Philosophy: Love

Touching Ourselves

Sects and Sex

I used to be pretty good at programming macros. Give me an Office document and a bit of script, and I’d whip up a system that had some smarts. Nothing commercial, but if you wanted (say) a spreadsheet that could keep track of books that you’d loaned out to friends and pop up alerts when they’d been gone two weeks, I was your woman.

Some might say I was once a cult member but I’m nothing compared to some people I know. I have a distant cousin deeply entrenched in a sect so fundamentalist Christian that Jesus would not recognise it. One day he approached me, asking if I could whip up a system with a few smarts for him.

Sure, I said, what do you want it to do?

He explained the situation. His sect was big into home-schooling because of course the State doesn’t pay proper respect to the laid-down truth. Weekends weren’t for playing, they were for attending services and bible study and doctrination by the adults.

They had developed a curriculum of lessons, some members had put up their hands to be teachers, and the children of the members were the students, required to be taught every lesson and pass it before being accepted as full members.

Records had to be kept.

This was where I came in. If I could develop a system that recorded teachers, lessons, students, and progress, then everything would be a lot better than the ratty old notebooks they were using.

One problem was that they worked on a roster system to spread the teaching load and sometimes there was an awkward combination.

“Say an unmarried woman,” he said, addressing one, “is given a class of teenaged boys and assigned the masturbation lesson. That can be an embarrassing situation.”

“Because she couldn’t instruct them on technique, not having the right bits.” I had spotted the problem right away.

There was a break in the conversation on his end. A pause that stretched out into awkward territory.

“Ah, not exactly. The lesson is all about the vital importance of saving sex for marriage.”

I knew where this was headed now. You got the teenagers all buttoned up and if the only outlet for their hormones was marriage — and it went without saying that you only married within the sect — then they married young and set about increasing the number of members. That way you didn’t have to rely on missionary work to attract new members to your bonkers cult. So to speak.

I ended up not taking the job. It was insane. These people were my cousins, and they would talk friendly to me, but this guy’s own sister had rebelled and left the sect and now she was dead to them. No contact, no talking, no nothing. The girl’s own mother had piled up all her clothes, all her toys, books, personal documents, photographs in the front yard and set fire to them.

I didn’t believe in their nonsense, and I was treated with polite affection, but their own flesh and blood got seen out the door. I kind of got the feeling that if she hadn’t been quick enough, they would have piled her on top of the bonfire as well.

What’s this got to do with a good tug?

One might argue that if their particular deity had seen fit to give them carnal desires, then second-guessing the intention might not be respectful.

Denying teenagers sexual release — even at their own hands — isn’t healthy. Congestion, frustration, distraction, weird and embarrassing behaviour. Mothers of teenage boys tell me about their laundry problems.

So why would parents try to force their own children into unhappiness? So that they can get married and start having children for the church as soon as possible? What if they want a career that doesn’t involve motherhood?

If I were the unmarried woman assigned “the masturbation lesson”, I’d be handing out advice to my students, instructing on technique, watching and commenting on videos…

And telling them about one crucial distinction that seems to have escaped the sect elders.

Pleasure and happiness are not the same thing

Pleasure, in my mind, is anything that feels good in the body. Ice cream, chocolate, a massage, sex, alcohol, driving fast, all of the above at once…

All of those — yes, even massage — can become unpleasant after a while. The body starts to complain after the second or third litre of ice cream. Don’t ask me how I know, let’s just say I read it somewhere.

Likewise for sex, same deal.

Pleasure can turn into the opposite.

People might say they are happy when having a good lick of the ice cream cone, but what they mean is that they are feeling good about it. Keep on licking and after a while, it’s not fun any more.

Happiness isn’t pleasure. Happiness doesn’t depend on outside factors like ice cream or the touch of fingers on skin.

Happiness comes from inside. Happiness is a state of the mind, and happiness can be accessed immediately. I can meditate and be happy. The world outside might be noisy and bright and active but as soon as I still my mind and let all the sensation and tumult drain away, there is happiness and contentment and love.

Love is not sex

In the popular mind — and the minds of church elders — these two things can be equated.

But, looking within myself, I love many things that have nothing to do with sex. I love wisdom, for example, but I’m not thinking lustful thoughts about Plato. I feel happy when I walk into a library or an art gallery. Not horny.

I love being outside in nature, walking in silence through trees and dappled sun, the feel of fresh air on my skin, my eyes awake and my senses alert. Pleasure, yes. Happiness as well. And definitely love.

It’s great having a lover. Someone to stroke and caress and do all the things that lovers do behind closed doors.

These things are fun and pleasant but they can be had with anyone. I can walk into a bar, find a good-looking man, invite him back to my place and do all the things.

But that isn’t love.

Love is happy affection. Love is freedom. Love is honesty and communication.

I can have a loving friend. No sex involved, just talking together, sometimes for hours. Walk in the park, discussing nothing important or everything. It doesn’t matter. It might just be walking in silence.

Love is listening. Love is sharing thoughts unspoken. Love is a shared joy in tiny things. Do we need words to say how much we are moved by the sight of a rainbow, a child’s smile, a flower, a rollicking dog?

Of course not. A loving friend knows. A smile, a sigh, the twinkle of an eye and we two are happy in the same moment. And knowing it.

Dogma is not divinity

My cousin missed the boat on happiness and love. Maybe fitting into a rigid society and being a good member of the tribe gave him pleasure.

I cannot say that he seemed happy.

Driven, perhaps. Always feeling he had to act according to some set of rules, and would I help him systematise the whole thing?

Happiness and love come from the heart.

You don’t have to study up on whether a rainbow is beautiful. You know immediately.

You don’t have to follow rules to know that there is something beyond, something that keeps the universe running. You don’t even have to know what it is or how it works. Just enjoy the experience. Here we are, and hey it’s a beautiful day.

Happiness is being one with the cosmos, accepting that you are not apart from it, you are not even a part of it. You are it and where it goes, you go.

I look up at the stars and I see love. I’m exactly where I should be, I’m enjoying the sight, I’m listening to the music of the spheres, I am uplifted and inspired.

Of course, it’s always better if I can reach out and take the hand of a close friend, share the experience, share my heart.

For my Christian friends

I see Jesus as a great teacher. Not because he founded a church full of priests and rules and money and power.

But because he taught the exact opposite. He taught that there is no need to worry. He taught that love is the answer. He taught that priests can be selfish and demanding.

The only time Jesus ever got angry was when he rampaged amongst the tables of the money-changers at the Temple in Jerusalem. The priests made rules that ordinary money was no good as a gift to God. It had to be special Temple money, and you could change your Roman coins in the foyer for the freshly-blessed tokens.

Turn devotion into a profit centre. Sell the poor access to the divine for as much as you can screw out of them.

There are no rules to love and happiness. Jesus didn’t teach dogma. He asked his followers to listen to their hearts, not the priests. Feel the divine in the open air, not the malls of the Temple.

I don’t advocate anger. But if I were, I would say to recognise the sense of frustration and temper at those who would keep you from love and happiness with their rules and demands and doctrines.

Don’t take my word for it

Love is freedom, I said earlier.

I don’t necessarily believe everything I hear, even if it is said by someone close with a smile. A parent, a cousin, a teacher.

Listen to what they say, but in the end you must take your own counsel. You don’t have to put your hand in the fire to test it out; logic and reason and your own wisdom will guide you.

If you look for love and happiness, you will find it.

Britni

My deepest thanks to my dear friend Geetika Sethi, who has once again set me contemplating love and beauty and happiness with just a few words and thoughts.