Monthly Archives: January 2011

The Attractive Woman at Church

25 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in beauty, spirituality, women

≈ 13 Comments

A thoughtful, even spiritual woman is incredibly attractive...

Recently I saw a woman in Church. She was a young, attractive blonde, with a husband and small child and was sitting the pew in front of me. She was wearing a pretty and somewhat revealing blue dress, yet a dress that was still very modest. It was actually quite a nice combination, saying, yes I am attractive and sexual and a woman but I still have standards. Then at the end of Mass as people were leaving she turned around and looked at me and smiled. It was one of those moments, a brief moment of hidden yet palpable eroticism. There was a spark, a sense of something more than simply a smile.

What her motives where I am not sure. Perhaps she just enjoyed the validation. Yet somehow I think that is not the case, there simply was not enough time for such thoughts to form. It was simply a moment when two people come across each other, acknowledge a slight electrical charge of attraction, and move on. What makes it most interesting is that it happened in Church, and it happened for the second straight year, but only once. I saw this same woman a year ago and she smiled then too. It was around Christmas, so I get the sense she was visiting with her family, since I do not see her in Church at any other time.

I remember listening to a certain Deacon on a certain popular Catholic broadcast network say that he was at Church one day, and was sitting behind an attractive women, and he wanted to look at her, but he did not. No, it would have been a sin to look at her. So he gritted his teeth and made damn sure his eyes did not touch her alluring form. Apparently she was wearing a short skirt or something, which I admit can be problematic in that setting. Still, I would have looked at her. I would have enjoyed and acknowledged her beauty. If I did not look at her then I would have obsessed the entire Mass about it, until I finally looked at her. So I would have just looked at her right off the bat and gotten it out of the way. What is so wrong with looking at a beautiful woman?

I think the problem with sex, beauty and Christianity is that most Christians take the meaning of lust to an extreme. Alte actually sparked a nice discussion of this and of chastity on general on her blog: http://traditionalcatholicism.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/close-but-no-cigar/. I don’t think looking at a pretty girl is lust. Now I am not theologian, but lust to me is when you let your base, animal instincts take over, and you start desiring a woman beyond what is healthy. Lust is when you let your desires completely take control of your reason, and you begin doing things that harm yourself and others in pursuit of that lust. The strange fact of traditional Christian teaching is that it does not take into consideration that most women enjoy being “lusted” after, if you take that to mean they enjoy the desires of a virile, masculine man who is not afraid to be a man. Women dislike prudish men. In fact, I have heard many women say that they find the sight of men preaching about chastity a little weird and creepy. I have even heard Christian women say this.

But as far as my moment with that married women, what it shows is that attraction and desire are present everywhere. They are not bad; they are simply a part of life. They can appear at the most unexpected places. They are always a delight and when they do occur in such settings, they reflect more of the mystery of life, love and desire than anything else.

Women in Their Underwear!

22 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by in beauty, women

≈ 2 Comments

A pretty girl in pretty underwear is a beautiful sight.

I have been writing a lot recently on spiritual matters, but I do not want my readers to think I have forgotten about the carnal matters. No, one of the themes I would like to develop here is the relationship, and tension, between the spirit and the flesh. Spirituality is important to me, as are fleshy desires. Eroticism is a mingling of the two, sometimes an innocent mingling, sometimes not.

So just to remind people of my carnal side, which is always there, I will post one of my favorite topics: women in their underwear. As I have said before, I think I must have a fetish about this sort of thing, but I find seeing a woman partly clothed, say wearing nothing but a pair of panties and a t-shirt, or just bra and panties, incredibly erotic. There are few things I enjoy doing more than lounging around in bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon, after a night–and morning– of hot passionate sex, my lover wearing nothing but a pair of panties. And of course there is always that intense thrill of when you first undress a new lover and see what she is wearing underneath her clothes. In certain ways seeing a woman her bra and panties is more stimulating than seeing a her completely naked. Well, perhaps not, but there is something to be said for the power of the imagination. When I see a pretty girl I almost always say to myself, “I wonder what she is wearing beneath her clothes.” Such are my erotic thoughts.

So in addition to some other regular series I would like to post on, I think I will start a series of photos of women, in nothing but their underwear. I think it is nothing put pure and wonderful beauty. Enjoy.

Love and Society

20 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in love

≈ 10 Comments

The older I get the more I realize the importance of love. What is life without love? Sex may be fun with multiple partners, but sex is the best when it is with someone we love.

I have been thinking a lot recently about love. Not just romantic love, but love in general. So much of our world seems so harsh and brutal: broken families, broken communities, broken countries. So much of it can be traced back to a lack of love among people. A family is broken when a spouse strays, when the need for selfish satisfaction conquers the need for selfless giving. A community is broken when the members no longer have a sense of responsibility towards each other, and everyone acts merely in their own self interest, or at least they do so to an extreme. A country is broken when violence and power seeking become the norm for human interactions. Of course I know this all simplistic; yet one of the things I have seen over and over again in these situations of brokenness is a lack of true empathy, care and concern for others, and even love. Perhaps this is human nature, most likely it is, but we are not fatalistically bound to our baser instincts. It is good to be aware of them, but we need not be slaves to them.

The Good Samaritan: don't expect this from Wall Street; rather, they will kick you when you are down and take as much of your money as they can.

Ferdinand Bardamu has good piece today on many of the ills in our country. http://www.inmalafide.com/2011/01/19/the-rise-of-generation-zero-part-1-everything-you-know-is-wrong/ To my perspective, the financial mess in this country was caused for the most part by people’s greed and lack of concern for their actions and the consequences that would bring to our society. Rather, the ethos seemed to be to get as much as one could, and the hell with the rest. The Wall Street crowd created a system where they could benefit as much as possible at the expense of everyone else. Our government seemed to be their enablers. “Too big to fail” became the mantra. “Too big to fail” ? What, would the sun not rise the next day if a big company on Wall Street failed? Who knows. All I know if  people acted that way and got away with it once, they will do it again. When white collar criminals know the government will protect them, they will do the same thing time and time again. And it seems increasingly that our government is owned and controlled by gigantic corporations and Wall Street businesses. These are not institutions that care for people; they only care about making money for themselves.  Our shrinking middle class is a testament to that.  Perhaps we need a new Teddy Roosevelt?

Teddy Roosevelt: He recognized the dangers that large corporations posed to the integrity of our government.

Well enough of this…I am straying into areas I know little about. It is just what I see with the financial crisis of the last few years was a crisis brought about by a lack concern for others. In a certain sense, a lack of love. People’s lives have been damages by the greed and selfishness of others.

Of course we can only really practice love on a small level, with a few people we may know. But that does not mean we cannot keep the well being and welfare of those we are not close to, or those we don’t know at all, outside of our thoughts. We need to start thinking more of our families, our communities, the things we love. Perhaps if we do, things might improve in our world. Perhaps there will be a little less greed and bad behavior.

But back to love, and one of my favorite things, romantic love…but I will have to save that for another post.

Spiritual Legalism, Masturbation and the Catholic Church

16 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by in religion, spirituality, Uncategorized

≈ 23 Comments

I once had a professor who had converted from the Catholic Church to the Russian Orthodox Church. One of his complaints about the Catholic Church was what he called the “legalism” of her spiritual structure. Although I would not entirely agree with that assessment, I think the Church’s teachings on masturbation is a case of that “legalism”. Legalism to me is when Church teaching and theology become abstractly, intellectually and minutely divorced from the realities of human growth and behavior. A series of exact rules are created, the violation of which have certain and clear consequences for one’s soul. Call it Orthodox Judaism on steroids.

One of the things that is not considered permissible is masturbation. It considered a serious sin. Now, for those of you who are not Catholic, the Catholic Church divides sin into two categories: mortal and venial. Mortal sin is serious sin, which, if you die unrepentant, can lead to hell. For instance, murder is a mortal sin. Venial sin is a lesser sin, such a telling a white lie. You can die in sate of venial sin and still make it to heaven, after of course many eons undergoing the cleansing fires of purgatory. Read Dante for more details on that. According to the Church, any act of masturbation, conducted with full, free consent of the will, and complete knowledge of the sin, is a mortal sin, and as I said a mortal sin, unless you confess it, is a one way ticket to hell. I am not embellishing this: according to the Church, if you die in a state of mortal sin, unrepentant, you will go to hell. No questions asked. Case open and closed. God is a stern judge. Now perhaps there is a certain justice to that for those who commit serious sin and die without repenting, but the question is what constitutes a serious, or mortal sin. Does masturbation?

So what does the Church actually say about masturbation? Two examples will suffice.

Popes speak with authority on these types of issues and in 1975 Pope Paul VI published a declaration on human sexuality called: “Persona Humana – Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics”. When it came to masturbation he stated: “Masturbation constitutes a grave moral disorder…” and, “Masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered act.”

Even more authoritative than Pope Paul’s statements is The Catechism of the Catholic Church. For those of you who are not Catholic, the Catechism is a book which outlines in detail the theology and teachings of the Church, and what constitutes sinful acts. The Catechism states (2352): “By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”

So now lets apply these teachings to the every day lives of flesh and blood humans such as myself who want to have a spiritual life without becoming sexual neurotics obsessed over what is and what is not sexual sin and might cause you to be eternally damned by God.

So, does the phrase “deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure” mean that if I am sleeping, and wake up with a hard on, while lying on my stomach, and that feels good, and I lay there for a few seconds because it feels good, that I have committed a mortal sin and am now going to hell, to spend all eternity being tortured by lusty little devils? Yeah, it feels good when I am aroused. Why is that a mortal sin to pleasure oneself? Why is it even wrong at all? Why did God give me such easy access to sexual pleasure? Only to send me to hell for enjoying it a little bit?

The Catholic Church: probabably the most important and influential institution in the history of Western Civilization, if not the world, with over one billion members today, yet not without her problems. There is too much divide between what the Church teaches and what her many members actually practice.

Now I am not here to bash the Church. As a Catholic, I love the Church and I need the spiritual structure the Church offers me. The entire sacramental system is appealing to me. The contemplative mysticism inherent in Catholicism is intoxicating for me, and leads me to a deeper relationship with God. I believe that the Church is the body of Christ and the ultimate instrument leading us to Him and salvation. However, on this one issue of masturbation, I have serious qualms.

Why is something which is so common, which is practiced by so many people, both men and women, and used as form of pleasure and sexual release, sinful? Why is it an “intrinsically and gravely disordered action?” I just don’t believe it. Why is it mortal sin, a sin which leads to the death of the soul? Is this comparable to murder, stealing, lying, cheating or abuse of others? Sure, I can see where masturbation can become a problem in people’s lives, especially if it is used as a substitute for real relationships, or even worse, as substitute for sex within marriage if you are married, but beyond that, I don’t see why it is such a problem. Most men masturbate, and many women do, at least at some point in their lives. Yet there is such a divide between what the Church teaches and what people actually do. Does not this divide have the potential to distract people from the essence of Christianity, namely, following Christ? If someone is obsessing over something as minor as masturbation, as I have known many to do, constantly going back and forth in an endless cycle of pleasure and guilt, sin and repentance and then returning to the pleasure and guilt soon afterward, is this not bad? I have known many people who have lost their faith over these issues and struggles. I mean, most serious or mortal sins are not things that people cycle in and out of. Usually they are simply bad, and are recognized by most, if not all, of society as being seriously wrong and harmful. Yet masturbation is a mortal sin under certain circumstances. As a matter of fact, all sexual pleasure outside the bond of marriage, and (within the bond of marriage) which does not have the potential for procreation, is considered a mortal sin by the Church. This is the kind of legalism which I think can be dangerous for one’s faith, and for spirituality in general. It can become, like the law, a cold, punitive system which instills fear more than anything else in people. It seems more like a system created by cool, sexually repressed intellectuals devoid of true spirituality, rather than something that reflects the mystery, magnificence and ultimately incomprehensible nature of God. It seems so divorced from the reality of who we are as humans, as creations of God, and that is sexual creatures who long for intimacy with others, who long for love and yet who may not always be in a position of marriage to express that love or enjoyment or even simple sexual release.

Christianity in general is more restrained than the culture around us when it comes to sexual matters, this is simply part of following Christ. I believe this is a good thing, a counter witness to the decadence of much of modern society. But does this restraint have to include an complete prohibition on masturbation. Sure, I can see the problems and sinfulness of fornication. This often constitutes the abuse of others, lying and manipulation, pain and heartbreak and unwanted pregnancy and children. Just look at the ugliness and nihilism of the PUA world to see the destructive, corrosive nature of unbridled sex, sex for mere conquest by men, or sex used as a form of self validation by women (and men). But masturbation? There are many thoughts on this subject, and, despite the official teachings of the Church, there seems to be no clear consensus about this among theologians and priests, those working with people out in the world. Some say it is always a mortal sin, others say it is not a serious sin at all, still others try to take the middle position, which is sort of where I stand on this.

For me I have to take what Fr. John Ruffo said: “What is the Church’s stance on masturbation? Mortal sin in what circumstances?,”  Catholic Q and A, 2002-MAR-11, http://www.catholicqanda.org/ He states:

“Can masturbation be sinful? I think the only time masturbation could be considered seriously sinful is if someone is using this activity to avoid one’s obligations to one’s spouse. Modern moral theologians tell us that masturbation is a normal part of one’s psychosexual development. Most people go through phases of masturbation, during adolescence, for example, individuals separated from their spouses in war time, the elderly, and others in unique situations of life. It’s hoped that individuals not become fixed or stuck in only this form of sexual expression, but rather develop a relationship with another person with whom one can express one’s own sexuality in an appropriate loving and intimate way.”

This is one of the most reasonable things I have read on masturbation. Yet this theologian would be condemned by the Church for saying it.

Again, I am not bashing the Church here. I am simply raising questions that have troubled me my entire life, for which I have never gotten a clear answer that seems consistent with the reality of the world I see around me, or my own personal experiences. I have seen too many people, good and conscientious people, fall away from belief in God, or following Christ, because of these legalisms regarding sexual behavior, and to me that is a great tragedy.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Sense of Feminine Beauty

12 Wednesday Jan 2011

Posted by in art, beauty, women

≈ 3 Comments

Pure beauty

Although many people seem to identify Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) these days for his brilliant scientific mind and prescient engineering designs, I have always thought of him first and foremost as a great artist. His output as a painter was relatively little, perhaps no more than fifteen completed or partially completed paintings, especially compared to his great Italian Renaissance contemporaries, Michelangelo and Raphael. Yet Leonardo captured something so unique in his paintings and drawings (which are much more numerous), that usually upon seeing one of his pieces the observer can easily recognize it as being from the hand of Leonardo. Everyone knows the Mona Lisa, or The Last Supper, but his other works are not as well known, at least by most people who have not studied him. Yet all his known works are quickly recognizable as his.

It is hard to describe what makes his works so magical. There is a certain ethereal, almost mystical quality inherent in them. Whatever the “it” was that he had, no other artist has ever been able reproduce it. Often it can be difficult to distinguish certain artists from their contemporaries (for instance Titian and his imitators), or those who came after in imitation; but not Leonardo. His genius was so unique and powerful that no one during his time or after has been able to even come close to what he created.

What is most powerful, at least for me, is the beauty in his paintings. It is a strange beauty, but a beauty nonetheless. It is the sort of beauty that cannot be quantified (if ever beauty can). When I see something like the drawing above, it somehow captures for me those allusive feelings that come with love. Perhaps this is how I see the beloved: alluring, charming, and ultimately elusive. Love is not an intellectual, concrete thing for me; no, it is passionate, explosive, even strange. It is more like an ocean that can be serenely calm at one moment and unpredictably tempestuous the next. It is certainly hard to understand. A poem, a piece of music, or a painting more than any intellectual treatise, or anything else for that matter,  can best capture the magical power of love for me.

But back to Leonardo. For some reason I have always loved this drawing. Most likely it was a sketch for one of his Madonna paintings. It is certainly one of his more famous drawings. However, despite its likely religious intentions, I feel it stands alone as beautiful female depiction. It has a certain power over me.  What this exact power is, is hard to describe, if not impossible. But it seems other worldly, evocative, even mystical. Since in the general scheme of things, as far as how the one sex sees the others, most would agree that men are mysterious (women love mysterious men), women are evocative (men love the alluring chase) and evocativeness is one of the ways I would characterize this drawing. There is a gentle harmony and lyricism in her features, made even more evocative by the shadowy background, the wisps of hair flowing into the nothingness behind her, her strange smile. There is almost a coyness, a coquettishness in her downward glance. Who is she, what is she smiling at, why is she smiling? Often these might be questions I ask myself when I am drawn into the romantic mysteries of a new love interest.

Leonardo (self-portrait) near the end of his life. For the bar hopping, game devoted, wanna be alpha crowd, remember, creating a great body of art work that lasts for centuries is the one of the ultimates in alpha accomplishments.

Leonardo is not known for any type of feminine erotic portraits (he was most likely homosexual), but in many ways he was often able to capture the essence of the feminine, the way the feminine strikes the masculine observer (how men may view it). This drawing is not a complete portrait and perhaps in its incompleteness lies the power: men always find the chase, the conquest of a woman to be somewhat incomplete. Will there be another night of passion, will there be love, what does the future hold? He is not known for sensuality (that would be more the realm of his contemporary Botticelli); yet there is something sensual about this drawing. It often reminds me, especially when I was younger, of how I would look at different girls. For most young men, especially as teens and into the their early twenties, inexperienced and afraid of these desired creatures called girls, they can seem like such impossible to obtain objects of desire. We idealize them; we romanticize them; we want them but they can so difficult to have. It is almost as if Leonardo had captured not so much the essence of the feminine itself, but the essence of how a man looks at the feminine. When I see this portrait, I see all those girls I idealized when I was younger, before the raw sensuality and realism of sexuality made me realize that women are much more than objects of idealized romanticism, but rather creatures of flesh and blood such as myself.

Yet despite all this speculation, nothing changes that fact that, at least for me, this is one of the most evocative, alluring and enchanting drawings I have ever seen. It is a rare and supreme example of pure beauty. It is over five hundred years old, I have been looking at it for decades, and it never gets old for me.

Beautiful Older Women: Susanna Hoffs.

08 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by in beauty, Uncategorized, women

≈ 21 Comments

Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, still looking good into her fifties.

So now we have a new year upon us. That means we are all a bit older. Even the younger ones out there, well, you are now entering into a new year. What will things be like at the end of this year? Who knows. We are only at the beginning.

So I thought as we begin as new year I would start a series of post on something that most in this sphere would consider a bit anathema: the older woman. Now it is true, as is often written among the PUA crowd (Roissy is famous for his graphic, clinical descriptions of the thirty year old vs. the twenty year old vagina), that many women, especially many American women, do not age gracefully. There are many factors considering this, the two most important perhaps being diet and lack of exercise. Our world of high fructose laden fast food and sedentary office work has made us a nation of fatties. All you have to do is look around for proof of this.

However, we are not fatalistically trapped into a world where we have to lose our bodies, shape and attractiveness as we age. We do have a lot of control over our destinies when it comes to these things. Yes, no one is going to have quite the same supple tone and physique in their forties or fifties that they had in their twenties; but that does not mean we have to degenerate into a mass of fat and flab. The body (and mind) if taken care of, will reward you nicely in the looks department.

I am sure one of the more depressing themes that runs through in this realm is how age destroys a woman’s beauty and that by forty she is no longer desired. I have read many a woman’s comments on different PUA blogs about how they fear aging and losing their looks. I suppose this is true for most women. Sometimes the comments seems quite sad in their desperation. This is unfortunate, since we are all going to get older, and we should try to age with grace. However, there are some women who have aged quite well and are still quite attractive. I imagine these women would tell you that they eat well, exercise and generally take care of themselves. There are some out there who still look pretty good even into their forties, and my first example is someone even older, Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, who will be fifty two this year. As a matter of fact, when I found out her age, I was amazed at how attractive she still is. She even has two children and has maintained a fairly tight figure.

Hoffs in a concert in October of 2010. Still a great bod, even at 51.

You may say, well she is a celebrity, has lots of money, and can afford a personal trainer, exercise time, the best food, etc. This is true. But it is not hard to stay in shape. If most people simply eat well and exercise, they can maintain a relatively healthy body. I work out at the gym six days a week and I see plenty of women in their thirties and forties who are in great shape, much better shape than many girls in their twenties, who take their looks and figures for granted.

Hoffs was quite the looker when younger, with large doe like eyes, long brunette hair and an overall soft and girly demeanor. Imagine being fortunate enough to be able to bang (no pun intended) a girl that good looking for that long a period of time, which for this woman would be more than a quarter of a century, if not longer.

Hoffs, when younger. Geat looking then, still great looking now, twenty five years later.

So don’t despair too much, women. If you try, you can probably maintain a great body and great looks long past the expiration date preordained for you by many in our society. This is worth remembering as a new year is upon us.

Love and Sex

04 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in love, spirituality

≈ 10 Comments

One of the themes I want to develop in this blog is the relationship, tension, conflict, dichotomy or whatever you want to call it, between sexuality and spirituality. These have always been important issues for me, but rarely have I found a place where people can discuss these things openly and honestly, without the fear of judgment or excessive moralizing. Often people are in one camp or the other: either exceedingly sexual without any sense of the divine or the spirit, or even religious, or they are exceedingly spiritual or religious at cost of being prudish and puritanical. Yet I know there are many people out there who are both very sexual and very spiritual and feel perhaps lost in some strange purgatory between the two. Often that is how I feel, trying to balance these things, trying to have a spiritual life without being neurotically obsessed over sex, or trying to have a sexual life without losing my religious beliefs, many of which are complicated when it comes to sex and sexual desire.

One thing I  have been musing on recently when it comes to spirituality and sexuality is the necessity for love in our lives. Now by love I don’t necessarily mean romantic love, although I am not excluding it, but rather, the importance of love, of having loved ones in our lives, of being loved by others.

Romeo and Juliet by the 19th century English painter Ford Maddox Brown.

In the end, love is more important than fleshly things. Love lasts. Love is transcendent. Sometimes what seems so depressing about the whole PUA world (which I really don’t consider myself a part) is the complete lack of compassion towards others, the using of others for one’s own personal pleasure. In the short term this may seem fun, but in the long term I believe it is quite destructive. If I had to put this into religious terms, especially Christian terms, then I would consider that sinful. There are few worse things in life than callously using others for whatever reasons, whether it be sexually, financially, emotionally.  The complete lack of empathy, sympathy, and love towards others in the PUA world is disturbing. How can it not be but a destructive thing for all those involved, both men and women? If you read enough PUA material, you see the proof of this.

There is a certain unending loneliness to the perpetual conquest. One girl is never enough. You need more. Then when it is over, you need another. And another. It never ends. How much better to find someone you can love, and enjoy that love on a consistent basis. Love comforts in a way sex does not.

Christianity says that love is the essence of everything: the greatest of all three great theological virtues (hope, faith, charity) is love. I guess you could call me a romantic. As I mentioned above, I don’t like the harshness of the PUA scene. No, although I am an extremely sexual person, and the allure of cheap and easy sex is always there, I prefer to seek out deep, intense relationships with women. I can honestly say that I have rarely slept with a girl I did not have some degree of feelings for, and often those feelings were love.

If I had to chose, would I want a life of sensual pleasure devoid of love, or a life of love devoid of sensual pleasure, I suppose I would have to chose the later. Fortunately life is never this simple; but my preference is for deeper human contact than simply the carnal. The pleasures of the flesh are fleeting. Love, whether it be with family, friends or a lover, well that transcends the fleshly pleasures. I would rather feel a broken heart for a year than sleep with countless women and feel nothing. At least I know I am alive, that I experienced the fire of life, and that, despite my sexual habits, perhaps God understands and he understands because there was at least some degree of love involved.