Book review

Memories of bliss: God, sex, and us.

By Jo Ind

London: SCM Press 2003

 

Jo Ind's latest book explores the intimate relationship between God, sex and us in an attempt to make ‘a real difference to the ways in which we love, touch, relate and pray'. It cannot have been an easy book to write and at times it makes for rather difficult reading. Ind recognises from the outset the challenge she faces in addressing such an intimate subject, highlighting even the difficulty of finding language to talk about sex that is not overly clinical, euphemistic or crude. While this difficulty may, as she claims, be due mainly to a collective discomfort with the subject matter, the frequent switches between phrases like ‘heterosexual vaginal intercourse' and other, rather less formal terms suggests a lack of clarity about the book's intended readers. Perhaps such juxtaposition is good postmodern stuff, like tying rope around Rodin¹, or ‘rectifying' Goya², but here it grates, drawing unwanted attention to itself and breaking the flow and coherence of the narrative, the literary equivalent of getting a lover's name wrong in the throes of passion.

Having said that, the book repays careful reading for it contains many helpful reflections on, and thoughtful insights into, the connection between sexuality and spirituality by asking first, ‘what is sexuality?', and then, ‘what are we to do with it?'.

Ind defines sexuality as our capacity to be aroused and the means by which it happens. This ‘spacious' definition is not how we are used to thinking about sexuality, and most readers will need to remind themselves regularly of what Ind means when she uses the term. Its major advantage over what might be called ‘traditional' definitions lies in its ability to move us beyond a narrow pigeonholing of people as heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. By considering how our sexuality – or sexualities to be more accurate – is affected and shaped by our bodies and minds, our childhoods and our unconscious, and even the society of which we are a part, we are presented with a more fluid, more dynamic, and more contextual understanding of ourselves than can be found in those more traditional labels. Thus we are given a means of understanding why different people are aroused by different things, and why the same person may be turned on by different things at different times or in different places.

In teasing out how we are to live our sexualities well, Ind argues that we must take seriously Jesus' teaching that we are to love God, love our neighbour and love ourselves. This is by no means a new approach to sexual ethics, but Ind unpacks the implications of obeying these commandments in accessible and invigorating ways. The chapter on ‘loving yourself' is quite superb, exploring the paradox that loving ourselves means taking responsibility for our sexuality while acknowledging that we are not responsible for its development during our childhood and adolescence. Drawing on the image of the risen Christ, Ind argues that ‘when we learn to love ourselves, sexualities and all […w]e don't lose the marks of our wounds but they do not stop us dazzling'.

We are presented not with easy answers, but with a way of living and loving that is both intensely liberating and fundamentally infused with the joy and power of the resurrection. This is good news for a church that is often seen as judgmental and life-denying when it comes to sexual matters.

As a Christian analysis of ‘God, sex and us', there will be those who complain that Ind has relegated God to the back seat. But I rather like the idea of God in the back seat, the source of our desire, and the real object of our furtive fumbling.                                   

Graeme Rainey

This review first appeared in the University of Reading, UK, Chaplaincy newsletter, Summer Term 2003.

¹ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/art/2800109.stm

² http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,925957,00.htm