Sexual Pleasure

What is the culminating point of sexual pleasure called?

Orgasm.

That is the most precise name.

But in everyday language, we use another word:

joy.

We say that someone "came." That they reached "joy."

And perhaps we can begin precisely with that word.

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Joy

Joy is not a sexual word.

Joy is gladness. Delight. Satisfaction. A deep experience of pleasure.

The use of the word narrowed so much that today, in many contexts, it is enough to say "enjoy" for sexual pleasure to come to mind immediately.

But Jesus told a story in which a master receives his servant and says to him:

“Enter into the joy of your lord.”

In the Greek text, the word is chará: gladness.

Enter into the gladness of your lord.

It is interesting.

In sexual language, joy became a point one arrives at.
He reached joy.
A few seconds of enormous intensity, and it was gone.

In the words of Jesus, however, joy is something one enters into.

It is not just an instant.
It is a reality.

Perhaps we have narrowed a very large word.

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To know

There is another ancient and familiar expression in the Scriptures:

“Adam knew Eve, his wife.”

Knew.

The word is not possess.
It is not consume.
It is know.

Our everyday language, however, has found other ways of speaking about sexual relations.

He possessed her.
He ate her.
She gave it to him.
She gave herself to him.

There is no need to condemn any of these expressions or those who use them.

The question here is another:

what are the words saying?

To possess speaks of ownership.
To eat speaks of consumption.
To give establishes someone who gives and someone who receives.
To give oneself can speak of trust and intimacy, but it can also carry the idea of someone who surrenders to another.

Now try changing just one small thing:

They knew each other.
They gave themselves to one another.

Reciprocity changes the image.

No one possesses.
No one is possessed.
No one consumes.
No one is consumed.

There is an encounter.

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The tongue

James uses an extraordinary image.

A horse is large, but a small bit placed in its mouth makes it possible to steer its whole body.

A ship is enormous and can be driven by strong winds, but a small rudder determines its direction.

Then James speaks of the tongue.

Small.
But able to steer things much greater than itself.

Perhaps the tongue is not only telling what we do.

Perhaps it also takes part in the way we learn to perceive what we do.

If we keep calling an experience possession, we may begin to perceive it as possession.

If we call it consumption, we may begin to experience it as consumption.

If we call the culminating point of pleasure joy, perhaps little by little the body learns that to enjoy means to reach that instant.

The tongue is small.
But so is the rudder.

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I love you

There is a very simple phrase that, curiously, can cause embarrassment:

I love you.

Depending on who speaks and who hears, other questions immediately appear.

What did he mean?
Is there interest?
Is there desire?
Is it a romantic declaration?
Is it sexual?

Two people can have enormous affection for each other and still find it hard to simply say:

I love you.

Perhaps we have narrowed this word too.

Love.

And yet, when Jesus leaves his disciples a new commandment, he says:

“Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must love one another.”

And he adds that it would be precisely by this love that they would be recognized.

Not by a secret word.
Not by a complicated explanation.
By love.

Curiously, we can say without embarrassment:

“We must love our neighbor.”

It is a well-known religious phrase.

But perhaps it is very different to look someone in the eyes and say:

I love you.

The first can remain a concept.
The second touches the body.

The voice speaks.
The eyes look.
The arms can embrace.
The hands can care.

Love becomes flesh.

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Big words

Perhaps we have narrowed words that are too big.

Joy.
Knowing.
Intimacy.
Surrender.
Love.

And perhaps this does not happen only with sexuality.

It can also happen with religion.

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Life and death

We call alive the one whose heart beats and who breathes.

We call dead the one whose body has stopped living.

This is perfectly understandable.

But the Scriptures use these words in a much broader way.

A father receives the son who has returned home and says:

“This son of mine was dead and has come back to life.”

The son had not died biologically.

Jesus says to someone:

“Let the dead bury their own dead.”

The dead burying the dead.

And we also find the statement that someone can pass from death to life while remaining biologically in the same body.

Then a disconcerting question arises:

What are we calling life?

And what are we calling death?

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Eternal life

Religious practice has often shifted a large part of the idea of eternal life to what will happen after death.

One dies here.
Then one hopes to live forever.

But there is a sentence of Jesus that deserves to be heard very slowly.

Jesus lifts up his eyes and speaks to the Father:

“And this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”

Perhaps it is better not to explain quickly.

First, to listen.

“This is eternal life…”

And what comes next?

To know.

Once again:
to know.

The same word we found when we began to speak of the union between two people reappears now before something incomparably greater.

Eternal life is presented in terms of knowledge.
Of relationship.

And there is yet another thing that deserves to be simply heard.

The one speaking is Jesus.

But he does not say:

“that they know you… and me, whom you sent.”

It is written:

“and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.”

Jesus speaks.
Jesus speaks to the Father.
And speaks of:
Jesus Christ.

What does this mean?

There is no need to rush.

Our goal here is not to find an answer.

It is to illuminate the path.

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Without condemnation

Perhaps, upon noticing these things, another temptation arises: to look back and start judging.

Judging our language.
Judging our sexuality.
Judging religion.
Judging those who taught before us.
Judging ourselves.

But it is also written:

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

So this reflection is not an accusation.

It is an invitation to look.

Perhaps we have called some things by names that were too small.
Perhaps we have swapped some words without noticing.
Perhaps we have repeated expressions for so long that we can no longer hear exactly what is being said.

There is no need for condemnation.

There is light.

And when the light grows, we simply begin to see what we could not see before.

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In a riddle

Paul wrote:

“Now we see through a mirror, in a riddle.”

The word used is aínigma.

Riddle.

And right after, he acknowledges:

“Now I know in part.”

Perhaps there is great rest in that.

We do not know everything.
We do not see everything.
And there is no need to pretend that we do.

A riddle asks for attention.
A path asks for light.

And perhaps the point is not to solve everything before starting to walk.

Perhaps it is to let the light reach the next step.

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We began by talking about sexual pleasure

We spoke of orgasm.
We discovered joy.
From joy we came to knowing.
From knowing, to the tongue.
From the tongue, to love.
From love, to life.
And from life we came once again to knowing.

Perhaps it is no accident.

Perhaps some words are too big to be imprisoned in a single meaning.

And perhaps we can learn to hear them again.

Joy.
Knowing.
Loving.
Life.

In no hurry to explain.
Without condemnation.
Without fear.

Just letting the light in.

Because perhaps we are not looking for an answer.

Perhaps we are only illuminating the path.