Title: The Soul of Sex Author: Thomas Moore Publisher: Harper Collins Publish Date: 1998 Pages: 300 Genres:: Non-Fiction, History Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

"One can easily be tempted to disown what passion has wrought in life, or try hard to screen passion out, but these are tragic choices."

The association of sexual desire and passion with evil forces has caused no small amount of pain and turmoil on this earth. To repress is to pervert and make worse what would have otherwise been. Written in a beautifully gentle tone, Thomas Moore invites the reader to find and honor the erotic within spirituality; in short, to embrace the horny within the holy.

Concentrating heavily on what he believes to be the advanced and more evolved joys of happily married sex (nice work if you can get it), Moore urgently delineates just how significant and inextricable a place eroticism has in living an ethical "good" life. He also draws from Greek mythology to illustrate its deities' connection to human behavior and purpose. In his view, as shown by Nathaniel Hawthone’s Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, even the act of adultery is imbued with the potential for sexual spiritualism in that true remorse over committing the transgression has the power to turn your life around. He shows that sexual desire is not piety’s enemy but its ally and helpmate; shame in the final analysis should be a stranger to healthy, nobly channeled lust.

Within us, Moore writes, we all carry the spark of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. We both summon and become one with her whether we are the objects of sexual gazing or the gazers. One fascinating passage shows the historical parallel of pagan images of a woman displaying her genitals on public religious structures (once a common image meant to ward off evil forces) and modern-day pornography which is often branded the antithesis of good.

Moore, who was a monk for 12 years, also discusses how his voluntary abstinence in no way dimmed his sexual imagination or desires. The human obsession with the beauty and complexity of human bodies is generated by the body’s function as the temporary house of the soul. It is the only way the soul can be seen with the eyes. He points out how the current trend towards discussing sex in vulgar language contributes to dulling its sanctified shine. Sex is meant to ultimately join the body and the spirit. It is clear that Moore deeply loves his wife (he mentions her various times in the text), and his passion and joy is palpable, making for very sweet reading.

ReadingThe Soul of Sex is about the farthest away you can get from a waste of time.