The earth spins and the sea is colder than the land.

Warm air rises past the cliffs and pulls the cold air in.

The earth spins and there’s deflection.

Fluids spin sympathetically,

And that’s why there’s a Southern wind today.

 
Whose hair does that wind perturb?

I know the answer.

What I don’t know is whose Frisbee that was…
The one we never threw but that we knew would cut the wind
Were we to throw it.
And that now sits on the rocks,
Themselves cut by the wind and water.

It’s plastic and round and was purple but is now sunbleached.
If you’ve lost it, message me.
Seriously.
I check my Myspace account regularly.
And I’ll send you the coordinates from Google Earth or something, you know
To find it
Good luck. 

All right,
Out of the past tense and into reflection.
And then I’m there again:

We’re wrestling on top of the cliff.
She actually climbed it; I’m proud of her!
This is like the day I designed for myself:
But —without the Charger girl with the broken hip
And without the spaceship I can pilot
And without the Swedish swim team
But with these other things

Things with contours I couldn’t predict

Prediction robs things of their thingness.
No, I didn’t think long about that last line.
So sue me.

I lie down and we make sand angels.
There was a scuffle and only one walked away
only one walked away.
But I was carrying her on my back and we were laughing.

It’s like the Volkswagen commercial:
“Sometimes things just come together”

And I’m dizzy but can’t blame me ‘cause the earth is spinning.

This is interesting if you like long reading!  It's an essay I wrote for psychology about the effect of religion on motivations for having sex.  It's entitled "Four".  I wrote it after I took a not-particularly-well-written survey.  If you want a more exciting update, you're too picky.   Enjoy!

            I was the last volunteer to leave the classroom.  Before I could heft my backpack and walk out the door, I needed to answer the one question left on my survey:  “Rate your religiosity on a scale of 1 to 10”.

            What a pregnant question indeed!  Sorry for that pun in a paper that’s full of sex.  But seriously, what is “religiosity”?  Is it only the propensity for someone to show up at a certain building for a certain purpose at a certain time of the week?  Is it the set of the most valued, immobile and enduring beliefs a person can hold?  Is it something you adopt, among other reasons, to win the approval of your future mother-in-law?  Maybe it a lens through which we sharpen, or distort, the world around us…so that we attach meaning consistent with our values to every choice a person makes.

            That was the idea in my head, anyway, when I circled “4” on the survey sheet.  I’m sure that anyone who reads my results grasps that subtlety.  But what influence do my religious views have on my attitudes toward sex?  What influence do I observe it effecting in other people, for that matter?  First, let’s find out more about my religious practices.  I was raised as a Catholic by a family that fortunately encouraged me to question my surroundings.  I have never ceased to believe in God, and I’m fascinated at how throughout the world people hold beliefs about the divine.  I prefer to keep my beliefs to myself since they, like I, are unique and exceptional. (that’s grammatically correct!)  My relationship with God is exactly that…I feel that I don’t need a congregation to express it.  Thus I rarely attend religious services, only perhaps three or four times a year and at the behest of my friends or my mother.  So how do I think that my religious beliefs, and those of people in general, affect the motives for sex?

            If religion can preclude harmful activities in life, then it is extremely valuable for preserving the safety and well-being of an individual.   With that said, most world religions seem averse to the idea of sex for anything other than its utilitarian purpose.  Then is sex a harmful thing?  Historically, it is dangerous.  Disease can go unchecked and children can be born to people who have not the parenting skills, social connections, maturity, or the financial status to care for them.  Infidelity can break friendships and families apart.  Religion, throughout history, has been a useful tool in dampening the potentially negative effects of sex.  But why, other than for procreation, would a person choose to have sex?

            The textbook Invitation to Psychology by Wade and Tavris suggests six motivations: emotional or physical pleasure, intimacy, emotional coping, self-affirmation, partner approval, and peer approval.  If religion can replace or fulfill any of these desires, then the motivation is no longer a powerful factor in the decision to have sex.  For example, if you play the guitar in a youth band during a weekly worship session and you’re popular and well-liked because of it, then you have peer approval right there.  Bam!  There’s no need to have sex…for that reason.  And of course, the activity that satisfies these desires need not be religion-oriented.  Walk along the beach with your significant other and discuss life for hours at a time…that’s intimacy for you.  These activities would be condoned by most religions as alternatives to sex.

But show me a religion that satisfies the intense physical pleasure of sex!  Really; I’d be interested.  Religion cannot preclude all motivations, so in order for it to be effectual in stemming the tide of hormones, it needs to set in place a moral code.  This code discourages practitioners from engaging in “immoral” deeds.  And as Picasso used paint and Einstein manipulated equations, so religion harnesses guilt to keep in check the various “depraved” practices.  So what we have now is a system where if someone engages in sex, they feel intense guilt simply because it goes against their religious rules.  Brilliant!  I do not have this mechanism in me, thankfully, but I do recognize sex as a potentially dangerous pleasure that carries with it intense fulfillment as well as great responsibility. 

Religion affects people to various degrees, and my degree is a “four”.  At least that’s what I said on my survey.  I’m familiar with the history of religion and with the influence it has over people in everyday life.  My religion is very personal, and I believe all people should have an alcove of retreat where they can commune by themselves with their God and life’s mysteries.  I do not care much for the religious dogma perpetuated through the centuries, but I appreciate the reasons for which it was originally created and the effects it has today.  Whenever I have sex I use reason and caution…because even if Father O’Malley would frown, I still have all the reason in the world to use my own good judgment.