a tremendous psychological sophistication of the tradition that we inherit: That is, when people do bad things they are acting out of some pain and suffering on the inside. It says that the approach to take with someone who is living wrongly is to heal them _ not beat them up, or stand around in self-righteous judgment. Then the real question becomes how to balance mercy and judgment.” Feminist historian Riane Eisler, author of”Sacred Pleasure: New Paths to Power and Love”(HarperCollins), said the contemporary sexuality debate reflects a major societal shift from a”dominant morality,”in which sex is an act of power and conquest, to a new”relationship ethic”based on compassion and a”partnership morality.” Thus, for those searching for fixed answers in the ever-changing sphere of human sexuality, Eisler said it helps to understand that society is in a process of moving”from repression to rebellion to reconstruction.”The process of moral reconstruction doesn’t mean that we want to throw all standards out _ we want to keep what makes sense in terms of human rights and responsibilities. But then we need new standards, and that’s the interesting thing about living today. We have the opportunity to explore and develop new standards.” DEA END PEAY
