Helpful Score: 2
5* vs. 1* from Amazon
5*
By Allie Kat "sarahphin" (Nunavut)
Spiritual writers have always assumed we're trying to get to some loftier plane than this one, where there's lots of love but no sensuality. A sort of endless group hug, perhaps. Without entwining sex with its sentimental partner, love, this book examines the deeper meaning and life-affirming need behind our fascination with sex. Thomas Moore isn't the easiest writer to understand, I find I have to switch to some more lyrical level of my brain to follow him, but his elliptical style fits this subject well. And it's a hidden subject, one that vanishes if you look at it too directly. For all the joy and depth that sex brings to our lives, we treat it rather shoddily, plastering it with coyness, burying it in morality, or handing it off to biologists for dissection. The danger lies not in the concealment, for the elusiveness adds to the intrigue and mystery, but in thinking that we can separate sexuality and sensuality from the fabric of our lives.
1*
By D. S. Howes
Ironically I found this book to be soul destroying in some of it's attempts to put the soul back into sex. First it has a chapter describing the soul of the phallus and vagina where it describes the mysteries of the vaginal canal and womb as the entrance of pleasure for the penis, which to me was a pretty soulless and western patriarchal male description of the spirit behind a woman's sex organs. Sort of annoying in a book with the purpose of putting back the soul of sex and severely alienating too!
I think this is some of why we've lost our spirituality in the West, we see anything that is still, silent or dark as something made to be filled by the Freudian "Penis-child" Moore mentions in his book.
Perhaps in light of this is would be more beneficial and soulful to look at the so called empty space of the vagina and womb in this light. Not as something to be filled, but as something that are complete on their own. Something we can learn to appreciate in the same way we can darkness, stillness, and silence. They aren't a place for you to visit or tuck into anymore than the phallus is a location or place you can visit.
My other problems are the constant reference to psycho analysis, a science born of a man very few would find pro-woman, or woman positive, where people talk endlessly about their problems and yet rarely seem to move beyond them, quite the opposite of the quiet, mysterious healing power of nature and the soul. Last I found the use of Marilyn Monroe as a symbol of Eros and the Goddess of Love as suspect. Using a Movie star, and one that seems to arouse alot of pity in people for her sad life, which ended in suicide doesn't seem to be in line with living soulfully in the spirit of pleasure and joy of Eros. Using your sexuality for Fame, the most soulless of ambitions? Being used by a system, sleeping with men for power not for spiritual or sacrad exchange, that's who we want to look at for an example of eros in life? Not this soul. I think we all know soulful, sensual people or pets in our lives, why do we need to look at an empty and soulless image created by hollywood as inspiration?
Alot of people seem to like the book, so if these things don't bother you then this book might have much to offer you, and certainly I don't begrudge anyone the much needed help of finding the soul of sex in everyday life, from whatever source. I am pleased that at least we're looking for newer, healthier ways of living and living with sex. That's progress!
I have mixed feeling about this this book. I give it 3* but it is not a keeper for me.
I hope that the 2 copied reviews above will help you.
5*
By Allie Kat "sarahphin" (Nunavut)
Spiritual writers have always assumed we're trying to get to some loftier plane than this one, where there's lots of love but no sensuality. A sort of endless group hug, perhaps. Without entwining sex with its sentimental partner, love, this book examines the deeper meaning and life-affirming need behind our fascination with sex. Thomas Moore isn't the easiest writer to understand, I find I have to switch to some more lyrical level of my brain to follow him, but his elliptical style fits this subject well. And it's a hidden subject, one that vanishes if you look at it too directly. For all the joy and depth that sex brings to our lives, we treat it rather shoddily, plastering it with coyness, burying it in morality, or handing it off to biologists for dissection. The danger lies not in the concealment, for the elusiveness adds to the intrigue and mystery, but in thinking that we can separate sexuality and sensuality from the fabric of our lives.
1*
By D. S. Howes
Ironically I found this book to be soul destroying in some of it's attempts to put the soul back into sex. First it has a chapter describing the soul of the phallus and vagina where it describes the mysteries of the vaginal canal and womb as the entrance of pleasure for the penis, which to me was a pretty soulless and western patriarchal male description of the spirit behind a woman's sex organs. Sort of annoying in a book with the purpose of putting back the soul of sex and severely alienating too!
I think this is some of why we've lost our spirituality in the West, we see anything that is still, silent or dark as something made to be filled by the Freudian "Penis-child" Moore mentions in his book.
Perhaps in light of this is would be more beneficial and soulful to look at the so called empty space of the vagina and womb in this light. Not as something to be filled, but as something that are complete on their own. Something we can learn to appreciate in the same way we can darkness, stillness, and silence. They aren't a place for you to visit or tuck into anymore than the phallus is a location or place you can visit.
My other problems are the constant reference to psycho analysis, a science born of a man very few would find pro-woman, or woman positive, where people talk endlessly about their problems and yet rarely seem to move beyond them, quite the opposite of the quiet, mysterious healing power of nature and the soul. Last I found the use of Marilyn Monroe as a symbol of Eros and the Goddess of Love as suspect. Using a Movie star, and one that seems to arouse alot of pity in people for her sad life, which ended in suicide doesn't seem to be in line with living soulfully in the spirit of pleasure and joy of Eros. Using your sexuality for Fame, the most soulless of ambitions? Being used by a system, sleeping with men for power not for spiritual or sacrad exchange, that's who we want to look at for an example of eros in life? Not this soul. I think we all know soulful, sensual people or pets in our lives, why do we need to look at an empty and soulless image created by hollywood as inspiration?
Alot of people seem to like the book, so if these things don't bother you then this book might have much to offer you, and certainly I don't begrudge anyone the much needed help of finding the soul of sex in everyday life, from whatever source. I am pleased that at least we're looking for newer, healthier ways of living and living with sex. That's progress!
I have mixed feeling about this this book. I give it 3* but it is not a keeper for me.
I hope that the 2 copied reviews above will help you.
