Meditations on Eros, Masculinity, Femininity, Adam and Eve

From Brother Giles

We in the West have a tendency to compartmentalize everything human. We speak of three or four loves (C.S. Lewis wrote about five). Then the tendency is to think of them as separate and different. But does that make sense?

"God is Love," not "God is 3, or 4, or 5 loves." The problem we have when we compartmentalize love into separate components is that we feel that we must shut down anything which doesn't fit into our previous definition of that compartment. This can lead to a false understanding of chastity as "Don't touch this, don't think that."

Now, to be sure, we must be very careful here. Those rules are all true and very important. We must not get rid of them, as has always been a temptation when people feel that rules are oppressive.

Having said that, the problem with seeing chastity in terms of following rules is that, while those rules tell us when we've strayed off the path of chastity, they don't tell us anything about chastity itself. And when we're only following rules, we run the risk of never learning to love. And then we'll get tired of the rules and throw them out.

Chastity may be defined as "the will of a human to love with the fullness of their heart, in accordance with their state in life and their previous commitments."

Thus, a person committed to celibacy has made the commitment never to marry, so engaging in behaviour that leads to breaking the rules (i.e., unchaste behavior) is morally wrong in the first place. On the other hand, a nun who serves, for example, priests living in a rectory and caring for their households may be chaste in the fullest sense of that word: a woman, full of love and joy, gives chaste attention and support to men who have made the same vows she has. They may enjoy a chaste and fulfilling relationship, that of men and women who enjoy each other's company (and attention, in the chaste sense of that word.)

The problem (and I saw this growing up) with seeing chastity as following a bunch of rules is that it can lead to people shutting  down their sexuality, and therefore their humanity, and think they are chaste. This leads to the classic stereotypes of the sour old nun who can't smile to save her soul, or the priest who pontificates down to the populace on how to live, yet never lifts a finger to care for his flock.

We are male and female (male and female He made them, in the Divine Image He created them). Therefore, if we try to love as anything other than men or women, we are no longer being human. The trick is to love, and not indulge in our physical passions for their own sake. That can seem to be a lot harder than shutting everything down, but it's not as hard as one might think. And in the end, it's easier than shutting our emotions and feelings down, because by allowing ourselves to love, we nourish that part of ourselves that wants to be chaste. We make it stronger.      

Here's how I see male sexuality: it's composed of several parts: caring/nurturing, honesty, integrity, courage, nurturing, tenderness, forthrightness, leadership, and others, among them, eros. (Yes, I mentioned nurturing twice. I did that deliberately.) 

Here's the point: eros is only about 5% of a man's sexuality, but we men tend to think it's 95%. That's why, when we use the word "sex" or "sexual," we tend to freak out if we want to be chaste. (This may also be why women say men think of only one thing!)

Here's another point: Eros is kind of like a little boy; he doesn't do very well being the boss of a man's sexuality. He needs to be informed by all the other aspects of male sexuality, tenderness, nurturance, honesty, courage, care for the vulnerable, etc. When that happens, the little boy Eros behaves like a perfect gentleman because he knows his place, and his purpose.

Here's another thought: our little boy Eros has a lot of energy. Picture Kindness, Nurturance, Tenderness, etc, pushing a car up a hill. They struggle; the car is heavy, and maybe the brakes are even locked.

Then comes little boy Eros. He jumps into the fray, and because he has so much energy (think of a man's eros as a hyperactive, highly caffeinated boy on a sugar high): he helps push the car up the hill. And his energy energizes Kindness, Nurturance, etc so they have more energy.

Remember all the romantic stories about the knight in shining armor? He's willing to lay down his life for his lady, for honor, and for righteousness. This is male sexuality the way God created it. And it's the way Jesus lived as a man.

I think one of the reasons why the Church is seen as largely irrelevant today is the issue of chastity. We don't have enough men and women like St. Theresa of Avila (or Bishop Sheen, to use a more recent example) who can love passionately, as men and women.

When that does happen, to be sure, there will be persecution. (Theresa of Avila, for example, was brought before the Inquisition, in part because she said "We cannot love Jesus except in His Humanity.") People are so afraid to love, and sometimes, when they see real love, it shows them how they've twisted and warped their own sexuality. Sometimes, even in the name of chastity.

I did a lot of Scripture studies on male/female relationships, and came to understand sexual attraction in two senses: one is the physical, the purpose of which is to participate in the creation of new life on earth (marriage and babies).

There is another sense, however, in which men and women can loveone another, and that is in the spiritual sense. In this sense, they can participate in the creation of new life, born from above.

I take it as an axiom that "You can't have a mother without there also being a father" and vice-versa, and this is true in both the physical and spiritual senses.

Picture it this way: parents don't just make babies and then raise them. Each day, their love for one another and their children participates in the creation of new spiritual life in their children. They do this every time they provide for their children, every time they hug them, every time they properly discipline them. God uses their love to create new life, born from above.

Another axiom of the spiritual life: we are composed of body, soul and spirit, and what happens in one affects the others. This is why we fast. We make our bodies hungry so that our spirits can feel hunger, too. Then, we focus on the spiritual hunger and feed it.

Now picture male/female relationships the way God intended. There may be some physical attraction. Chastity would then give us the wisdom to ask, "What is appropriate in this relationship?" If the state in life of the people in question excludes the possibility of marriage, then the appropriate response would be to take  what the body feels and use it to feed the desire to create new spiritual life. The physical desires may still be there, but it becomes a joyful sacrifice that nourishes the capacity of the persons in questions to love as Christ loves. 

Now let us ask ourselves why Adam and Eve only recognized that they were naked after they sinned?

Many spiritual commentators have associated this with the idea that they had committed some kind of sexual sin. However, if we take into account the body-soul-spirit connection I've talked about, then the perspective changes.

First of all, we see the serpent talking to Eve. He's seducing her, and she seems vulnerable. But where was Adam? Right next to her. Eve was seduced by the serpent, but Adam was not. St. Paul tells us so.

So if Adam wasn't tricked, why didn't he do something about the serpent? He could have said, "Hey! Get the Hell (literally) away from my wife!" But he didn't. He didn't say anything. He was passive.

My point is that this was a failure on Adam's part. A failure of duty to keep his wife safe. In other words, it was a failure of his masculine sexuality to protect the vulnerable. They both failed in their duty as a man and woman to keep each other safe from the evil one. They failed, therefore, in the deepest part of their being, that which made them man and woman.

When they both ate the fruit, they realized they had shamed themselves in the deepest part of their being, that of their masculine and feminine duty to protect the vulnerable.

I think that, at least in part, the shame we feel about our erotic sexuality stems from a shame that goes deeper than our fear of sexual sin. We focus on our erotic feelings as dangerous because of the intensity of the bodily and spiritual emotions and energy there. But, in my opinion, the problem doesn't lie there.

I think Adam and Eve felt the shame of their failure as man and woman, and displaced it onto their private parts. They felt naked (vulnerable) because what they could see in themselves was the failure of their man and womanhood to protect one another.

I think that when we shut down and compartmentalize our sexuality into separate components, we actually make ourselves more vulnerable to sexual sin, because the deepest part of what makes us men and women isn't our reproductive parts, it's our capacity to love, to care, to nurture, to protect.

The caricature of the sour old nun who can't smile isn't chaste, because, in the name of not sinning against chastity, she's shut her womanly heart down from nurturing others. In other words, she can't create new life in others, born from above.

But if she doesn't create life, then she's creating death, because we live on the battlefield between Good and Evil, between Life and Death. And if we aren't doing one, then we are doing the other.

The reason I wrote about little boy Eros is because, in my own life, I found that it wasn't that my Eros was too strong, it was that the rest of my masculinity was too weak. Once I began working on the rest of my masculinity, honor, trustworthiness, nurturance, etc, then little boy Eros took his proper and rightful place as the Joy and energizer of my manhood.

I think men and women experience sexual feelings differently. I can put it this way: women don't only carry babies in their wombs, they also carry those they love in their hearts. And they do it the same way, by cherishing them and protecting them and nourishing them with their very selves.

For men, sex often seems to be something they do (or give). For a woman, it's something she receives (the physical act, I mean. And yes, I can hear someone objecting, "she isn't being passive!" Yes, I agree. I meant that she receives the seed from her husband). So, for a woman, Eros isn't something that acts on others, so much as it is something that moves in both her body and her heart, her capacity to carry others there. 

The analogy of little boy Eros is different for a woman. I would say that little girl Eros is the one holding her dollies (those she loves and cherishes) close to her heart, and it is she (little girl Eros) who informs the rest of her femininity (Nurturance, Protection, etc) to care for those dollies (those she carries in her little heart). This is because, in a woman, Eros is much more closely aligned with motherhood, the carrying of a child in her womb, with nourishing and nurturing it, than Eros is in a man with fatherhood.

When a woman commits sexual sin, she's damaging her capacity to carry others in her heart. Furthermore, there are sexual sins that a woman (or a man) can commit that have nothing to do with physical acts. For example, if a man wants to hurt someone, he may use his fists. If a woman wants to hurt someone, she may damage relationships. In this context, she is committing a sin against her own womanhood, the capacity (and duty) to nurture and protect others. She can use the fact that she's carrying others in her heart to hurt them. This is a sexual sin, because it's a sin against her feminine capacity and duty to nourish and protect others with her heart, just as her body nourishes and protects the baby she carries in her womb.

Additional commentary from Veronica, Sister in Christ Jesus

"I think Adam and Eve felt the shame of their failure as man and woman, and displaced it onto their private parts. They felt naked (vulnerable) because what they could see in themselves was the failure of their man and womanhood to protect one another."

I would extend that to: not only did they see their failure to protect (which I think could have been a surmountable obstacle), but they also turned (or the devil twisted) their love into lust. They felt naked because they wanted to use the other, and they knew the other wanted to use them (for their own selfish pleasure). And because they hid from God and didn't turn to Him right away, they also did not have the capacity to forgive each other. Once they lost their trust in God, it came naturally that they lost their trust in each other as well (because there is where it all started - losing their trust in God the Father).