Dear Everyone,
There is a scene in “Gabriel’s Inferno” in which the main character gives a lecture at the University of Toronto on the topic of Lust in Dante’s Inferno. Professor Emerson is very familiar with lust and its various forms and some of his expertise emerges during his presentation.
In an interview that I did recently with Tigris Eden, (which you can read here), I identified Gabriel as a sensualist. He’s obsessed with the pleasures of the body – taste, touch, sound, smell, sight. You can see this in his choice of Scotch, food, sex, art, music, fine clothing and writing instruments, etc.
Julia is very different from Gabriel. She is a product of her upbringing and circumstances, but also of her choices. Rather than focusing on the pleasures of the body, she has favoured the pleasures of the soul – education, friendship, and love.
Throughout the course of the novel, the topic of sex is raised by different characters who espouse different views of it. Last week’s post was a glimpse into the music and ideas associated with Julia and her past. Several readers commented on the music and lyrics of the song. I enjoyed reading their reactions and so this week I welcomed readers to contact me via Twitter, Facebook or email to share their ideas about the connection between sex and God.
The response was overwhelming.
Many readers emphasized the connection between partners that emerges through sex – a connection of knowledge, intimacy, and giving. Some readers emphasized the transcendence or the sublime as it’s experienced in sex.
Readers identified themselves as coming from various different perspectives – some religious, some not. In all, I was surprised at the similarity among the comments and how reader’s reflections overlapped with my own views.
Over the course of writing a story that presents the redemption of sex as much as the redemption of a man, I’ve wondered about the relationship between sex, love and God. I’ll never be able to do justice to these connections in this short post, but I’ll present some of my reflections so far.
My suspicion is that sex offers human beings a glimpse of the transcendent in the way nature or human creations caused the Romantic poets to think of the sublime, or what Wordsworth termed “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
If a Grecian urn, frost, or the ruins of an old abbey can inspire such reactions, how much more can sex? And if the powerful feelings elicited by nature or artifacts provoke us to think about our place in the world, how much more can sex provoke us to think of similar things and beyond?
What I have in mind here is the way that sex is all-consuming during the act and especially, during orgasm. Sex focuses all attention on the attainment of its goal – satisfaction. But one can also think of sex as a symbol of something else. The greatest of bodily pleasures could be seen as a foretaste of Dante’s Paradise,where one is known and loved intimately by the Divine and all one’s desires are satisfied, not just for moments but for eternity.
When Dante visits Paradise, he meets St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). In description of the meeting Dante writes, “Though he had been absorbed in his delight, that contemplator freely undertook the task of teaching.” [Canto 32.1]
“The King through whom this kingdom finds content
in so much love and so much joyousness
that no desire would dare to ask for more.” [Canto 32.61]
I’m sure everyone has their own idea of what heaven is like, if they believe in heaven. I have a fondness for Dante’s vision – that heaven is a place of absorbing delight, where everyone is content, loved and joyous, and one’s deepest and best desires are satisfied to the point where there is no more desire.
It sounds similar to sex, doesn’t it?
In the closing lines of the end of his Paradiso, Dante pens the following:
“But then my mind was struck by light that flashed
and, with this light, received what it had asked.
Here force failed my high fantasy; but my
desire and will were moved already—like
a wheel revolving uniformly—by
the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” [Canto 33]
Through his visit to Paradise, Dante is given insight into the workings of the universe. Everything is governed by love. From a Dantean perspective, then, it doesn’t seem to be too great a leap to suggest that sex within the context of love is a picture or an image of Paradise.
Once again, I welcome your thoughts below. Thanks for reading,
SR
PS. If you have friends who are interested in reading “Gabriel’s Inferno,” please let them know about two contests in which they can enter to win a copy.
Also, you can read reviews of my book in languages other than English here.
I am honoured to have had all three of my novels appear on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. I was a Semifinalist for Best Author in the 2011 and 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards. {
Dear SR,
your post made me remember a discussion with a friend about differences between Leopardi (the Italian poet) and St. Francis. (The friend was a young Franciscan nun).
We ended up with this conclusion: Leopardi looked for pleasure, and ended up sad and disappointed, while St. Francis looked for happiness, and he found it.
Thanks for everything!
– Marinella
I find your theories interesting & hopeful. My mind is not yet made up regarding God, sex & heaven but what you propose certainly requires further contemplation…
A very interesting theory. Dante’s idea of no more desire does seem to almost equate reaching the moment of climax during intercourse, when everything else falls away leaving only pure bliss.
Having spilled too much ink on the subject already, I’ll simply say thank you for inspiring thought and lively discussions with your posts.
~gg
This comment has been removed by the author.
This reminded me of something I haven’t thought about since undergraduate years! San Juan de la Cruz, the Spanish poet and priest, often compared sexual relations to the relationship between God and man. He has beautiful poems that speak of lovers, but are really poems about God’s love and what it feels like to experience it.
Loreena McKennitt has done a haunting rendition of his poem, Dark Night of the Soul, that almost brings me to tears every time I listen to it.
The chorus is beautiful:
Oh night thou was my guide
oh night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other
If you’ve never listened to this song, you should! Here’s a youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3zQkMl0iI
Tammy Cordeiro (devadasi7)
http://www.mysticbooklover.blogspot.com
Dear SR,
Your remarks are well said. I couldnt agree with you more about nature reflecting the sublime…and Dante’s vision of heaven. It is difficult to imagine a place where there is no desire, yet Dante speaks so elequently of it.
I do believe that sex is yet another of God’s creations as a gift to his children.
I have always wondered why the Bible states that having sex is being “known” by another.
I believe this is a clue as to how God regards the sex act. It is interesting that it is an act where participants must be naked. (Or partly naked) Why not make sex where the participants only touch fingers, say as in some of the sex acts displayed by aliens in Star Trek episodes? Why do people who dont even believe in God cry out “Oh God” during orgasm?
I think the full meaning of the sex act will be hidden from humans until me meet the creator of it face to face. The Bible says that heaven has in store for us things that no man/woman have imagined. I believe that the sex act (between those who love) is only a foretaste of what God intends for all of his beloved children.
He loves so much as to give even those who do not believe in Him a small taste of heaven on earth.
HollySuzi, excellent perception ! Totally agree with you!
This is an excellent question and theories. I kind of think it is a touchy subject. So many people would like you to believe that you don’t mix the two–sex and God–yet He is the one who created it and would he have made it blissful were it not meant to be? Hmmmmm
Sex in nature, as set forth by the divine has two purposes, procreation for all the creatures of the planet and connections of the soul, henceforth the concept of soulmates. I have often wondered how love could grow in a situation where a man and a woman were brought together not by chance or desire, but by arrangement. If, either would be more selfish or cruel in their intent, then there would be no connection, no faith, no ability to give freely and the two would never be a full pair. If they came with open hearts, wanting and willing to care for the other and putting their needs aside, that deep bond that would transcend the simple physical act would be on the pair with the divine and offer a higher level of satisfaction.
Thus I think that while many seek only the basic pleasure of the act itself, the art and the divine are only found when one can let go of their needs and focus on the other. That level of devotion is what we call love. It is a most precious gift, a physical and tangible proof of the existence and grace of God. This is why the KJV used knowing, for to truly know one another it would take the bonds that no man should put asunder and perhaps no man can maintain without heavenly guidance and the holy spirit. Sex alone is just a physical act, but adding love to the equation achieves the divine
It was in church that I learned about God and heaven. Sex, wasn’t mentioned much except that sex should be between a husband and a wife, within the sanctity of marriage. To do so outside of marriage is sin.
Here is the dilemma. If I am to believe in the church’s teachings about God and heaven, then I ought to also believe that premarital sex is not God’s will for us and is not a foretaste of heaven.
I specifically mentioned premarital sex because in Gabriel’s Inferno, the sexual relationship developed between two unmarried individuals. I have to say though that the sexual union between Gabriel and Julianne struck me as though it was between man and wife and it was not some casual affair. That now leads to another dilemma, how can something be so beautiful, so good, be wrong?
Somewhere in GI, Gabriel mulls about missing having sex and yet not missing how he would go home and take a shower after having sex, as if he had to cleanse himself from it. This is in direct contrast to the way another GI character felt after having sex. For her, she felt loved.
Two different situations, two sets of feelings after having sex where orgasm was achieved in both cases. If having sex would leave me with feelings of guilt, fear and shame, I cannot equate that as something divine, something heavenlike. Even if at the point of orgasm, my physical and emotional desires were satiated. I don’t think heaven would leave a bad aftertaste.
However, sex within marriage does not bring the same feelings of guilt and shame. Here I can understand why it is said that sex is a gift from God. God designed marriage and sex is part of marriage. It is the highest, best, closest way that God intended for a man and a woman to know each other. But like marriage which is also one of God’s designs, it is up to us how to use sex.
Ok, I think I opened a whole new can of worms.
P.S. I was writing up my comment when I began to think about how this post is related to the previous one. I started to think that if I would say yes, I believe that sex comes from God, I would also have to say that yes, I believe Trent Reznor’s music would bring me closer to God. Or sex would bring me closer to God, as the lyrics suggest. Then I thought and hoped that Trent did not write the lyrics because utterances with God’s name are expressed during the sexual act and that would be the closest he ever got to God.
Thank you for this post SR!
The concept of sexual love hasn’t existed uniformly and fully developed at all times.Concepts and above all opinions or ideals mold and subtly modify ones experience of the world.I myself I am not so educated about the religion love , for the fact that I’ve been grown in atheist country, so I think that the object of spiritual love might possible serve as an ultimate lure for mind and heart but can it be loved in experiences comparably to what we undergo when we love human being?We may wish to love another person while also loving God, and we may see no opposition between human and religious love , but how the people will be able to understand and define the conception that each type of love explains the nature of the other ?? Out there I see a conflict that lingers between love as a ordinary attitude and a love as transcendental aspiration and this because some people see the marriage just as a legal bonds , enabling the couple to seek values that rise above the conformity of married life, and some have the reverse attitude and treat conjugal love as a main goal that fulfills a long process of psycho-biological exploration.
The things are different in our modern world,we as human being are self oriented, possessive and frequently manipulative and domineering toward those with whom we share intimacy , how we appease man’s self love with benevolent involvement for other persons , or sexual urgency with nonappetitive acceptance of another being and least aggressiveness with compassionable tender giving of oneself? …every ones idea about emotions and the esteem in which we hold them ,differ very much from one generation to another, I think.
This is just my opinion , maybe I am not making too much sense but I just wanted to write them down and share it here..
thank You SR for this discussion and the gift of your writing.
Hello to familiar posters and ones I do not yet know. 😉
From the Bible,
1 Corinthians 7:2-5.
“But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Well to me this defines sex as not just being for procreation. It says not to deprive each other except by mutual consent.
I love the concept that heaven is a place of bliss where every desire is met. Sated. Satisfied. Fulfilled. So perhaps God does give us a glimpse of that on Earth and allows us to bind our soul to another with a physical connection that matches and depends the spiritual and emotional connection we have in a soul mate.
It was mentioned that Gabriel washed himself after, but that was with his exploits with women who he did not have an emotional connection with. His guilt and indulgence in the 7 deadly sins left him feeling unclean.
Hello Zoe, Elli. I hope you are both doing well. I miss you two. Hello other new friends. And, Hello SR.
Since lust is one of the seven deadly sins, and sex is part of lust, then sex is sin. No way would that be heavenlike. And yet sex is part of marriage and marriage comes from God. Therefore, sex comes from God. So, sex is a foretaste of heaven.
I think my conclusion would be that it is not sex nor orgasm in itself that is a glimpse of heaven. In order to achieve that there are variables to be present, namely the person and the timing.
Have a great weekend.
Warmly,
chriserlyn
Thanks for reading, Everyone. And thanks for your comments,
There is a lot to think about here.
All the best,
SR
Such insightful thoughts and discussions.
What a pleasure it is to read each and every one.
I am now left pondering my own thoughts and welcome the process.
With gratitude
Yesyov
Hello Miss Yesyov,
Thanks very much for your comment and your very kind words.
Hope all is well.
All the best and thanks once again,
SR
SR, as I read through the post, I also wondered whether you could have added Emily Brontë to the metaphysical/pantheistic poets? Her poem ‘No Coward Soul Is Mine’ seems to encapsulate Man’s fusion with what may be termed Spirit via sexuality.
Her expression of this is strengthened by the fact that she had no experience of a physical relationship with a man or woman (to our knowledge anyway.) This is only my view – no doubt there’ll be others. Thanks for a thought provoking post ~ Sheila
What a wonderful, thoughtful discussion. I do believe that sex/love within the bounds of marriage is a glimpse into Paradise or Heaven.
Enjoyed reading as always.