The Sacredness of Pleasure

Abstract

We are at a crucial moment in history, a crossroads in which we as a society must make decisions that will shape the next millennium. At this vital moment, I would like to speak to you about questions of the sacred. Native Peoples have asserted the need to honor their ancient sacred traditions as integrally woven into the fabric of their cultural survival and land rights. The Burning Times were also the time of the African slave trade and the conquest of this continent with the enslavement and destruction of its native peoples. In a world in which attempts to change our orientation by coercion and force abound, lesbians and gays have necessarily defended the position that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable. To affirm pleasure is to affirm life in its deepest purposes, to value the intimate connections we make, the moments of ecstasy we experience. When we claim our sacred right to pleasure we are honoring life in its variety, diversity, its endless arrangements and rearrangements. Our issues are linked with all struggles of self-determination being waged by people around the world. That morality supports our stance as women when we say that by virtue of our wombs we and only we can be the keepers of our bodies' reproductive powers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)