by Elizabeth Watson
Originally published by Family Relations Committee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Foreword
Elizabeth Watson originally presented the material contained in this pamphlet at a conference sponsored by the Family Relations Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on November 13, 1982.
It was felt that it would be a service to Overseers and other members of Friends Meetings to make it available in printed form. The Family Relations Committee has a number of counselors available to Monthly Meetings and to individuals and families.
The counselors are prepared to offer counseling to members and attenders as requested. The Committee is also prepared to conduct workshops at Meetings or for Overseers on sexuality as well as other subjects of interest and concern.
Information regarding the counseling service can be obtained by calling the central office counselor at (215) 988-0140, or by referring to the advertisement carried in issues of the Friends Journal.
I. The Individual
A. What went wrong with the human race?
Why is sexuality such a problem? In the beginning, so the Bible tells us, God created things: first light, then the earth, the sky, vegetation, fish, birds and animals. Each time, so it says, “God saw that it was good.” Finally, God created people, in the divine image, male and female, and God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply…” (“ln other words,” said God, “I’ve given you sexuality. Use it and enjoy it!”) And this time we read, “And God saw that it was very good.”
The other creatures who share the earth with us don It seem to have our hang-ups. They just accept sexuality as part of life, perhaps the best part. What went wrong with us?
I began with the Bible because I wanted to point out its blessing on our sexuality. Much of what I will say from now on, however, will place the blame for sane of our problems on the Bible, and on the Church, that is, the historical, orthodox Christian Church. The Church has shaped our thinking attitudes, and taboos. It has perpetuated several myths that are based, I believe, on incorrect assumptions about reality, some of which come out of the Bible. We need to look at those myths and their underlying assumptions and see how they influenced our whole culture. It can help us change our ways of looking at ourselves and our sexuality.
Part of what went wrong is that we have assumed genitality is the whole of sexuality, rather than part of it. Further, we have taken sexuality out of the context of wholeness. For the past seven years I’ve been working on the concept of “growing into wholeness.” I have made speeches, led seminars, and written about it. I have had much feedback from other people which has enlarged my thinking.
What do I mean by “growing into wholeness?” It is working at being all we were meant to be. (Most of us only live partial lives.) It is seeking integrity, striving to be what William Penn called George Fox, “an original and no one’s copy.” It is not wearing a mask. It is acknowledging our strengths and gifts without false modesty, and accepting our weaknesses and limitations as part of us. It is springtime and winter. It is light, and it is also darkness. It is being present where we are, seeing the personhood of others, saying “Thou” to them. It is being at home in our bodies, aware of their needs, and it is being in touch with “that of God” in us. In short, to use Emily Dickinson’s word, it is living life to the circumference.
1. Dualism. The Church, however, does not believe in wholeness. It has insisted on a duality which does not accurately describe either the natural world or human nature. It insists on dividing things into opposites that are really halves of each other: body and soul, God and man, life and death, this world and the next, self and other: Christians and Jews, good and evil… It has seen things in terms of straight lines that divide (the sheep from the goats), rather than in terms of circles that encompass. It has laid out our lives in terms of “Thou shalt not!” rather than in terms of affirmation and seeking—what Jesus called “abundant life.” And it has enforced its view of the world through a hierarchy, insisting that the church has the sole authority and speaks with fallibility. How fortunate we are to be Friends! At the heart of Quakerism is George Fox’s question: “What canst thou say?”
2. Patriarchy. The second myth is that patriarchy is the natural order of human relations. This is the social structure underlying the Bible. We might note that the Children of Israel were promised the land of Canaan by their God, Yahweh, who told them to wipe out the Canaanites because they worshipped false gods—fertility goddesses with names like Astarte and Asherah. Some scholars speculate that Judaism was originally a male fertility cult whose central rite was circumcision of the males. [1] Christine Downing, Quaker theologian, in her 1978 Rachel Cadbury lecture, “Religious Life and Feminine Experience,” points out in the Old Testament passages the survivals of goddess worship among the Hebrews from the time of Moses to the destruction of Solomon’s temple. [2] Elise Boulding, another Friend, in her monumental Underside of History, thinks it likely that originally the Hebrew tribe was matriarchal like other nomadic groups in that time and place, and that Sarah, or “Sarai” as she was called then, was really the head of the tribe. [3] Later writers presumably rewrote the story to make Abraham head of the tribe, the “patriarch.” In any case, patriarchy won out! We have a male God.
Patriarchy says women are the possessions of men. This still permeates our culture, although wives are no longer bought like sheep and cattle. Women are held to be inferior to men, and obviously not entitled to equal rights. Why else could we not pass an Equal Rights Amendment to our Constitution?
Women are to blame for the evil in the world, because of the Biblical story of Eve and the apple. Women’s bodies are a trap for men. Their bodily functions are unclean. There are special ceremonies to accept women back into the church after childbirth. Men, too, have been victims. Because women were not to be near the altar, they could not sing in choirs. In order to have the full range of the human voice, boys with beautiful soprano voices were castrated to keep their voices from changing at puberty. In this manner they could continue to sing to the glory of God. Many churches still have boys’ choirs to sing the soprano parts.
Patriarchy has resulted in two things: First, it has made the female body an object. Women are seen and are judged not as whole people, but on their physical attractiveness to men. The female body is a commodity, the stock in trade of the advertising profession. You see it draped over cars, holding out beer cans, and enticing men to “fly me” to Miami.
Terrible violence has been done to the female body—not just foot-binding in China and genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East, but rape in college dormitories and in the streets of America. The emergence of shelters for battered women bears witness that violence against women occurs with alarming frequency, at all economic levels, and throughout our society. I will just mention pornography in passing. Girls are conditioned to try to make their bodies attractive from birth on, by their families, textbooks, advertising, popular songs, fashion designers (many of whom are men), and by the whole ambience of our society. They are to make their bodies beautiful so that they can get a man. Their bodies are painted, deodorized, rid of excess leg and underarm hair, made thin, and draped seductively. Intelligence must be played down, lest the prospective man feel threatened in what is presumed to be his domain. Once a man is caught, the woman is to take good care of his body and his ego, and further his career. She is to be an “enabler,” rather than an achiever in her own right. When I worked after marriage, my mother remonstrated that this reflected on my husband’s ability to support me. “How could I do that to him?”
It is no wonder women are confused about sexuality. Women are pushed to dress and act seductively, and then put down if they give in to the aroused men. Many of us are forever trying new diets so we can be thin and beautiful. But once thin and attracting male glances and wolf calls, we are not sure we can handle what may happen. Subconsciously, we feel safer a little heavier. So we binge, and the weight comes back. It is a no-win situation.
The Church has given women an impossible role model: Mary, the mother who is also a virgin. Women are to come to marriage innocent. Men may come experienced. To enjoy sex is unladylike. Women are to be passive receivers and only have intercourse when the man initiates it.
Men too, are confused about their sexuality. They are supposed to be tough, strong, courageous, and, yes, violent. How many bookish, unathletic, undersized, under-muscled boys in America are sent away to military school “to make men of them?” Take a look at the cigarette ads. The macho male image is as hollow as that of the seductive woman.
But turning the female body into an object is not the only thing patriarchy has done. Secondly, it has resulted in a pervasive view of reality that is only half true. Men’s views of everything are thought to be normative for the entire human race. Masculine ways of thinking, making decisions, and coming to moral judgments are thought to be the only valid human way. Logical reason—intuition, empathy, kinesthetic knowing are considered “female” logic—the butt of endless jokes. Men go in for abstract moral principles, and women’s insistence on caring about what happens to people is “sentimental.” The military strategists say that certain people are expendable. Our government assures us our economy can tolerate ten percent unemployment or higher.
Moreover, men’s views of sexual functioning have been felt to be the whole truth. For generations men assumed women experience orgasm in the vagina, rather than in the clitoris. We now know that women have quite a different rhythm of arousal and release from men, and that their sexual needs and desires continue till later in life than is the case with most men. [5]
Patriarchy has caused us to see the world with tunnel vision, with one eye shut. The experience and point of view of half the human race has been ignored. If we are to deal adequately with problems of sexuality (and likewise with poverty and oppression, the destruction of the environment, and the threat of nuclear war), we need 20/20 vision. We need the input of both halves of the human race.
3. Sex is evil. The third myth the Church has perpetuated is that sex is evil. Those closest to God (priests, nuns) are to be celibate. Paul wished all men were like him—uninterested in sex—but since they obviously were not like him, he conceded that “it is better to marry than to burn.”
Sex is only to be for procreation, and only within marriage, from which there is no exit but death. If this seems an exaggeration, I quote from the Boston Globe, dateline Madrid, November 3, 1982, in which the Pope recently set it out clearly:
He attacked artificial birth control as “a falsification of the interior truth of conjugal love.” And he said of divorce, “According to God’s plan, marriage is a community of love indissoluble and lasting for life.”
He does not ask those trapped in unhappy marriages, or mothers worn out with much child-bearing, or hungry children in homes of poverty, “what canst thou say?” about birth control and family love. He may be celibate, but he is the authority on God’s plan for family life.
Sex outside marriage is sin, whether pre-marital or extra-marital. Homosexuality is even more taboo. It is said to be “unnatural,” although biologists tell us it is known throughout the animal world. What does “unnatural” mean? Both the Old and New Testaments are invoked on this, although that bears some scrutiny. A Jesuit priest, Father John McNeill, published a book in 1977 called The Church and the Homosexual, [6] which defuses the Sodom and Gomorrah story, and to some extent, Paul’s utterances on the subject.
Insanity and other dire consequences have been predicted for those who masturbate. This is the one outlet for single people or those trapped in frustrating relationships. Yet probably every infant engages in it, and children early learn to do it secretively. Mothers are always alert to remove small hands from certain parts of little bodies. One shudders at mothers who have told their small sons playing with their penises that if they do not stop, the offending organ will be cut off. Sexuality, says the church, is best dealt with by denying its existence and focusing on higher and more spiritual matters.
As a result of this view of reality, with its false dualism, its normative patriarchy, and its insistence that sex is “dirty,” history shows the pendulum swinging between periods when people generally acquiesced in this view and periods when they rebelled. So we have had Puritanism, and Victorianism, and now the Moral Majority. When the pendulum swings the other way, sex is flaunted. We have sex for self-indulgence, exploitation, shock value, and we forever seek new ways of doing it. We have sadism and masochism. Virginity becomes a cause for ridicule, and the pressure to be active sexually is pushed to earlier and earlier ages. Teenage pregnancies are now epidemic in our society. Parents often push children into early dating, and very young girls are pushed into being models and into Junior Miss America contests.
Genitality is assumed to be all there is to sexuality. The mechanics of achieving orgasm is the subject of much discussion. Orgasm becomes the totality of the experience, rather than a by-product of a union that is psychic and spiritual as well as physical. We even have the strange anomaly of right-wing Christianity blessing genitality in the Total Woman movement.
Why do young people seek sex so avidly and early? There is, of course, peer pressure and the fear of being thought naive. There is a longing to grow up quickly and escape parental authority. There is a desire for instant happiness when life is hollow. I found in the Boston Globe, again of November 1982, something that speaks to this. Rabbi Harold Schulweis of California, writing in a magazine for young people is quoted as saying:
The old morality proposed the idea of loving without sex; the new sexual morality encourages sexuality without love. Many turn to sexuality without love, not out of love, but out of fear… fear of authentic relationships. A person who requires instant joy, instant contact… reduces the possibilities for understanding another…
B. How it might be
Let us imagine how things could be when sexuality is part of wholeness.
1. Love will be a relationship of equals. The emphasis will be on wholeness. Men will no longer have pressures to be macho but can be gentle men without being thought unmanly. Women will no longer be sex objects. They will dress for comfort as well as for attractiveness. They will find a comfortable weight and not worry about being thin. Heavy women will be seen to be beautiful too. Advertising will become an honest recital of the qualities of a product. Friendships will be made across gender lines without always having sexual overtones. We will express our affection for people of both sexes freely. I believe we were given arms to encircle other human bodies. In short, the whole world will be like the Friends General Conference Gathering!
2. Sexuality will be a normal, beautiful part of life. Birth control has freed us of the double standard of morality for men and women. There will not be unwanted pregnancies. Sex is for procreation, when wanted, but it is also for love, enjoyment, playfulness, release of tension. The emphasis will no longer be on self-gratification, but on giving pleasure. People will approach lovemaking, each concerned to maximize the other’s pleasure. Orgasms will come, but the orgasm will not be the end in itself.
3. Children can explore and enjoy their bodies. They will know from the beginning how girls differ from boys and can explore these differences in innocent childish play. They will grow up armed with knowledge of what is involved in intercourse and parenthood. They will be able to make more mature decisions when they are adolescents. Birth control information will be freely available. However, until our whole society has achieved wholeness, we will also have to help our children learn to protect themselves from sexual exploitation. One out of ten children in our present society, it is estimated, will be sexually molested.
Sexuality will be seen as a continuum that includes homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality, and probably masturbation. Individuals will be at different places at different times in their lives. Those in one place will not pass judgement on those at other places. Gays and lesbians will live openly together, accepted for