Back when lust was thought of as a, “wasting

madness,” and wombs wandered through the body,

the old gray poets got off on chiding

children with tales of satyr sex, orgies

in oak groves and dryads who’d swing both ways.

Carnal qualities of beasts were also

a theme, “Never let a bull leave you dazed,

soaked in lavish discharge.” They didn’t know

about clits or cocks; just their dull rancor

that Pan would, “get you with child,” if he caught

you in the farm fields, wet with, “onanism.”

They lived their lives blind to all orgasm

linked souls, to all the lessons flesh has taught.

Come with me, friend, we have worlds to explore.

][][

Notes:

It’s hard not to think of the Victorian-era in Britain as a second Dark Ages, when “experts,” ignorant about both healthy sexual attitudes and the female anatomy, reigned supreme. It was such a primitive time that doctors diagnosed, “madwomen,” as suffering from, “Ophelia’s Malady,” not because there was a shred of science behind it but because Shakespeare wrote about it, so it must be true. I bring this all up because those attitudes have followed us into the 21^st century. There is still a profound gulf between the erotic and spiritual. For many, any sexual act not chained to reproductive purposes is sinful and suspect. The penalty for not being chaste is still the label, “whore,” along with the dire warning that if you don’t keep your libido under control “bad things” will happen, anything from unwanted pregnancies, to same sex desires or bestiality (and true to their tyrannical beliefs it’s all one and the same). These are pitiful, broken souls masquerading as god-fearing adults. People so obsessed with genitals and what they’re used for that it calls to mind that other Shakespeare quote about the sincerity of hypocrites, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” After all, phobias tend to start with the fear and rejection of what’s already inside.