nrobi,

Interesting how you consider the enjoyment of the human body, as a business, ie rooted in principles of ownership, possession and profit therefrom: AN ACT OF HAVING: enjoying the sexual—i.e. intellectual superiority sexuality—fruits of the labour of other human bodies, has its roots in the principles of possession, a good description thereof being slavery, whether intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, etc. These forms of ‘sexuality’ are manifestations of sexuality, from a base of power. They are about asserting the power of one party over another by coercion or force. 

As opposed to an act of the senses, i.e. an act of BEING: by one, two or however many people who love each other, care for each other—ie, consider each other equals, peers, and within a respectful, truly consensual environment, give each other sensual pleasure; because in that particular moment, they WANT to, not because anyone else held a physical or metaphorical gun—whether economic, psychological, or otherwise—to their head. In such a situation, when one party says NO, at that moment, the other—because they love them—RESPECTS THAT RESPONSE.

Having and being, being simply two sides of the same coin, they shall always exist, and so they should. It’s about balancing both, in terms of any act. It’s just that humanity have created a world of pretty much 99.9999% of beings who live every moment in the HAVING mode, and preciously few, if any, in the BEING mode.

An extreme example: A Special Forces sniper in a jungle war, may HAVE a gun; but if his senses are not in the BEING mode, sensing the environment around him, his HAVING a gun, may be irrelevant, if his BEING does not sense the approaching danger.

Another less extreme example: Years ago, I sailed up the Red Sea, during the 1991 Gulf War. It was full of military war-ships, with coral reefs everywhere. We were in the middle of a massive sandstorm, blowing over 70mph winds, and sand. I was at the helm, and couldn’t see the bowsprit of the 25 meter yacht I was on—Spirit of Knysna. My senses—don’t ask me to explain it—told me to immediately tack (change direction, we were sailing upwind, i.e directly into the wind), which I did. About 5 second after tacking, we passed another sailboat coming downwind, which passed us by less than 2 metres. If I hadn’t tacked, we would have had a head on collision.

As for physical sexuality: Some people prefer,—or perhaps simply have never thought about it—the power of coercing or forcing another into ‘having sex’, with them. It works for them, I guess; otherwise why would they do it? I prefer the consensual, equal peers version, where its about expressing love, respect, and sincere sharing of sensuality.

In this overpopulated world of Mama and Papa democracies, sex has been, and from observation, continues to be, more about power and the procreation of slave and cannon fodder surplus children, where sex is not about equal peers consensual sensuality, and an intimate exploration of the senses; but externalised, manifesting itself, as the sexuality of war, pornography, obsession with other’s sex lives, whether through People Magazine, or by sexually frustrated goverment employees using goverment surveillance, either as peeping toms, or for blackmail purposes, etc..

And, so humanity continues, until there are sufficient individuals willing to address the root causes, of how and why we continue to sexually procreate the world, as we do, requiring Mama and Papa Democracies, to regulate behaviours, we are not willing to take personal responsibility for, and regulate ourselves, through family planning, committed responsible procreation, and committed responsible citizenship.

Hmmmm, Jerusalem!
So this means they will be trading homosexuality for pornography?

It seems as though the bishops of the Episcopal church, and an indeterminate percentage of its clergy, have made ‘gayness,’ the point of their mission. Not the gospel, eucharist, or salvation. The leftward plunge of the episcopacy since the 1960’s has cost the denomination millions of members of the last 40 years. If it were a business, the CEO and senior managers would have been fired long ago. (In the US, that would be the presiding bishop and certan diocesan bishops.)

To prove the point, I have heard the bishop in the center of this storm, Eugene Robinson, preach on three occasions. And the sermons are always about....well, himself, mostly. I don’t recall Christ’s apostles being sent into the world to preach gaiety.

What a pathetic waste of the apostolic mission, and especially of the Episcopal church’s legacy of liturgy, music, art and worship.

Frankly, if their real concern is for the people in their congregation, why would they care about the choice of sexuality? I don’t understand what they are upset about, whether those in their congregations are straight or bisexual. For me, the important thing is whether the people in a particular church I join, or go to, love each other, their commitment to each other.

I’d rather go to a church with a congregation of 20 people who love each other, are there for each other, support each other, are honest about their spiritual search on the existential meaning of life, wherever that conversation takes them, and so on, than belong to a church millions of members, where I go to church, and it’s like there is no real spiritual quest, for what we are existentially here for. Where as someone recently told me, she just goes to church, to look for nice young men to date.

Of course you could find within a spiritual movement of millions, select churches or parishes here or there, where the pastor, priest, bishop or whatever really cares about his ‘flock’, and the dialogue is not one where he necessarily knows all the answers. It’s more like a community church, where each kind of bring their own wisdom, in a collective search for meaning, love, wisdom, kindness, sharing, growth, and whatever other issues they wish to bring up and discuss, or similar.

It must be nice to have a good book to guide people into deciding what is the real good and what is not.