“Are sexual cravings really spiritual cravings?” It’s a surprising idea, but that’s the question 4 guys take up in the first installment of “Thinking about women-the series.” Christian Science lecturer Evan Mehlenbacher, Christian Science practitioner Russel Fogg, and video producer Matt Lawrence join TMC Youth’s David Bates to discuss how spirituality erradicates material voids and satisfies cravings. Listen in and find out how.
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This is a great discussion. The most honest and sensible handling of this topic I’ve ever heard. It’s a real breakthrough to start with the concept of recognizing and honoring a spiritual need, rather than to start with trying to deny a physical or emotional need, which is where discussions on sex usually begin. With this approach it’s not so much denying a physical/emotional need as discovering a spiritual nature that makes physical or emotional cravings no longer powerful or compelling.
GREAT comment Al! I think that this different approach can work in handling any kind of issue, right?
I used to think that sexual gratification was the central satisfaction in life. That’s certainly what the media presents as the one and only truth. But now, after becoming a better thinker through studying Christian Science and observing what goes on around me, I see what a cheat and liar this immature attitude is. The excitement of the sex urge is so fleeting in the context of a day or of a lifetime! But the mess it leaves behind in and on the body and on the sense of self can go on and on.
Sex is so selfish! It is not beautiful and it is certainly less and less gratifying as time goes on. We’ve got better things to do with our lives and time that bring a more lasting payoff, believe it or not. Yes, within a committed relationship and a desire for family life, sex takes its place — for a whlle. But even then it takes its toll.
Then what IS the point of life? I now know that it is to forget the self in working for the betterment of mankind, as thoughtful philosophers and religionists have recommended through many ages and cultures. It is unselfish giving, not getting, that brings lasting, mature satisfaction, beauty, and grace.
I don’t think sex is selfish if you are in a loving relationship (hopefully within the bounds of marriage) and I really don’t think there is a toll for expressing your love for someone in a physical way (again in the right relationship). I think it’s very much part of the human experience. That being said - if we can see beyond the mere physical attaction that so much of society is based around and dig for the deeper spiritual concepts behind sexual cravings these cravings might drop away as we find ourselves growing closer to God.
Hi Bernie,
I can’t see the deeper spiritual concepts behind sexual cravings, because sexuality is material and not spiritual. Please explain it to me.
I’m grateful to have heard this little discussion. It also came to me some years ago that sexual desire was a spiritual craving, and not just a sensual desire. As the discussion pointed out, any form of craving is a belief that there is a void in God’s love.
Specifically sexual desire is a desire for intimacy in relationships. But I’m going to take that a step further. If we all have one Mind, one Source in God, intimacy is the natural spiritual condition of any relationship. I believe we crave that intimacy because we feel separated from God and each other in a material world.
CPW said that sex is selfish, even in a committed relationship. I agree sex can often be selfish, but it doesn’t have to be. 25 years of marriage has shown me that sex can be a very beautiful expression of intimacy provided that emotional intimacy, and not sensuality, is the foundation of the relationship.