In light of the above, it is not difficult to understand why, throughout the centuries, the mystic-religionist enemies
of man, of man's mind, of his self-esteem and of his life on earth, have been so violently hostile to the phenomenon
of human sexuality.
The celebration of self and of life is so implicit in the act of sex that the person who lacks the self-esteem which
such a celebration requires and implies often feels driven to fake it, to enact a neurotic substitute: to go through the
motions of sex, not as an expression of his sense of self-value and of the value of life, but as a means of gaining a
momentary feeling of personal worth, a momentary amelioration of despair, an escape from anxiety.
In the act of sex, the participants experience a unique and intense form of self-awareness—a self-awareness that is
generated both by the sex act itself and by the verbal-emotional-physical interaction between them. The nature of
the self-awareness, in any given experience, is crucially conditioned by the nature of the interaction, by the degree
and kind of visibility they project and are made to feel. If and to the extent that the parties involved enjoy a strong
sense of spiritual affinity (by "spiritual," I mean: pertaining to one's mind and values) and, further, a sense that their
sexual personalities are harmoniously complementary—the result is the deepest possible experience of self, of
being spiritually as well as physically naked, and of glorying in that fact. Conversely, if and to the extent that the
parties involved feel spiritually and/or sexually alienated and estranged, the result is that the sexual experience is
felt as autistic (at best), or frustratingly "physical," or degradingly meaningless.
Sex affords an individual the most intensely pleasurable form of self-awareness. In romantic love, when a man and
woman project that they desire to achieve this experience by means of each other's person, that is the highest and
most intimate tribute a human being can offer or receive, that is the ultimate form of acknowledging the value of
the person one desires and of having one's own value acknowledged. It is in this sense that romantic love involves
an intense objectification of one's self-value; one sees that value reflected and made visible in the romantic
response of one's partner.
A crucial element involved in this experience is the perception of one's efficacy as a source of pleasure to the being
one loves. One