If I look at sex right out of my own soul, it seems like something which God didn't fail with, but succeeded with. Like something not polluted, but purified. Like something having everything, instead of only an occasional thing, to do with life. But the world shakes its head. The world is nasty. But it puts on airs. The world has eaten. But the world says it's best to starve. Folks will say they've got to be parents. But they say they will regret it. They say sex is here. They say we're up against its mandates or its passions. But let's be as decent as we can with the indecent. Let's not linger on its margins. Let's not overstay our dissipation. Sex is like eating. Who would eat if he didn't have to? To say you enjoy a meal is carnal. To say that you derive some sense of ecstasy from paternal and maternal desires is a confession of depravity. Sex at the best is a sin. Sex at the best is like stepping down. That sex might be an ascent. That sex might be the only means of growth and expansion. You never suppose that! You only assume perdition. You are afraid to assume heaven. I may take pride in that which I may abstract from my anatomy. I must not allude to my body as frankly as to my soul. I must withdraw my body from the public eye. From discussion. From its instinctive avowals. Our bodies must be coffined. Treated as dead before they are born. Regarded as conveniences. Not as essential entities. The body is only for a little while. The soul is forever. But why is that little while not as holy as forever? They don't say. They cavalierly settle the case of the body against itself. So it goes. Endless vivid portrayals could be made of the anomalous situation. The more you look at the mess we've got sex into the worse it seems. _Someone's got to peach._ Someone's got to tell the truth. In a world of liars who are hushers? In a world of hushers who are liars? _Someone's got to tell the truth._ Someone's got to give sex its due. _You can't give spirit its due until you give sex its due._ You can't accept one and cast aside one. They go together. They are inseparable. You refer to body and soul as if you knew just where one stops and the other commences. Maybe neither stops and neither commences. Maybe they are not two things but two names. Maybe when you put a body into a grave you put a soul there too. And maybe you put neither there. It's not so easy to say. I can't see anything in the things you call spiritual more marvelous than what you call the physical birth of a baby from a mother. Maybe you know all about it. I don't. I know nothing about it. To me it's mysterious. To me it's the supreme demonstration of the spiritual. How that a baby comes from a man and a woman. I want that kept clean. It starts clean. Why do we corrupt it? You who disparage it corrupt it. You ascetics anywhere. You libidinous roues anywhere. You corrupt it. By your excesses. You who never say yes. You who never say no. You corrupt it.