WHY LUST MAY BE GOOD

| Anne Williamson |

I am going to let you in on my little secret: I am a "buck the system" kind of gal. Blame it on my follow-the-rules childhood, liberal arts education, or millennial-noding 1981 birth year, but once I understood many of our “truths” are in fact constructions – of culture, society, even religion – my inner rebel was unleashed. 

Maybe this is why I'm fascinated by psychologist Christopher Ryan's TED Talk on the history of human sexuality. In it, he argues our standard sexual narrative – where men and women exist in an oppositional relationship of male goods and services for female reproductive potential and fidelity – was/is a construction of culture, not biology. Before agriculture, our ancestors were sexually egalitarian and inclusive. Some of us may respond to this idea with unease, worried Ryan is advocating sexually liberal relationships for all; but, his argument isn’t in support of a particular lifestyle. In fact, this is kind of the point and what makes his talk spiritually interesting to me....

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