Sex, Sex, Sex!

Now that I have your attention, please direct it thither:

The modern form of the Catharsis Hypothesis is a kind of utopianism: “ah, wouldn’t it be great if people could have sex without hangups or consequences? How happy we would be! Boo for Christians who hate sex!” The roots of this fictional world are ancient, but an early modern example is that of the artist Paul Gauguin, a bored stockbroker who beat his wife and dreamed of escape from the middle-class ennui of industrial revolution France. […]
The problem with utopias is precisely that they elicit strong desires which themselves become compass points which lead us on a journey to nowhere. Sex among human beings is mostly imagination and only partly biology, so the way we shape imagination will impact the way we behave sexually. The major problem with the Catharsis Hypothesis is that in paying attention to outcomes or behaviors (like those Husbands Behaving Badly), it does not pay attention to input: the factors which shape imagination. Utopian sex in, false sex out. Advertising or porn, anyone?

Do go read it all! Send it around! As Muldoon continues to plumb the depths of this verydeep subject and its relation to objective Truth, these columns get better and better. I am struck particularly about the human imagination and its affect on sexuality. Woody Allen once said that our largest sex organs are our brains, and that was quite right, but I don’t know if I’ve spent much time pondering “the way we shape imagination will impact the way we behave sexually” — and that is certainly something to think about and pray over, not only in our personal lives but in our acceptance of media and how it contributes to the shaping of our imaginations, forever “broadening the boundaries,” so to speak to bring us to places and ideas we might never have come to on our own.

If your kids are old enough to think they want to have sex and have reasonable thinking skills, give it to them, too — and to your older kids, who already think they know it all!

And then send them next week’s installment, too. And last week’s!
More Muldoon on Sex and Christianity: Part II and Part I

Related (indirectly) Porn without boundaries