'O Come, All Ye Faithful...'

Contemporary Sexuality, Transcendence and Implicit Religion

Abstract

Centuries of Judeo-Christianity have accustomed us to a quite radical dissociation between sex and spirituality. The history of humanity is however permeated with cultures which envisaged the body and its passions as a privileged road towards transcendence, as a vital quest for meaning and as a genuine religious experience. Through the study of four of its contemporary figures (the rave phenomenon, the fetish scene, roaming sexuality, and risky sexual behaviour), this paper suggests that this could still be a valid way to assess many aspects of sexuality in our times.