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As I see it, "The Keepers" - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-keepers-made-for-netflix.html - is mostly about the evils that arise from sexual suppression/repression, not evils that arise from sex itself.
Which is not to say that unbridled sexuality -- humping attractive mates at random, or, in adolescent parlance, "fucking anything that moves" -- is an admirable goal.
Animal rutting bears little discernible relationship to human love: personally, I cast my lot with the latter.
Jung was (generally) right when he said "sex is eternally problematic." (I cannot find this quotation online except in several of my own earier writings. However, I have clear memory that this was the gist of what Jung said.)
There are always perversions - and they usually occur at the extremes, whether the extreme is too much indulgence or too much restriction.
"Why Church Fathers Were So Negative About Sex?"
Conditioned by our fundamentally puritanical society -- and also by Catholicism's repressiveness -- it is hard to get a grip on the middle ground, the ancients' Golden Mean.
As my Dad used to say: "All things in moderation."
And as I like to say: "All things in moderation, including excess."
So where does "moderation" leave us.
Most biological urges are relieved daily. Longer than that and "things" "get out of whack."
Eating. Excreting. Copulating. (Breathing is done a dozen times a minute.)
Here is how I would write a stripped down General Rule for daily living.
Eat. Excrete. Copulate.
I find it very hard to fault the following woman. And if anyone considers her "abnormal," I think they must take their gripe to God/Universe, asking why he/she/it/they created/structured the world as it is. If "the quandary of sex" is anyone's "fault," the prime suspect is "Deity.")
Five Reasons You Should Have Sex With Your Husband Every Night
The world is a big place and it takes all kinds to "make it go 'round."
Not surprisingly, there is a place of honor for "celibates"... but only if they have the "gift" of celibacy.
Not many do.
And there are nowhere near enough "gifted celibates" to provide a decent priesthood for a church with a billion plus followers.
Predictably, we suffer the indecency that The Catholic Church has built into its structure.
Not many do.
And there are nowhere near enough "gifted celibates" to provide a decent priesthood for a church with a billion plus followers.
Predictably, we suffer the indecency that The Catholic Church has built into its structure.
"In the beginning," Early Christians supposed that "parousia" -- Christ's "second coming" -- was "just around the corner!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parousia
And so, The Early Church found it easy to believe (albeit difficult to practice) that sex had outlived its utility.
Paul marveled at how difficult it was to keep "the flock's" pants on. In Corinth Paul says Christ followers were more eager to fornicate than "the gentiles." https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Corinthians%205%3A1
We must also wonder whether sex - perhaps homoerotic sex - was "the thorn in Paul's flesh" making him "do what was wrong even though I know what is right."
According to The Great Expectation of parousia, Jesus would quickly return -- in transformative glory -- to lead everyone to The Kingdom where the "old rules" of "getting and begetting" would no longer apply.
The universal expectation among "followers of The Way" (they did not yet call themselves "Christians") was that Jesus would return very soon.
Perhaps later today!
If not today, "surely" tomorrow!
And then, everything would be paradisiacally perfect.
No more angst.
No more compensating the world's pain with the pleasure of sex.
No more angst.
No more compensating the world's pain with the pleasure of sex.
Inspired by the rock-solid expectation of imminent parousia-paradise, it was easy to disdain the "ways of the flesh" since -- "overnight!" (if not sooner!) -- early Christians would inherit their true spiritual possession and none of "the world's long, slow stain" would any longer have dominion - or even any use.
But if -- in the absence of The Second Coming -- "the people of God" were to survive as "a people" at all, they had better get down to "business."
I've probably mentioned this before.
In my thirties (?) I asked Dad what his "favorite animal" was, and he immediately replied, "the human animal."
Homo sapiens' thoughts can only get so far ahead of homo sapiens' loins before those thoughts "break off, bubble up and drift away" (not unlike the Delaware-size iceberg that just broke away from Antarctica).
When our ethereal ideation becomes too lofty, what is left behind is the carnality of "the human animal," super-saturated with overpowering instincts to propagate and survive.
To put it bluntly: Eat. Shit. Fuck. (Unbluntly... Feast. Excrete. Make love.)
Yes, I do believe in transcendence and transmutation, but it is clarifying to reduce things to bare essentials.
Yes, I do believe in transcendence and transmutation, but it is clarifying to reduce things to bare essentials.
Repression/suppression may work for some... although it is instructive to observe how "not eating" "works" for the anorexic.
If people saw sex as a great-gift-and-unparalleled-relationship-glue, there would be far less weirdness in the world. (Another essential piece of the puzzle is that parents love their children - be present to them... ever willing to bestow the magical gift of play.)
As an educated, cultured person who believes in the transcendent good of family life, I must also say that "the relationship-glue of sex" works best within loving, durable spousal relationships, and that durability is a learned behavior, learned from from an interactive matrix of education an acculturation rooted in family and community.
Even so... at bottom we have our instincts.
But when we soar -- when we use "the bottom" as a springboard, when we transmute sex into love -- we do so because we have learned how.
Failing to do so, the foundation of any meaningful 'human world" falls out of course and we crash in catastrophe. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+82%3A5&version=NIV
On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 12:05 PM, FV wrote:
The View just did a segment on The Keepers with the 2 women who started the investigation 4 years ago.
Over 100 accusers have come forward about his abuse over the 30 years he was allowed to continue abusing.Tell me there is not something intrinsically wrong with this strong, undeniable urge to to copulation,whether it's for pleasure or power.Does the good really outway the bad?Alan, a hint is in your friends wish that God wouldn't have made sex so much fun or something like that. He knew that his life would be better if not consumed with desire.Love
F
"The Keepers," A Made-For-Netflix Documentary Series: "Who Killed Sister Cathy Cesnik?"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-keepers-made-for-netflix.html
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