UPDATE: I was a little cruder than I needed to be on this post, an attempt to be funny that went off the rails. I've edited and cleaned up the post. My apologies to all but especially to my regular readers.
Hey.
How are you?
What are you wearing?
Got your attention?
Good.
Let's talk about the McDonaldization of sex:
What is so insidious about McDonaldized sex is that it has completely flattened people's ability to see sexual relationships as the closest human beings get to understanding God's love. The biblical evidence is substantial: sex and marriage are used as metaphors for divine love in the Song of Songs, the book of Hoseaand other prophetic books, and Ephesians, to name a few. Anyone who knows the Bible knows that there are many different, and often violent, stories about the manipulation of sex because of sin. Further, the patriarchs had multiple wives and concubines. It is all the more remarkable, then, that the model of sexual love between one man and one woman emerged as the primary analog for thinking about the relationship between God and the human soul.
For the skeptics out there who are reluctant to assign divine meaning to ancient texts, it's possible to approach the biblical evidence from an anthropological viewpoint as well. It would look something like this: even in the midst of polygamy and all kinds of sexual arrangements, still there emerged among these ancient people a reverence for one man/one woman sexual pairing as having a particularly special meaning, one that spoke of the possibility of eternal love between human beings. These ancient authors and redactors saw the sexual love of married people as pointing toward transcendence, toward possibilities beyond what might have existed in the ordinary experience of sex.
I find those possibilities compelling. Is it possible that entering into a once-and-for all, no-possibility-of-changing our minds, I-will-love-you-forever-and-you'll-do-the-same, promise to a person of the opposite sex can be an opportunity to see God face to face? Is it possible that eschewing temporary experiences of sex in favor of a lifelong promise to be faithful and loving to the other is fraught with meaning and a doorstep to eternity?
He's got more. He's even got a titillating pic. And links to his prior pieces on the same subject.
Go and be satisfied but in less than (or would that be more than) prurient ways.
And those of you who found your way here via Google and are disappointed... you might actually benefit from reading the piece as well.
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