"I was at prayer when the Divine came unto me. I felt him press against my britch and I cried out, 'O Lord, I am thine.' Then I felt a spear of flame penetrate my depths and I cried out again, 'Oh God I surrender unto you, take me and use me all my days.' I lay, yielding myself, body, soul and spirit unto Him as flares of coloured fire consumed my being and I felt a felt a divine love beyond all words and worlds pervade me entire, and I returned that love. Then the spear of fire was gone, but the love remained."
I was reading a book I had picked up casually from the desk in Ralph's study. It announced itself as a "Complimentary Review Copy" and was entitled, "Divine Love and the Female Mystics," written by a psychiatrist. I was idly glancing through it when I came upon the above passage. The writer went on to say that what the mystic was experiencing resembled a female orgasm.
Intrigued I read on and came to a quote from someone called, "Hildegard of Bingen." The writer claimed that this was one of the earliest known descriptions of a female orgasm. It read:
"When a woman is making love with a man, a sense of heat in her brain, which brings with it sensual delight, communicates the taste of that delight during the act and summons forth the emission of the man's seed. And when the seed has fallen into its place, that vehement heat descending from her brain draws the seed to itself and holds it, and soon the woman's sexual organs contract, and all the parts that are ready to open up during the time of menstruation now close, in the same way as a strong man can hold something enclosed in his fist."
Since Hildegard was supposed to have been celibate all her life I wondered where she learned about the female orgasm.
The writer pointed out that he had treated a number of patients who were "sexually dysfunctional," but upon undergoing a deep spiritual experience they overcame their problem and became extremely active sexually. He added that many people said that at the moment of orgasmic climax they cried out, "Oh God." From this he drew the conclusion that sexual orgasm has an affinity with religious experience, and went on to cite the association between sex and religion in many cultures.
I sat at the desk somewhat bemused. I had heard of the female orgasm of course, but had never had one, and that such powerful passion was experienced by religious people seemed impossible.
I lived on campus with my husband, The Rev. Professor Ralph Witman, Professor of Theology at the United Theological Faculty. Around me lived his colleagues and their wives, all allegedly very religious people. None of them seemed to be exactly fervent or looked as if they experienced "sensual delight." On the contrary, to even mention the word sex at one of the dreary faculty social gatherings would no doubt be met with a stunned and scandalised silence.
The sole exception was my friend Stephanie, a dark complexioned and very sensual woman who reminded me of a gypsy, and who was inclined to say provocative things at the gatherings. Like me she was many years younger than her husband Boris, a lecturer in New Testament Studies. Also like me she seemed to attract the disapproval of the other faculty wives.
Stephanie believed it was the fact of our being much younger than our husbands that drew this disapproval, since most of the faculty wives were in their forties or fifties. Trying not to be too unfair and critical, I must say they were on the whole an unappealing bunch.
Their idea of a wild party was one small glass of sherry and much talk of their husband's latest paper or possible promotion, and the cleaning, polishing and flower arranging in College Church. If not that, it was the seemingly endless committees, Synods and Assemblies of the Church, the activities of which could not be drearier and to me mostly pointless.
Stephanie, not given to verbal restraint, referred to these ladies as, "Faculty cats."
I had met Ralph at a particularly vulnerable moment in my life. Both my parents were killed in an avalanche while on a skiing holiday. I was nineteen and felt utterly distraught and bereft. I had no brothers and sisters and such other relatives as I had lived far away.
I had taken as a single subject in my university course Comparative Religion, and Ralph had been giving us a series of half a dozen lectures related to Christianity when he heard of what had happened. He was very kind and considerate, letting me talk myself out with him, and I was intensely grateful to him. To cut it short, I mistook this feeling of gratitude for love.
I think he too took his feelings of compassion for me to be love. He was a bachelor and twenty years older than me and feeling protective he asked me to marry him and I agreed. That it is how I came to understand it after a few years of marriage.
I came to him as a virgin and right from the start our sex life was an unhappy one. Amazingly for a man his age he too was a virgin, and from the fumbling, and for me painful first night, I had experienced no joy in our sexual relationship thereafter.
In most other things Ralph continued kind, gentle and generous, but in bed he was inept and gave the impression he did not like what he was doing, which apart from ejaculating into me, or rather, into a condom, was very little, and even that very little was not often. I think it might have been a relief to both of us if one of us had the courage to say, "Let's stop doing this because neither of us is getting any satisfaction from of it."
I wanted to talk to someone about the situation but was too inhibited to do so even with the free spirited Stephanie, but now, reading this book that associated sex with religion, I felt as if I could open the subject up as it were, at one place removed from me.
Although she lived no more than a hundred metres away from me I telephoned her before going to see her. She had asked me to do this early in our relationship, and although puzzled I did not ask why and always made a point of complying with her request.
"Yes, come over Verity," she said, and taking the book with me I walked to her place.
In her lounge I handed her the book and said, "Take a look at the passages I've book marked, Stephanie."
She gave me a puzzled glance and commenced reading. After a few moments she smiled and then gave a gentle laugh, and said,"Yes, that's not a bad description of what it's like, then looking up asked, "What about it?"
I didn't really understand her question but said, "Don't you think it's weird, this sex and religion business, and is an orgasm really like that woman Hildegard describes it?"
It was Stephanie's turn to look puzzled. "Don't you know?"
"Know what?"
"What an orgasm is like?"
"No, I've never had one and I think it's all a bit exaggerated."
Stephanie looked at me sadly for a few moments then said quietly, "Oh darling, you're another of the faculty nuns aren't you?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"You're not getting much in bed, are you?"
"Well, it's not really...it's not..."
