Love, sex, and marriage are changing faster than ever before in human history. The current tidal wave of social changes will continue into the next century, and we will have to adapt our sexual values... This description may be from another edition of this product.
The 22 moving stories in this volume are a welcome antidote to conventional thinking about sexuality, spirituality, marriage, monogamy (no, they are not synonymous), and life. Under the influence of Saints Paul and Augustine, Western Christian thought has long driven a wedge between body and spirit. The stories in this book point the way for us to move beyond that false dichotomy.These are the stories of real people, struggling with real issues of how to nurture and support the Divine within, not by denial, possessiveness, or compressing love into a tiny box of "acceptable" dimensions. Casting off the falsely imposed shackles of Greco-Roman asceticism concentrated through the lens of Puritanism, the people whose stories are told in this volume offer a message of hope to all of us.These men and women, lay and clergy, drawn from an array of spiritual paths, are not self-indulgent, spoiled, immature, lascivious, lustful, or any of the other pejoritive epithets likely to be hurled by the ignorant defenders of the confining status quo. Their quest to recognize, nurture, and sustain the love instilled in us all by the Creator of life is sober, mature, responsible, and considered.I strongly urge anyone who wants to have a better, more mature understanding of the alternative ways of loving that we all may ethically, morally, and responsibly choose to read this book.
Sex, Love and Marriage in the 21st Century: The Next Sexual
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
I appreciate Bill's remarks, but this revolution is not for future generations; it is for ours. There are many of us around Bill's age who have been practicing responsible non-mononogamy for years. As such an individual, this book gave me words for concepts I have struggled to verbalize.Each of the 22 contributors offered their own personal stories of their journeys to join their sexual selves with their spiritual selves. Our culture has long tried to deny the natural connection between these two elemental parts of each human.For me, the most enlightening aspect of this book was the devotion to achieving the spiritual/sexual connection that many authors communicated. Their journey was not one of self-pleasuring but rather one of self-fulfillment by connecting with the divine aspect within themselves and others with whom they related deeply. Their's were indeed religious quests.My rating is not five stars in spite of my glowing remarks about the book. There are technical difficulties with editing that make it a four star book rather that five stars.
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