Can
you explain something about the theological meaning of the orgasm, especially
the female orgasm? What does this sort of intense pleasure have to do with
a holy life? I’ve never found a good answer to this—priests (and
women laity I’ve spoken with) seem clueless, and feminists have their
own political agenda.
 n the purely physiological sense,
the orgasm is a reproductive-related experience. By means of the male orgasm
the semen is injected into the female body, and the convulsions and fluid
emissions of the female orgasm assist the fertilization process by directing
the sperm further into the cervix. Note that the male orgasm is necessary
for conception, whereas the female orgasm assists, but is not necessary for,
conception.
The Orgasm as
a Signifier
The theological meaning of all
this can be understood when we acknowledge the orgasm as a signifier;
that is, something whose meaning lies not in its own being but in that to
which it points. For example, a traffic signal light has its meaning not
in the metal and glass of its structure but in what it signifies; that is,
it is a signal—a sign—that directs traffic to stop and go. Thus
the orgasm has its theological meaning in something to which it points, something
far more profound than physical pleasure
itself.
Whereas the physiological orgasm
encompasses a yearning for a release of physical tension and a momentary
surrender of conscious control, the theological meaning of the orgasm can
be found in what the physiological yearning and surrender points to, or
signifies, beyond itself; that is, it points to God’s intention that
there be an act of supreme yearning and surrender to the divine at the
very moment that a child is being conceived.
In other words,
when the man and the woman, in the act of conception, experience an ecstatic
yearning for and surrender to God, they assist the new soul’s ultimate
yearning for and surrender to God.
Thus it is a great tragedy of
the modern world—lost as it is in apostasy—that many men and women
today seek physical pleasure merely for the sake of physical pleasure and
thereby fall into grave sin.
It’s also a tragedy that
many children today are conceived in an act of mere physiological
lust, an act stripped of any sense
of the divine. And it’s just as much a tragedy when a child is conceived
by artificial means, such as with surrogate mothers, or with sperm or egg
donors.
Children conceived in lust or
in contempt for the divine are spiritually crippled right from conception
and have to undergo intense psychological ordeals in order to find their
way to their true “home,” that place in their heart where the thought
of surrendering their entire being to God does not seem alien and repulsive
to them.
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Thus says the
LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD. |
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—Jeremiah 17:5 |
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The Spiritual
Surrender to God
Now, must a woman experience
a physiological orgasm during conception in order to have a spiritually healthy
baby? Well, no, because the real issue here is the parents’ surrender
to God—a surrender in the heart—as they, bound by the sacrament
of Holy Matrimony, engage in the procreative act.
Remember, as I said earlier,
that the male orgasm is necessary for conception. As such, it became governed
by the process of
circumcision—the surgical removal
of the foreskin of the penis—following the Promise to Abraham. For Abraham,
the physical act of circumcision—that is, the missing
foreskin—signified a process by which the
obedience to divine will—an obedience that was
missing from life in a state of sin—could be
reestablished.
But, with the advent of the New
Covenant in Christ, the signified replaced the signifier:
circumcision of the heart—a profound surrender of one’s being to
God through Christ, the completion of the Promise—became the path to
salvation and replaced a mere physical, surgical
act. The meaning of circumcision of the heart, therefore, is found not in
a missing piece of skin but in the absence of a will to commit
sin.
Thus circumcision, whether in
its initial physical form or in its final spiritual form, points to the spiritual
obligations of the male orgasm as it is directed away from physiological
lust and into service to the holy.
Consequently, the female orgasm
has more significance than the male orgasm. Not being necessary for conception,
the female orgasm points to something more necessary than circumcision,
something not missing but something additional: the necessity
of a supreme surrender of the physical to the spiritual and to a
supreme yearning for the holy.
Hence, that which in the
physiological realm requires physiological surrender points to something
that, in the spiritual realm, requires spiritual surrender.
Thus we attain the almost ironic
conclusion to the point: the woman’s sexual capacity
for a pleasure that is “not necessary” unveils the holy capacity
for mystical ecstasy which in turn engenders the holy desire for
virginity as well as the holy abstinence from non-reproductive
sexual pleasure.
Now, some individuals try to
claim that women are “second class citizens” in the eyes of the
Church. But the truth is just the opposite. Women have a singularly high
value—and therefore deserve the protection of respect and
modesty—because they can point to a supreme
surrender, just like the Blessed Virgin herself did.
The Immaculate
Conception of Mary
The act of supreme yearning and
surrender to the divine has been expressed in beautiful theological precision
by the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich in her vision of the Immaculate
Conception of Mary. Mary was conceived in a moment of ecstasy between Anne
and Joachim—an ecstasy surpassing any physiological sign, an ecstasy
without lust, an ecstasy without sin.
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 I
saw Joachim and Anne embrace each other in ecstasy. They were surrounded
by hosts of angels, some floating over them carrying a luminous tower like
that which we see in pictures of the Litany of Loretto. The tower vanished
between Joachim and Anne, both of whom were encompassed by brilliant light
and glory. At the same moment, the heavens above them opened, and I saw the
joy of the Most Holy Trinity and of the angels over the Conception of Mary.
Both Joachim and Anne were in a supernatural state. I learned that, at the
moment at which they embraced and the light shone around them, the Immaculate
Conception of Mary was accomplished. I was also told that Mary was conceived
just as conception would have been effected, were it not for the fall of
man.[1] |
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Notes
1. The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical
Revelations of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich. Volume One, pp.
137–138. Text in public domain. Page citation from the edition by
TAN Books and Publishers,
Inc.
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