When I make love with another, do I make love with my penis only? Is that the only part of me involved? Is that all I am? Or is there more to me than that?
Does lovemaking involve my thighs, my belly, the back
of my neck, the insides of my elbows? Is that all I am? Or is there more to me than that?
Does making love involve my mind, my heart, my history, my future, my cares, my fears, as well? Now is that all sexuality is? Or is there more to it than that?
Does it involve, as well, that intersection between me and all I am and my partner and all she is? Is there more to sex than simply that rising feeling in the belly before orgasm?
And who is to say that sex is any different than any other part of our lives? Who is to say how much richness I rob myself of by interacting only economically with those around me?
And, worse, how much does it hurt me to take my pleasure from one who is unwilling, or who is hurt, or degraded, in that pleasuring?
How does it hurt me to redefine myself as one who feels no connection, who chains myself to one definition of myself while denying emphatically and in action those chains of relatedness that in all reality blind each of us to every other?
How much does it impoverish me to live in a society where, by mutual and unsound agreement, we all seem to value something as intangible and unreal as money more than we value something so tangible, so real, so necessary as a beating heart, a willing body, and a contented and happy and self-assured and self-possessed person?
How can we value money more than relationships,
more than life?