To browse Academia. 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.
Since the s, some religious practitioners of the contemporary Pagan movement a. Pagan feminists have brought theological questions to the same debates. The Embrace of Eros is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature that addresses Christian attitudes toward the sexual body from contemporary perspectives. Declaring that all acts of love and pleasure are the rituals of the Goddess, contemporary Pagans widely affirm the sacredness of the body and of sexuality.
Much of this belief stems from the erotic theology that entered Paganism through British Wicca, in which celebrants use symbolic or literal sexual ritual to participate in the ongoing creation of the universe.
Pagans tend to be relatively accepting of same-sex relationships, BDSM, polyamory, transgender, and other expressions of gender and sexuality that are marginalized by mainstream society. Accordingly, sexual minorities have flocked to the movement and have begun to articulate a distinctively queer Pagan spirituality. Pagans continue to struggle with essentialist notions of gender, however, which has caused conflicts around how and whether to include transgender individuals in single-gender groups.
