Women, Passion & Celibacy (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Writing 20 years ago in The Total Woman , Marabel Morgan advocated that wives meet their husbands at the door draped in cellophane wrap, drink in hand. Morgan stands in stark contrast to Cline ( Just Desserts: Women and Food , Trafalgar, 1990), who counters that sex and coupledom no longer represent the yardstick by which women gauge their self-worth. Her battle cry is for passionate celibacy--a move of conscious choice away from the sexual and material roles imposed upon women. Celibacy is an issue of preference rather than an accident or something imposed by the "genital mythmakers" (read: dominant male society). Cline is remarkably dogmatic in her criticism of authoritative male culture. Yet her points are well taken as to the passion, productivity, and solitude of spirit that can be the fruits of such a decision. An extensive bibliography and good footnotes provide a solid foundation for this work. Cline contributes new information and insights for feminist, religious, and historical scholarship.
- Sandra Collins, SLIS, Univ. of Pittsburgh
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Cline's interviews with women in Great Britain and North America reveal a variety of motivations for celibacy. She disputes the view that intimate interpersonal relations are the primary source of happiness, and she examines new, celibate styles of independence and the ways in which they change relations between men and women and contribute to women's creative enterprises and spiritual growth. "Passionate celibacy," she concludes, "is a form of female sexuality . . . which allows women to define themselves autonomously. .ÿ20.ÿ20. It is a form of sexual practice without the power struggles of a sexually active relationship." A good addition for women's issues collections. Whitney Scott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1st edition (March 22, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517597381
• ISBN-13: 978-0517597385
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,767,636 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking a Break from Obligatory Sexual Pleasure, June 9, 2003

By A Customer

Sally Cline challenges the assumptions that genital satisfaction will automatically lead to other forms of fulfillment in life and that it is required for emotional maturity, health, and happiness.

Cline focuses on women and the climate in which most women must try to make sense of their sexuality. She does not discuss the effect on men of this same climate. This leads some reviewers to see it as an "angry" book or as "too feminist." Rather than faulting Cline for focusing on women, however, it would make more sense for men to discuss the effects of hearing throughout their lives that they are naturally aggressive and warlike, have animal natures that are basically uncontrollable, and need a regular diet of release to keep them from sexual frenzy.

The fact is, neither gender is offered celibacy as an option for themselves as ordinary mortals--either temporarily or as a regular practice. Cline, who comes from a Jewish family and spent a number of years in a Catholic convent school, has a firm grasp of the messages to girls from both traditions--insistence on marriage in the one; the idealization of virginity in the other.

Cline suggests that if we are repeatedly told that sexual pleasure is evil or dangerous and can only be had under certain stringent conditions (the old script) or that sexual pleasure is obligatory (the new script), it is still a script. Celibacy, for many, is partly a challenge to *both* of these scripts and partly the logical extension of a need for plain ol' solitude, friendships, and creative work.

One of the big problems, especially for men but also for many women, is that emotional intimacy and genital intimacy have been so intertwined for so long that it can be difficult even to imagine meaningful emotional connections without genital intimacy. Celibacy, therefore, conjures up an image not simply of *genital* inactivity or quiescence, but of emotional isolation.

Autonomy--again especially for too many men--has been defined as "separation from other people, a freedom without belonging, something that has to be gained aggressively at the expense of others;..." Some women, on the other hand, are learning to see autonomy as "prioritizng oneself within a context of intimate relationships," or as Cline puts it, "connected autonomy."

Cline's last chapter, "Creative Solitude," might actually be the key to the entire conundrum. Anthony Storr, whom Cline quotes several times, suggests that parents would do their children a great favor by consciously helping them learn to live creatively and comfortably with solitude, starting with being "alone in the presence of another." Cline also gives a vivid account of her own work on developing the capacity for solitude.

The capacity for solitude might even be one the best predictors of positive relationships in which, as Antoine de St.-Exupery says, "love is not gazing into each other's eyes but looking together in the same direction." Under this definition, the genital fixation seems somehow more limited and cloistered than celibacy.