Ellens' "The Spirituality of Sex" - Book Review

“Spirituality and Gender”, invited entry in: The Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions, edited by Bernadette Flanagan and Laszlo Zsnolnai, London and New York: Routledge 135-141, 2019

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, and also by extension in most Western thinking, there is a tendency to describe reality along binary categories such as female-male, nature-culture, bodysoul etc. This way of thinking in dichotomies usually portrays one term as superior and more desirable to the other so that women, for instance, tend to be considered as inferior to men, closer to nature and more related to bodily functions (such as reproduction) and sexuality (e.g. Laqueur 1990; Martin 1992). More recent approaches have deconstructed these dichotomies and the implicit hierarchies they entail. Through the comparison with non-Western cultural systems, anthropologists have argued that these kinds of distinctions do not necessarily exist in other cultures (e.g. Descola 2005; Mead 1949). Feminist social scientists have analyzed the negative effects these dichotomies may have, especially for women, and for those whose sexual identity does not conform to male or female stereotypes; in addition, some men see themselves forced into role models that do not necessarily correspond to their personal needs or aspirations.

in Communica¬ting Experiences, Printed papers of IX International Oral History Conference, Gotenburg University Sweden: pp. 1253-1262., 1996

The meanings we attach to sexual preference and sexual conduct can be regarded as the consequence of a process of social construction rather than as the result of a 'overpowering natural force' They are sustained by a variety of languages (moral treatises, laws, educational practices, psychological theories, medical definitions, social rituals, fictions, music -Weeks 1986: 16). These languages change over time and are as such part of a historical process. Although this is true for all types of sexual preferences and behaviours, research into the development of sexual preference has up to now predominantly focused on same-sex sexualities. Homosexuality is not learned 'naturally' but is always the result of a long (secondary) process of attaching meaning to acts and feelings (a.o. Plummer 1975;. Up to now gay and lesbian identity-formation was seen as a process of more or less consequential phases (e.g. . However, the use of these phase models is not unproblematic. The life history is a continuous process and not a series of single events. Furthermore these phasemodels are a-historical in the sense that the formation of the phases seems to have been be orchestrated by developments within the social position of homosexuality. They are not simply transhistorical events (Schuyf 1994: 347 ff). Discourse analysis has demonstrated that (the concept of) modern homosexuality is in itself the result of a historical process, but here the emphasis was on the development of discourse itself which was seen almost as an autonomous process. The relationship between discourse and lived experience that in our view constitutes the life histories of lesbians and gay men has not been a subject for extensive research.

Miller Distributors Limited, 2016

Religion and Gender, 2015

Female sexuality has long been the focus of medical attention. Various parts of the female sexual body have been regarded as a site of pathology throughout history. While 21st century physicians and psychiatrists generally do not attribute women's afflictions to a wandering or dehydrated uterus, the female sexual body is still treated as something that needs to be handled and treated by the medical field. This preoccupation with female sexuality can be traced back to ancient Egyptian practices, to Freud's notions of sexual fantasy, to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV-TR (2004), which pathologizes female sexuality in the form of personality disorders, specifically Histrionic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. By looking back at the various ways female sexuality was handled, it is evident that the way in which women dealt with their sexuality was largely governed by others. Women's sexuality was deemed something that needed to be controlled because it could be dangerous both to men and to the dominant ideology of patriarchy.

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings."-Diderot Note: Much of what follows isn't exactly "politically correct." A large proportion of respectable psychological and scientific literature from the past and present is contrary to feminist dogmas about gender, but I'm skeptical that this fact in itself invalidates that literature. As I see it, there are interesting innate (and also socially constructed) differences between men and women, and over the years I've liked to reflectively probe what those differences might be. Perhaps in doing so I've been a bit too provocative sometimes; but we should all be open to perspectives that diverge from our own, at least if they're professed in good faith. Anyway, for what it's worth, none of the following bears on the feminist moral crusade, which every ethically aware person is obligated to support. We should all be feminists in the sense of fighting for political and economic equality. I'm critical only of the movement's idealist, postmodernist (and thus pretentious) orientation. To speak bluntly, in order to explain gender and sexuality I don't think it's necessary to resort to the airy discourse-mongering and labyrinthine deconstructionism of postmodernism, feminism, and queer theory. These sorts of "theoretical" writings may be useful for academics hoping to get tenure, but they often serve more to obfuscate than to explicate. A more fruitful and accessible approach is to use good old-fashioned straightforward reasoning, combined with respect for the findings of relevant scientific research. Readers accustomed to academic language and argument will find that much of the following (excerpted from books) has a rather unsophisticated and even offensive sound. This is because, unlike academic language, it's direct and unpretentious, based only on neutral observation and contemplation of humanity, rather than adherence to disciplinary norms. Professional intellectuals would do well to reflect on Noam Chomsky's statement that their institutional function, which they carry out with relish, is to make simple things appear complicated. *** On feminine self-ambivalence.-Why does the feminine as such seem to be more prone to insecurity about itself and its place in society than the masculine? There are many reasons, of course. One set of them is suggested by this passage from Christine Downing's book Women's Mysteries: Toward a Poetics of Gender (2003): …From a series of letters written to me over the course of years I have culled these reflections: "I write today as I bleed. The first day and the heaviest flow. I write feeling my weightedness, the drag of my uterus. Feeling my wound, my incapacity. All the changes in my body-my voice flattened, my belly swollen, my clumsiness, a flood of dreams I cannot bring back to consciousness. "How difficult it is to stay in the body. I get up, get to the bathroom, reach into my vagina for the menstrual sponge-a bloody mess! Squeeze the blood into a cup. It splatters everywhere. "Can I write this to you? Am I so crazy I don't even know it? Today I feel such selfdoubt. "The knowledge of taboo returns. The blood is not to be touched, let alone saved. "Even what we value of menstruation-are our bodies there? We value the rhythmic cycle, the feelings, the dreams, the bond. We talk and interpret. Analyze dreams. Theorize. Baroque elaborations. Virginal fluffy clouds. Ascending out of the blood, the mess, the ache, the wound. "Even this writing. How difficult for me to stay with my body. My feelings of vulnerability. My tears that I had hoped were past, falling again. Fears and doubts. "Here I am. The ache in my lower spine is sensual, as is the openness of my vulva, my blood slipping in my vagina. "A wound not to be healed-but attended to-felt, touched, smelled, seen. Received." Merida's words remind me of how our monthly periods open us to our vulnerability, our tears, our doubts, our fears, to a sense of wounds as not to be fixed but attended to. She encourages us to honor our dreams, the dreams we have that prepare us for our bleeding, the dreams that accompany our bleeding, the dreams that warn us we may cease to bleed… This passage highlights the importance of the body, and of biology, to our behavior and selfconceptions. What it suggests, for instance, is that the body tends to be more "other" for women than for men, even as women have a more intimate relationship with it. It asserts itself against their will, it has its own cycles and rhythms, it bleeds and leaks and swells and gets pregnant and determines moods. These facts, combined with women's relative physical weakness and smallness, evidently cause them to feel, at least implicitly, more "passive" and weak than males as such (which is what makes it possible for them to desire the feeling of being "protected" by their man). 2 Firmness, leanness, muscular tautness, as in young men-but also in some women, for example female athletes or bodybuilders-is experienced as signifying things like fighting against opponents, being active and confident, dominating, being mobile and strong; softness, physical weakness, pregnant immobility, do not foster a dominating self-confidence relative to the opposite sex. A second obvious answer to the question I posed above is the ubiquity of the "male gaze." It seems to be a biological fact that male sexual arousal operates largely by virtue of the look, the look at a beautiful woman, a naked woman, a scantily clad woman. Women tend to be aroused by touch, emotional intimacy, male assertiveness and strength; men are aroused, in large part, by sexobjecthood in the woman. So there are strong tendencies for the male gaze, and hence for some degree of objectification of women, to be an ever-present element in most or all societies. This will, first of all, tend to make women relatively self-conscious, conscious of their appearances.