The naked eye and sexual ruminations...

I'm not going to lie, I think about sex as much as the next guy.  Sometimes it's sinful and perverted, and I try to repent with sackcloth and ashes.  But often times, it's healthy curiosity for the purpose to deeper discovery.  Sex is either talked about too much and handled frivolously and hastily, much like a child would treat a priceless heirloom if you handed it to him as a drooling toddler.  Trying to bring something precious like sex down to the bottom shelf of profane commonality has done much to dilute the dignity of the subject.  

The other treatment is the one in which it stays so unspeakable and untouchable that is somehow turns into the "word which we do not utter".   It is handled with kid gloves and talked about with such fear and trepidation that pubescent boys and girls bashfully, yet gleefully, speak with hushed whispers and shot-gun giggles, blushing at the simple utterance of the word.  It remains un-talked about by the people who should have something substantive to say (Church), and so over-talked about by the ones who should keep their mouths shut (Hollywood).  

I'm not saying I have much to say about the bottomless/topless issue (no pun intended...oh, ok...yes pun intended!), but I'm intrigued with the beautiful created design of God as it relates to human sexuality and the interaction of the sexes as they dance around the issue like Jr. Highers at their first couples dance.

Here are a couple things I thought about last week as it relates to sex....

Human beings are one of the only species to have sex face to face.  Most (99.99999%) have sex face the same direction (I'll allow you to figure that out without me painting a vivid word picture).  There are a couple species of monkeys that have been known to have sex facing each other, but this is a very rare behavioral anomaly.  There also are a few species of whale that engage in face to face intercourse, but other than that, there aren't documented instances in the animal kingdom where animals are wired to have sex looking each other in the eye.

Is anyone else surprised by this unsurprising discovery?  I say unsurprising simply because it makes so much sense that this would be the primary area of distinction between ourselves and the animal kingdom.  It's not that humans can't get creative about their sexual positioning, I'm simply saying that it's most fluid when it takes place as a "face-to-face" encounter...our bodies were created to look at each other while "making love".

It is also intriguing that in the "prostitution industry", whores often do not want to kiss their "whoree" due to the intimate nature of that exchange.  They don't have a problem with traditional sexual intercourse so long as there isn't face to face intercourse.  Which begs the question, "Is kissing even more intimate and erotic than sex?"  I think the answer to that is a shocking, "Yes!"  There is something about looking into each others eyes and tasting someone else's lips that tells us that we are crossing a line of intimacy that mustn't be trespassed or transgressed.  There is something hallowed about this face to face thing.

There are so many options now as it relates to sexuality that keeps people away from each others faces, thus not pricking the universal conscience with awkward shame...
- Oral sex (face to privates)
- Porn (face to pictures)
- Sexting (face to phone)
- Chat rooms (face to text)
- Strip clubs (face to distant face)

Or the most common form of sex in the marriage bedroom...
- Turn off the lights, pull down the shades, pull up the sheets, and close your eyes.  (face to pitch black darkness leaving everything to the imagination because the reality isn't comfortable with face to face nakedness in the light)

I wonder how much we have eliminated the need for the face in sex.  I wonder, even more, how comfortable we've become with virtual sex because of our fear of someone's actual face looking at us while we partake in this blessed pleasure.  What are we afraid of?  What does someone's face expose inside of our heart that makes us blush in embarrassment?  Why is kissing not seen as the most intimate of sexual exchanges?  Why do we have sex in the dark?  What are we so scared to see, what are we scared someone else will see?  

I have a theory.  I always thought people were scared of someone seeing their body.  Though that is partially true, I think people are much more insecure to be seen be the naked eye.  Because the naked eye is so much more sexual than the naked body.

I read a while back that most guys are drawn to porn more for "how the woman is looking at them" than for "the way the woman looks".  The way she stares at him and won't look away.  The way her eyes stay open and her head stays up.  He is used to seeing nothing at worst, a turned head or closed eyes at best.  He's starving to see the woman's face, to see her naked eye.  Because her naked eye is more bewitching that her naked body by far.  

It is not hard to go and find a naked body to appease your fleshly appetite.  But it takes a real man or woman to love someone so well as to win their heart and to win their eyes, to own their face.   When you win the other person's eyes in your marriage, your have won the whole of them.  You have engaged in the quintessential consummation of sexuality.  To actually be with another human, face to face, partaking in the delicacies of delight...this is sex.

We are a "face to face" sexual species for a reason.  And I happen to think it's a good one.  One that we must recover and live out of once again as a human race, who, for some reason, is hell-bent on becoming soulless animals both facing the same direction so as to not feel awkward with the "eternity that has been set within our hearts".   Sexuality seems to be just as much about the naked eye as the naked body.

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