Loving Bodies

Yes. it is beautiful. But not exclusively important,
and that's what took me a regrettably long time to learn.

It has long been an interest of both feminism and religious groups to foster an understanding of human worth that's not just skin-deep.

As a 20th-21st century woman, I consistently learned from guardians, mentors, and no small amount of media (or counter-media) that I should find a mate who would love me not only for my body but also for my mind.

This, I think, has been a good thing. But even good things have their limits.

Part of me may have always known this, but I really began to think about such standards for love in earnest a few years ago when my grandfather was dying.

He had Parkinson's disease, and by the last years of his life the capabilities of both his body and his mind were irreparably diminished. He was a strong, smart man who eventually could not recognize his loved ones or find his way home or feed himself.

It was not a love for his mind (what it was then or what it once had been) that made my grandmother and the rest of my family continue to care for him until his final moments.

This tangible caring may have stemmed from emotional connection, but they understood what we understand when we care deeply for any human being. They tended to him and gave him every dignity they could. Not just because he had done the same for his parents and children, or because he was once a hardworking and self-sufficient intellectual. They did it because they knew and loved a human being, regardless of circumstance.

When I experienced grief and depression around that same time, my partner and friends and family loved me not because they were in love with my mind (as it was then or what it once had been), but because they loved me, the whole me, no matter what changes I faced, and they were determined to show me that as best as they could.

(Circumstances never define the human being we love, just the ways in which we might show love to them.)

And that's when I knew how beautiful it could be to love a body.

So I'm not willing to let measures of beauty - even ostensibly honorable measures like in the image above - strip me of any amount of my humanity. And I'm not willing to privilege emotional love and mental love so consistently over physical love, whether that physicality is sex, or snuggling, or caring for someone when they're ill, or massaging someone's aches and pains.

For those who know that I'm demisexual, someone whose attractions depend almost solely on an emotional connection, this anti-hierarchy of love may come as a surprise. But the commitment to owning our own reality and affirming others' realities, whatever they may be, is marvelously compatible with seeing oneself or someone else as a whole person. In fact, many of us on the asexual spectrum appreciate physical acts of love as part of our own everyday reality, and our personal values will vary as much as in any other group.

For those for whom this is not a matter of innate preferences but of spiritual edification, consider what "loving bodies" looks like at its best in your religion. For Christians, even traditional marriage vows have included "to have and to hold" and "in sickness and in health," and remember how consistently that incarnate Jesus fed bodies, washed bodies, healed bodies. If we disembody our partners and our communities, we risk losing significant portions of what it means to be people of faith in relationship.

I'd like to challenge anyone wrestling with the merits of physical love to take note of it when you see it over the next few days. It could well be platonic or familial or neighborly, but notice some tangible interaction of profound caring between two or more fleshy humans. Notice how some acts are inextricably interwoven with mind and emotion, and how some are the embodiment of love in their own right.

Will you love some-body?

(Dis)agreeing with Friends and Partners

What quality is more important to you in a friend or partner: the conclusions that they make or how they have arrived at their conclusions? That is, would you rather that someone agree with you on a subject or issue even if you disagree with the way they formed their views, or would you prefer to disagree with them but somehow appreciate the methods by which they formed their views?



I intend this question not as a matter of judging a person as a person but of evaluating one as your own companion. Imagine yourself spending a great deal of time with this person. Which quality would bother you more? Would the nature of the subject upon which you are agreeing or disagreeing greatly affect your response? What scenarios, real or hypothetical, does this bring to mind for you?



Feel free to respond to any of these questions below, and for those with blogs who wish to address this topic that way, link here to your post.

Subtle Message, Profound Love

Lately my father and I are learning how to communicate again, particularly connecting through new interests and a new appreciation of each other's experiences.

He's taken up photography, and now occasionally when we're in the car I find myself reminding him to "stop getting distracted by pretty sunsets!"



But inside, I'm excited to see him so excited about the sweeping colors and fading rays, to see him so aware of it all. The last time we were driving into a gorgeous sunset, the kind fit for heroes, and he whooped and hollered at how fantastic it was.

And then he sort of glanced at me, silent and slightly foreboding, as though to ask why in the heck I, as the only free-handed passenger, hadn't taken out a camera yet. So I did my best to capture what I could. On the highway. At 60 miles per hour. For Dad.

Then there's a strange shift that's been taking place, where I've begun talking to each of my parents - married over 31 years now, God bless 'em - about relationships. I've always had a good rapport with my mother, and ending a conversation between us always proves far greater a challenge than beginning one. But this is the first time I can really say I've been bonding with my father over something more serious than photography, crêpes, and Sleepless in Seattle (all fine in their own right, of course), and I'm really enjoying it.

My respect for my dad and his marriage knows no bounds. And although he doesn't always say it directly, I think he in turn has come to appreciate my boyfriend and our long-term, long-distance relationship.

Thus begins my tale.


Several years ago, before my boyfriend and I were dating, we went trick-or-treating. He was a frightening ghoulish figure who blamed his new appearance on the local water. I was a Serta sheep, i.e. an obsolete counting sheep looking for work. I brought a canister to collect for Unicef, but because I was sporting an "Out of Work" sign, people mistook me for a hobo and my collection had mixed results.

Just the same, the Great Halloween Endeavor of the Benefactor Sheep (long-time friend of Santa and the Easter Beagle) not only raised a little money for a cause, but also left me with a jar and slotted lid.

So I have a sheep bank now.

I've had piggy banks before - namely a plastic one I painted and glittered at a friend's party in elementary school, and a giant Crayola crayon bank. And probably others that I remember less vividly because, let's face it, little competes with a glittered pig and a two-foot crayon.

But I like the sound of a sheep bank, and I've begun saving change in mine.



And I've decided that it's only fitting that it go toward transportation to visit with my boyfriend. Besides being busy with school and work, we're both pennysavers and have gone anywhere between 3 months and one year between visits since the move. But instead of dwelling on the idea that we are putting off a trip, I'd rather have a visual representation of progress toward one. So I've labeled it Florida or Bust.

All that said, I wasn't keeping dollar bills in the jar, figuring I would simply collect change for now and could make up the difference when the time came. But recently, when I dropped a coin in, I did a classic doubletake. Where was that familiar chink of metallic collision? I opened the lid... and laughed.

My father had stopped in that week. There had been all of about a minute that I left him alone in the room, and little did I know that, while he was loudly reading off the titles on my shelf, he was stealthily slipping a few wrinkled dollar bills into my sheep bank.

Sometimes people show their love and support for us in the simplest ways.

One of my favorite quotes is (debatably) attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words." My father is no preacher, but I think in his own way he has already begun to put "Francis'" concept into practice.

Thank you, Dad.