I didn't respond, secretly taking pleasure in the knowledge that I could affect her feelings so dramatically. "But one thing," she continued, "no one can kiss like you. I've never felt such tenderness like the way you kissed me." I still remained quiet. Allowing her space to play out her pent up emotions. But inside I thought, "It's true you little fool. Because my dear, you always miss the obvious. A kiss, is the most sacred act of intimacy." The kiss is underappreciated. California kisses are given to every acquaintance whether the affection behind them is sincere or not. Dutiful kisses are given to loved ones at every hello and goodbye even though they are as passionless as a handshake. And lust kisses, crude and hurried through, are abused by lovers too eager to reach love's climax. If I were never to partake of any of those kisses again in my life, it will be fine with me. After all, how can you bear cheap imitations once you have known a real kiss? A sacred kiss? A soul kiss? A kiss can speak volumes. In comparison words seem ineffectual. I could talk for a hundred years and never convey what can be expressed in just one kiss. A kiss can be numinous. It is an act of worship, and an expression of devotion. But beware! A kiss is also hunger. It symbolizes a desire to devour the lover and to possess eternally. A single kiss can steal your soul and bind you into slavery. Never, never, underestimate the danger of a kiss. And therein lies its sacred nature Love, the thing which a kiss is supposed to express, also shares these same qualities. I recall standing on a stage in a small club and shouting, "The sexual revolution is not over!" But what is the truth behind modern love? For the last twenty-five years we have been caught between two extremes. On one extreme we have 'chaste love, 'the one man and one woman in marriage,' sexuality of our traditional heritage. On the other extreme is the 'free love' that was preached during the 1960's. 'Free love' was an ideal in which people loved each other and shared their intimacy as their passions of the moment dictated, and all without guilt or attachment. Of course, it is that 'without guilt or attachment' where the problems arise. The idea of free love was born from an alternative social model theorized by beatnik intellectuals in the early 60's. The model was based on esoteric concepts from various Eastern religions that postulated that individuality is an illusion, therefore even our bodies belonged to the community. As all people are literally one, the theory went, possessiveness and attachment must become obsolete. It follows that our bodies should be shared freely, and lovers could not be possessed, but are community property. A very complex ideal which demands a psychological restructuring to bring it into reality, and which few humans could achieve. Possessiveness and attachment are part of our self preservation instinct and are not easily thrown away. By the time the phrase 'free love' slipped into mainstream culture it was reduced to something akin to 'let's fuck!' The social model the ideal of free love emerged from was quickly forgotten, but the 'easy sex' part still swept the nation. Many women were eager to enjoy the sexual freedoms men had enjoyed, and men were eager for women to 'put out' more readily. And under the revolutionary banner of 'free love,' it was all morally acceptable. The original social model required a psychological transformation, and a spiritual journey to achieve that transformation. As the sexual revolution spread, few involved really understood the implications of what they were involved with. Without the psycho/spiritual conversion most were still locked, at least unconsciously, into the metaphysics and morality of their Judeo/Christian traditions. Without first destroying attachment and possessiveness many people got emotionally wounded by their sexual experimentation. Many women quickly found themselves feeling used and cheapened by loving for free. Many who first enjoyed the adventure soon felt empty, as if something sacred had been lost. Those who could enjoy hedonism without guilt, often found themselves regretting their pasts once they truly fell in love. As the sixties came to a close it was clear there had really been no social revolution, but the moral codes had been loosened and sexual repression seemed to have diminished. Adding to this situation, in the seventies a new brand of feminism held sway in the universities, and saturated the media with their propaganda. Soon marriage was equated with enslavement, and motherhood was seen as a degrading vocation for modern women. Women who did want marriage still wanted to wait until later in life. To men this was an ideal situation. Suddenly sex was easy to get, and there was no pressure to marry and support a family. In 2001 I see the fruit of this development. Every day in New York City I meet women who were young during the heydays of the sexual revolution and now are approaching middle age. Many of my female friends of that age see their beauty fading and realize that they are facing a life without love and family. The only men left are the losers and those who will never marry. As the biological urge for motherhood begins to kick in, they see that they may have missed the chance to raise children. Most of my female friends who are recent college graduates and of the Generation X age group, seem to be particularly confused about their futures. Most seem lost and without direction. They have been taught that to be good modern women they must want a career above all else. Yet they do not have a passion for any vocation and are ever-vacillating about their next move. Repeatedly, these women confide to me as if embarrassed, that what they really want is to be a wife and mother. This is the failure of modern feminism. Women have not been liberated. They have been forced into adopting the traditional man's role of being a worker. Feminism has become a fascist ideology that makes the traditional female role a shame which all women must avoid. If feminism really cared about freeing women they would teach them that they have freedom of choice. That they must understand their options and make a conscious decision about their future. Neither choice should be degraded, and motherhood should be honored as one of the most important jobs in human society. As we begin a new millennium and look back on the sexual revolution, although things have loosened a bit, there really has been no revolution. We can now talk about sex, but nudity is still shocking and the human body is still considered obscene. In the media we can view graphic portrayals of murder, but sex is still considered pornography. Campus feminism teaches young women that if a woman expresses herself sexually it is male oppression and exploitation. This results in a new sexual repression for women. And what of 'free love?' Sexual promiscuity is still viewed in the context of a slightly loosened Judeo/Christian morality. There has been no spiritual upheaval bringing love and sensuality to the mechanized work-a-day world. Much of our free sexuality is for ego compensations. Women have sex to be popular, or to compensate for low self esteem. Men pursue any woman available so that they can brag to their friends and achieve stud status. Where does free love fit into this picture? It doesn't. We have a decadence of the old moral system, and nothing new to replace it. Sexuality is neither sacred, nor enlightening, and love is just another four letter word. |
