The other night I went to see our Chalice Theater production of “Seussical,” and I really loved it!
It brought back wonderful memories of reading every Dr. Seuss book to our children, and I remembered why I enjoyed them as much as our kids.
Not only was “Seussical” great fun and with a talented cast, it also has an inspiring Unitarian Universalist message.
As you heard in the song this morning, it encourages people to dare to think for themselves no matter how much others discourage you.
“If you open your mind, oh, the thinks you will find,” Dr. Seuss tells us.
There were also messages about “the inherent worth and dignity of every person -- no matter how small” and peace and even a romance.
But I'm embarrassed to say that I sat there the entire time trying to figure out how to relate it to lust.
I've got to tell you that Seuss and sex are not usually words found in the same sentence.
But he does speak to sexuality when he proclaims , “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
And that certainly goes for our sexual lives.
When we deny our own physical needs and are blind to the needs of others our sexuality and our spirit suffers.
So what does this have to do with chocolate?
Did you see the recent poll taken in Great Britain that showed more than half of British women prefer chocolate to sex?
As one woman put it, "chocolate provides guaranteed pleasure."
Ouch!
Men on the other hand didn't take that news lying down.
They overwhelmingly prefer carnal pleasures to a bar of confectionery.
I will refrain from taking my own survey, so relax.
Ann Landers did an informal poll a number of years ago and discovered that 70% of women preferred hugs over “the act.”
In response to that news, a male columnist did a similar survey for men asking if they would rather go bowling or have sex with their wives, and 66% of the men replied that they preferred bowling balls to bed.
Can you imagine if they had asked about golf?
So what’s going on here?
We are surrounded by blatant sexuality everywhere we look, and yet it seems that there are a lot of folks who could care less.
Could it be as Jane Austin wrote, “One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other”?
Or is it that people just don’t know what sex is?
People tend to think that sex is a physical act, which it certainly is; in fact, the most pleasurable of physical acts if we allow it to be.
But sex can be more than sensuality.
At its best, sex is truly making love.
Making love is learning how to give and receive, to touch and be touched, to speak the truth and to listen for it, to cry and laugh with no apologies necessary.
Sex is easy for most people, but making love is terribly difficult.
Supposedly we have been liberated from the sexual repression of the past so that now we are immersed in a sea of sexuality.
In the movies, on television, and on our computers raw erotism and pornography is becoming more conspicuous to adults and children.
But how often do we see men and women -- as well as men and men and women and women -- genuinely making love?
We frequently see people use sex to get what they want or to hurt someone.
But how often do we and our children see people giving another person physical pleasure because they truly care for that person and gain pleasure from giving it?
We see many people playing sexual stereotypes so they can seduce another person.
But how often do we see two people simply being themselves with no pretense and loving each other for who they are?
I'm proud that, as Jacomina reminded us, our children are learning the values of mutual respect and a caring sexuality in our OWL classes.
But I'm sorry to say that many of us were brought up more like the comedian Roseanne who quipped, “My family never raised me to have a vagina.”
Perhaps we can use an OWL class ourselves.
Our children – and we – need to learn that to make love you have to realize that men and women are not as different as the media would like us to think.
Physically the differences between the sexes are obvious and quite practical, though gay people certainly seem to be quite satisfied with the lack of differences.
But beneath the skin people of both sexes have similar needs and ways to go about fulfilling those needs.
Madison Avenue would like us to think just the opposite.
For the sake of the bottom line, they want to widen the gulf between the sexes.
Remember this one: “Want him to be more of a man?” asked one perfume ad... “Try being more of a woman.”
In reality men and women don't come from different planets because basically we are after the same thing: good sensual and pleasurable physical experiences intertwined with tenderness, intimacy, and caring communications.
But why is it that so many people can’t find that?
Probably because we keep compartmentalizing our sexuality.
There’s a tendency for people to mythologize the bedroom as a room totally disconnected from the rest of the house, unique in its purpose.
In actuality, what happens in the bedroom is much like what happens in the rest of the house.
If our bedroom is a place of pleasure and the free and open giving and receiving of physical delight, that sensuality and joy will not stop at the bedroom door.
If the bedroom is a place of intimacy, caring, open and honest communications, then our love-making will spread throughout the home and all the lives of those we love.
But if our bedrooms are solemn and joyless, reverberating with tension and anxiety, then that loneliness and sense of separation will echo throughout the empty rooms as they echo through the empty spirits of those who live there.
When lovemaking works then the sex is unapologetically lustful like the poem, “Topography,” describes, the joy of all the parts fitting together, “like maps laid face to face, East to West, my San Francisco against your New York, your Fire Island against my Sonoma, my New Orleans deep in your Texas...”
If you would like to see how a culture has learned sexuality in a much different way than we have, take a look at the people of Mangaia, a Polynesian island in the South seas.
Carol Tarvis tells us that:
“(The) Mangaians of both sexes love sex and start early. Eskimos have many words for snow in all its incarnations, but Mangaians have lots of words for intercourse and for the sexual organs...
In Mangaia, girls begin to have intercourse ... at twelve or thirteen, and they have several lovers before marriage, with no disapproval from the community...
... Sexual frequency remains high for men and women throughout life; no one is too old or too ugly to have a partner.
All women learn about orgasm, and men learn that the female’s pleasure is essential to their own.
In Mangaia, the sexes do not regard each other as mysterious strangers to be conquered or manipulated...”
Before you go running to your nearest travel agent, let me make it clear that the difference between the Mangaians and ourselves is that many men and women in our culture – gay and straight alike – are afraid of our sexuality.
For too long we have listened to others tell us what kind of man or woman we should be instead of being who we are authentically.
We have been so overwhelmed by all the “shoulds” of sexuality that many people simply don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore.
Let's eat chocolate or go bowling instead.
Just turn on the television, and then we don’t have to talk with or touch anyone.
Others have dealt with these irrational dogmas by evading any sense of morality and responsibility concerning sexuality.
This is the sin as contrasted to the spirituality of lust.
Some people get hung up on the word “sin,” but I prefer to think of sin as those actions in our lives that diminish us or others as human beings.
One of the most blatant examples of the sin of lust was Bill Clinton – who kept calling me recently to urge me to vote for Hillary.
As a sitting president – and I do believe he was sitting at the time – he seriously violated a sense of morality and responsibility concerning sexuality.
But he certainly does not have a monopoly on that sin.
We see such irresponsible and immoral acts so often these days it's become almost commonplace.
And sometimes we're just stupid about sex.
As Jeff Foxworthy puts it, “Getting married for sex is like buying a 747 for the free peanuts,” and yet people do it all the time.
There's no doubt we need a new understanding of the significant part sexuality plays in our lives.
The psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan, has said that sex is only 20 minutes.
The yippie Jerry Rubin was more pessimistic when he said that sex is only 7 ½ minutes.
I would say that sex is a 24 hour a day and 7 day a week human activity because our sexuality is inextricably intertwined with everything we do.
Sexuality is not just a bedtime activity.
And as a matter of fact it doesn’t have to be concerned with intercourse at all.
We are sexual beings even if we are celibate or simply single and physically uninvolved.
Sexuality is the totality of who we are as a person and of our relationships.
Everything we do relates to our sexuality, especially our spiritual lives.
Many think that spirituality and sensuality are at opposite poles, but in truth they are closely connected.
At it's best sexuality can bring us closer not only to the person we love but to the divine, however you may choose to define that word.
The lusty verses in the Song of Solomon are actually meant to describe the relationship between individuals and God.
The sexual metaphor is used to show the intimate ecstasy of communing with the divine or with Life itself.
And yet as Mark Twain said, “Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.”
Sex is spiritual in another way as well.
If a spiritual person is one who lives fully in the present, then that person must live fully in the physical world and in the body.
Sexuality at its best is intimacy.
Through the gift of sex we're able to look deep into another’s spirit, and then touch that person in a way that brings an added dimension to life.
The physical relationship is not only symbolic of this intimacy, but it is essential to it.
By holding each other in our nakedness we weave ourselves into the fabric of each other’s being.
By caring for someone’s physical pleasure we learn to care for their whole being.
One of my favorite stories of making love is by Homer. Odysseus is on his way home from his many adventures. He has been away from his wife, Penelope, and his son for 19 years. He is almost another man altogether, and yet after visiting exotic lands and having great adventures he still weeps to return home to be with his wife and son again.
After rescuing Penelope from his enemies, Odysseus is finally alone with his wife. There is little said of their intimate reunion and yet the reader can sense the depth of love that still flows between them. All that is mentioned of that moment for which both have so longed for is this: They then gladly went together to bed, and their old ritual.
What a wonderful way to put it: their old ritual! Their intimate reunion does not end with their lovemaking. Afterwards they tell their stories -- nineteen years of stories -- not daring to sleep until the last story has been told.
Perhaps this is the most intimate moment of all, when they share their experiences, their lives with one another, when they once again discover the wonder of the person they have loved and missed for so long. And then finally they fall asleep in each other's arms.
If your sex life is not what you want it to be then sex manuals or Viagra may be helpful, but in most situations the problem is not sexual inadequacies or dysfunction's but the lack of genuine communications, of caring for each other’s needs, of time spent together talking about your lives – and yes, even sharing chocolate and bowling together.
Sex is a frightening thing.
It's not easy to take off our masks and stand naked before another.
It's not easy to reveal your innermost thoughts and feelings.
But the potential joy and intimacy that can grow out of a caring relationship makes it well worth the risk.
So let us be lustful and loving.
Let us be sexy and spiritual.
And let us go forth and make love!
Offering:
As Dr. Seuss said,
“Oh, the thinks you can think!
Think and wonder and dream - far and wide as you dare!”
May this be a time to think and wonder and dream about the possibilities for our lives and for our congregation.
And may generosity help make all those possibilities come true.
Let the offering be received.
And you may light candles of joy and sorrow in the back of the sanctuary.
Benediction:
I have homework for all of you.
You like homework, don't you?
Make love in whatever way you can.
Make love every day and night of your life.
Make love wherever you go and with whoever you are with.
Don't miss an opportunity to make love, even with yourself, even with those who are no longer with us, even with those you can't stand.
The more you make love the more love will make you.
