The McDonaldization of Sex 4: Organic Sex (Sex and Christianity 13)

June 21, 2012 by Tim Muldoon

Continued from Page 1

What I am proposing, in short, is again sacralizing sex. More precisely, recovering a more robust understanding of human desire that gives rise to sexual desire. Shakespeare would not have understood our use of the word "sex," because in his day it referred to the distinction between male and female.

Modern sex is an abstraction from the concrete reality of persons. Strictly speaking, one cannot have sex. One can have an orgasm, a kind of altered state rooted in the limbic system, with or without another person. To re-sacralize sex would be to reconnect it not to biological function, but to the complex reality of men and women who experience desire. And what we have come to appreciate both through the human sciences and ancient spiritual practices is that there are layers of desire underneath desire. Pushing back against the McDonaldization of sex would require first removing reliance on mass-produced orgasms that depend on contraception, then slowly re-learning—as a culture—the art of relationship-forming. Like other psychological and spiritual practices (fasting, etc.), its aim would be to free ourselves from addictive desire in order to discover the roots of authentic desire. Then, build a life upon those authentic desires, which lead to the flourishing of individuals, couples, and entire societies.

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About Tim Muldoon

Tim Muldoon holds a Ph.D. in Catholic systematic theology and is an award-winning author and Catholic theologian of the new evangelization.

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