The Red Thread of Passion [Hardcover]

David Guy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 1999

Is sex an enemy that must be subdued before spiritual practice can happen, or is it a powerful creative force and a vehicle of enlightenment? There may be no completely satisfying answer—though the question has engendered discussion for centuries. David Guy's contribution takes the form of a personal exploration of the place of sex in his own life and meditation practice, as well as in the lives and work of figures he has come to regard as pioneers on the boundaries of sex and spirituality: Walt Whitman, D. H. Lawrence, Alan Watts, and the erotic writer Marco Vassi among them. It also includes accounts of his pilgrimages to contemporary theorists, activists, and sex workers. From poets to prostitutes, everyone has something to say, even though the reconciliation of sex and spirituality may always remain something of a paradox—as expressed in the Zen koan from which the title is taken: "Why is it that the most clear-eyed monk cannot sever the red thread of passion between his legs?" David Guy's answer is this honest and compelling exploration of the nature of desire.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Blending memoir with literary and journalistic profiles, Guy (The Autobiography of My Body) explores how a range of liberated people have understood the connection between sexuality and spirituality. According to Guy, sex, misused and misunderstood, can be little more than an addictive and ultimately disappointing escape from anxiety. Yet, through interviews and examples from literature, Guy affirms that sexual energy is sacred and that the pursuit of sexual understanding and liberation is an inextricable part of spiritual realization. Offering brief biographies of Walt Whitman and D.H. Lawrence, Guy points up the intriguing contrast between their expansive views and the often tortured unfulfillment of their sex lives. Biographies of Zen student Alan Watts and writer Marco Vassi follow. Guy devotes the second half of the book to profiles of contemporary sexual healers, including the writer Carol Queen, a former stripper and lesbian activist who now lives with a man; Judith Anderson, a former porn star; and the Jesuit-trained Joseph Kramer, bright, ebullient and gay, who has synthesized Tantric, Taoist and Western theories about sexual energy into the Body Electric School of Erotic Massage. He also interviews Collin Brown and Selah Martha, the couple who now runs the tribal, freely sensual Body Electric workshops originated by Kramer. The book as a whole is phallocentric, but Guy is persuasive in demonstrating how important sex can be, for all, when we stop trying "to make personal and private the primal energy of the universe."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

What do Walt Whitman and Annie Sprinkle have in common, or D. H. Lawrence and a porn queen? Just about everything, Guy argues. Most especially, they share experiential knowledge that sex is one of the most profoundly spiritual human experiences. In an engagingly confessional voice, Guy describes his lifelong quest to understand the place of sexual passion in our spiritual lives. In less skillful hands, some passages of his report would be just sordid accounts of masturbation and massage parlors. But his self-revelation redeemingly serves as a bridge to the more extreme experiences he finds in literature and in life. His chapter on Whitman is particularly excellent, for he eliminates the distinction between the poet's polymorphous sexuality and his profound spiritual nature. Similarly, when interviewing gay activist and body worker Joseph Kramer, Guy captures the interconnections between social activism, ecstasy, and meditation that might have eluded less complex writers. This is a genuinely lusty book and a genuinely spiritual one, too. Patricia Monaghan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 260 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1st edition (April 20, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570623597
• ISBN-13: 978-1570623592
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,153,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual book about an important subject, May 8, 2000

By 

Melissa Bach (Rockport, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Red Thread of Passion (Hardcover)

If you go into your local bookstore, looking for something on sex and spirituality, chances are what you will encounter are a plethora of books about Tantric sex, or at least that's what I found.

What a pleasant surprise to open this book and find...an essay on Whitman. And one on D.H. Lawrence, and then lots on some people I had never heard of, but boy, they sounded intruiging.

This book is a scholar's dream, and David Guy approaches his subject, sex, and his setting for it, spirituality, with a scholar's diligence, a true researcher's obsession. Whitman, Lawrence, Alan Watts, these are all perhaps predictable choices for a book like this if you consider Guy's approach. But an essay on Marco Vassi, pulp pornographer, bathhouse aficianado and paramour of sex queen Annie Sprinkle? Well, as Guy says, if you want to really research the field, you look to the experts, people who have gone to the edge and come back to tell the tale.

Guy divides the book into three parts: a true confessional (this part might make you look at your normally sedate husband in a new light), a look at the trail-blazers of the sex-spirit link, and an introduction to some folks who are perhaps the unsung heroes of the healing arts world, alive and well and doing their thing (alas all on the West Coast).

You know, you could write an encyclopedia about the way sex is pushed down in our country, made into the stuff of sleazy porn shops, peep shows, strip clubs, and curb-side pickups. And you can easily find the how-to tantric sex manuals, and try to get your aura flowing as well as all those other body juices. Here is a book that serves as a bridge. Can you consider a former stripper and sexual escort as a spiritual healer? Well, yes. Guy does, and by the time we're finished with his book, we do too.

And while you're at it, pick up Leaves of Grass again. You'll read it in a whole new light.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book to date on the subject., July 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Red Thread of Passion (Hardcover)

I can't recommend too highly this very insightful, down to earth, funny, honest, intelligent, courageous, clear headed, warm hearted,sensible, provocative...wish this book could be the core of discussion on say tv but you only get moronic level discussions or all that fundamentalistic nonsense...but at least we have books like this. Most excellent!