Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective
"Within the past twenty years, contemporary Pagan leaders, progressive Christian and Goddess theologians, advocates for queer and BDSM communities, and therapeutic bodyworkers have all begun to speak forcefully about the sacredness of the body and of touch. Many assert that the erotic is a divinely transformative force, both for personal development and for social change. Although "the erotic" includes sexuality, it is not limited to it; access to connected nonsexual touch is as profound a need as that for sexual freedom and health. In this book, Christine Hoff Kraemer brings together an academic background in religious studies and theology with lived experience as a professional bodyworker and contemporary Pagan practitioner. Arguing that the erotic is a powerful moral force that can ground a system of ethics, Kraemer integrates approaches from queer theology, therapeutic bodywork, and sexual minority advocacy into a contemporary Pagan religious framework. Addressing itself to liberal religious people of many faiths, Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective approaches the right to pleasure as a social justice issue and proposes a sacramental practice of mindful, consensual touch"-- "Interest in embodiment among feminists, ethicists, the LGBT community, and scholars of religion is blossoming, and this raises ethical issues concerning touch. Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective is a consideration of ethics of touch (sexual and non-sexual) and an exploration of embodiment from the viewpoint of a Pagan practitioner. Within the past twenty years contemporary Pagan leaders, writers in the Goddess movement, advocates for the queer and BDSM communities, bodyworkers, and liberal Christian theologians have all begun to write about the sacredness of the body and touch, including both sexual and non-sexual touch. As a religious studies scholar and a Pagan, Kraemer is well suited to address controversial issues associated with the ethics of touch. In this monograph she argues that touch may be perceived as sacramental--a religious practice as well as a therapeutic one. The importance of the erotic as a theological concept is explored as framed in the context of the argument that the conscious experience of being embodied--of touching and being touched--is necessary to make us human, for biological as well as spiritual reasons"--
