My Take on M & P*

What MoHo blog would be complete without at least one discussion of these endlessly fascinating topics?

P. Observation number one. To my way of thinking, using P is a subset of a larger issue that has to do with maintaining virtuous thoughts and guarding one's heart. Jesus said, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman [or, by extension, upon any other person] to lust after her [or him] hath committed adultery with her [or him] already in his heart." What we're not talking about here is the instinctive way our heart leaps when we see a beautiful person. What we are talking about here is deliberately harrowing up lustful thoughts and fantasies while looking at people in a certain, objectifying, ravenous way. It does not matter whether the looking is being done via the photographic lens in print, on the Internet, with a video, or while you're walking your dog when some shirtless hottie runs past. It does not matter if someone has labeled it as pornography, or whether it is a TV commercial, a segment in a movie, a billboard or a print ad. This leads to...

Observation number two. The critical ingredient is where we go with the manifold stimuli that bombard us in this very photographic, very visual culture we live in. Unless we spend the rest of our lives at the top of some isolated mountain peak in Utah or hide in a cabin it the north woods of Minnesota, we cannot help but be exposed to images of the human body that were specifically designed to arouse lustful curiosity.

But even if all the images were gone, we would still walk among humanity. We would still be surrounded by people -- beautiful, glorious people who awaken this hunger in us that reminds us we are alive and human. How do we respond to these circumstances? The law of chastity teaches us to respond in a way that honors others, and that honors ourselves and the sanctity of our feelings. It teaches us to respond in a way that reserves our most intense feelings for contexts of intimacy and love with the partner we have chosen to walk with through life. But achieving this is ultimately a discipline of the mind and heart. This leads to...

Observation number three. No one comes into this world with perfect discipline and mastery of their hearts and minds. That is what we are here to learn. So we will make mistakes. It will be difficult at first. We will slip and fall and get frustrated. So what? Mastery is in the future. Just get up and keep trying again. The quest for a peaceful, disciplined heart is a lifetime achievement. We will continue working at it years after the last time we have perused a pornographic magazine.

Observation number four. Why are we obsessed with pornographic images? I had a dream that granted me some insight into this. In the dream, I am looking at myself naked in a full-length mirror. But the mirror is broken into different pieces, so the image of me looks fragmented. My head is over here, my torso is over there, my genitals are over there. I am trying to figure out how to find an image of me that is whole.

I think we look at images of the human body and images of sex as a kind of mirror. We are trying to see ourselves in the images, figure out how we fit together. We are trying to reconcile our bodies, minds, and spirits. For gay men living in a straight culture, the fragmentation is more extreme, and the hunger to figure out what it means to live in these bodies, with these desires, correspondingly more painful. I think that's what the itch to use P is about. The closer I come to unity of mind, body and spirit, into an integrated, living soul, the less I feel the need to peruse the fragmented print and video images. For me it has been over six months, and I don't feel the need to go back, and it feels very good.

Even without P, I still have to work at maintaining virtuous thoughts and guarding my heart. As I do, I find the Spirit a much more constant companion in my life.

M. Observation number one. The principle at work in relation to M, I have come to conclude, is not to let ourselves get overtaken with hunger. To be masters of our bodies, not be mastered by them. It's a principle not fundamentally different from the problem of over-eating or cultivating bad sleep habits or indulging in any habitual vice.

But is M a vice like over-eating or over-sleeping, where we say just enough is OK but too much is bad? If so, how much is "just enough"? Once a year? Once a month? Once every morning, just after we wake up? Seldom enough to pass periodic worthiness interviews? Or is M a vice like smoking or eating at McDonalds, where no amount is ever healthy? Where complete abstinence is best?

In the periods of my life (including recently) when I have abstained for long periods of time from M, I have been blessed with wet dreams. I never thought I might have wet dreams in my forties. But there you have it, that's what happens, I've found, when I "save myself." This leads me to believe that just as our bodies eat and breathe and sleep, it is also just a normal, natural facet of living in a male body that we periodically become aroused and emit semen. If I get too twitterpated, I suspect this has something to do with normal physiological reactions, and I think there is no sin in relieving myself, just as there is no sin when my body takes the initiative and relieves itself in sleep through a wet dream. The problem is when I engage in M in a way that is habitual or abusive.

Observation number two. What is habitual? When I don't particularly feel the need, but I engage in M anyway because I'm bored. Because I feel numb and I want to feel something intense. I usually don't feel good after engaging in M under these circumstances.

What is abusive? When I see some gorgeous guy walking down the street, and I indulge in lustful fantasies about him, and then that makes me want to find someplace private and indulge in M. Or when I use P. In these circumstances, M becomes a way of intensifying a pattern of thought that violates the sanctity of heart and feeling I find it so important to guard, as I've discussed above in relation to P.

What is necessary? If you are going out of your mind, if you're crawling out of your skin, I say it is better to M than to burn.

Observation number three. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our body's built-in capacity to experience pleasure is inherently good, and that M as an expression of that is also inherently good, no different from enjoying a glorious sunset, or a healthy meal, or a good night's sleep.

But I will also say that enjoying M can often be a lesser good. Learning self-mastery and saving oneself for a spouse may be greater goods.

The Sufi poet Rumi described M as "growing one's feathers," part of the process of sexual maturation. He did not think it helpful to shame people for indulging in it. I like his approach. Just as I think using P may be a desperate search to integrate our image of ourselves, habitual M may also be an effort to situate ourselves in our bodies, to grow the feathers that will eventually help us to fly within the context of a loving relationship. Again, the greater the integrity we achieve, the easier it will be to find a balance of self-pleasure and self-discipline that is appropriate.

Integrity of body and spirit is our ultimate goal. That is part of what we came here to earth to achieve.
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*For those of you unfamiliar with MoHo blog publishing standards, M stands for (read it in a whisper) "MASTURBATION" and P for "PORNOGRAPHY."

Waiting for Healing

Last night I got a call from a friend who is in a lot of pain right now. It was late. He called me because he could not sleep. He told me a little about the circumstances. I wished I had had advice or insight to give, but I didn't, so we just did what friends do. We talked. We enjoyed the comfort of friendship. It didn't particularly matter what we talked about, I don't think. Only that we did talk, that for an hour that felt far, far too short, we listened to the sound of each other's voices, we laughed together, we talked about our feelings and frustrations, our goals and our hopes. We talked until he felt enough peace and enough comfort to find rest. I hope he slept well afterward.

This morning in my prayers he was still with me. I felt this kind of nausea, this kind of pain in my gut. Maybe it was worry. I'm not sure what kind of pain is worse. Your own pain, or the pain of someone you love. Because at least with your own pain, you know the measure of it. With someone else's pain, you don't know. And you feel powerless. All you can do is pray. All you can do is hope that somehow your friendship adds balm, that it diminishes the pain. But when you can't make the source of the pain go away, even that feels so horribly inadequate.

And even prayer under those circumstances reminds you of your helplessness in the face of the pain. God may heal, eventually. But in the meantime all you can do is wait.

Dear friend, you know who you are. I am waiting with you.