Tue 14 Mar 2006
CELIBACY
is like chemotherapy. It isn’t something you would ever wish upon anyone. And it is kinda a last resort, in how you relate to your fellow humans. Funny, my therapist keeps extolling its healing qualities. Does that mean I have cancer?
Celibacy is like chemotherapy because although it can make you feel very, very ill, it can also be the only thing within reach to heal you. It makes you feel like your dieing, but you hope to be reborn. I’ve never had chemotherapy, but I’ve had lots of celibacy. And I hope I haven’t offended anyone who has had chemotherapy?
I believe that sex, with another human, is truly a need. But so is water, except when you have internal injuries (or so it seems in the movies). I recently heard that a study was done that shows men have elevated testosterone after having sex with a woman, but not after masturbating. I knew it! Hah!
So not having sex is bad for you. And having sex with someone, under certain circumstances, is bad for you. Somehow, I think there are indigenous tribes where they just don’t have these problems. What went wrong?
Maybe there is much more wisdom to this question in the works of Wilhelm Reich. Since I’m not likely to read his books anytime soon, I’ll have to absorb his ideas by proxy when I meet someone who read and understood him.
Kate Bush dedicated an album to Wilhelm Reich – “Cloudbusting”.
Can’t we all just get along? Naked? 🙂
– Chad
March 26th, 2006 at 8:07 am
I think celibacy is a bit like being vegan: if you chose to give up the flesh, then that’s all just fine, it makes you feel pure and light. But you’re eating millet and carrots because you can’t get hold of a lamb shank, then you’re HUNGRY.
Yesterday I managed to hurt someone’s feelings in a way that afterwards made me realise that I have been too alone, and it has made me like one of those lost dogs wandering along the side of the road, longing for rescue and snarling at anyone who holds out their hand.
There’s research that not being touched makes you psychotic–your brain secretes small quantities of the same neurochemicals that make people go totally out of their minds and do weird violent things.
It helps that this time round I live with a cat, and so there’s someone around whose eyes meet mine close up in the course of a snuggle, even if they are a creature of another species; one that sees me merely as a larger, friendly animal that lives in the same cave as him.
But it isn’t just the touch. I think it’s the witnessing, the fact that someone cares (as Tolstoy said) whether or not I come home for dinner. It’s having someone to cherish and care about. It’s crawling under the covers at night together and making more warmth than either of you could possibly make alone, and lying there sharing stories about the day. Without all that, life can be good, but it’s strictly millet and carrots, and yesterday I realised that it has been such a long hungry winter that I have gotten anorexic. I have been getting skinnier and going feral and over fierce.
So I took myself out for a walk today. I combed out some of my fleas. I bought sausages and potatoes and chocolate and fed myself. I even wondered vaguely how to go about looking for a bone 🙂
August 7th, 2006 at 8:32 am
I agree with Rachel’s comment about “witnessing.” (Is she from Nashville?)
I believe it to be an important part of a relationship’s purpose. Its something that has made a lot more sense to me as I get older,… and thus have more history for which I wish I had a permanent witness.
I’ve gotta ask, but don’t post your answer here really…..
….but I’ve gotta giggle and ask what is your time dimension definition of “celibacy?”
(Aren’t you becoming sorry now that you created a blog in which people can answer you back? Ha!
August 15th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I think celibacy is any amount of time when you have the opportunity to have sex with someone, but you choose not to for reasons within yourself, not because you wouldn’t enjoy it with that other person. Similarly, “fasting” can be a morning, a day, or a month… but its all fasting, regardless of the timespan.
Rachael is from England, but has “done time” in the Bay area of CA. I know her because of her blog on tribe.net . http://smallgreensprouts.blogspot.com/
– Chad