AN EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION


A pious Christian once said to me: "I find it hard to reconcile sex
with the purity of Providence." He never could understand why God
arranged for sex anyway. Why something else might not have been done.
Why children might not have come in some other fashion.

Look at the harm sex has involved. Most all the deviltry of history
that was not done for money was done for sex. And even the deviltry
that was done and is done for money had, and has sex back of it. Take
sex out of man and you have something worth while. God must have been
short of expedients when God, in sex, conceived sex. It certainly
looks as if the Divine fell down this time. As if infinity was at
the end of its tether. As if the adept creator for once was caught
napping, or for once botched a job.

So we had my pious friend. And we had medievalism. And we had the
ascetics. And heaven knows what else. Too much sex some places. Too
little sex other places. Some people swearing on and some swearing
off. The prostitute giving away that which was meant to be kept.
The virgin keeping that which was meant to be given away. A force
contending with a force. Drawing in opposite directions when they
should be pulling together. Through it all, motherhood misunderstood.
And fatherhood misunderstood. The body cheapened to the soul. And the
soul cheapened to the body. Every child being a slap in the face of
virtue.

Have you ever tried to see what this came from and goes to? This
philosophy of vulgar denial? This philosophy of wallowing surrender?