Sex in the Head

To the Editors:

I would like to make two points about J.M. Cameron’s dyspeptic review of my book, co-authored by Rosemary R. Ruether [NYR, May 13].

First, the reviewer displays a narrowness of spirit in quibbling over a few infelicitous expressions, while not taking seriously the main themes of the book. We were not writing about “sexual liberation” in the restricted sense that pervades Cameron’s review. Our essays, as the title, From Machismo to Mutuality, implies, focus of the broader woman-man liberation issues from a social and theological point of view. But Cameron needed to twist the book to fit his Procrustean bed with its unchangeable Aristotelian framework.

Secondly, I don’t mind being called a gnostic; these marginal thinkers in the West have always had something important to say to the mainline tradition. But I find it a bit amusing that Cameron does not see his own inconsistency in reference to gnosticism. He criticizes the first books for being too earthy and explicit on sex; then he berates us for not being fleshy enough. If gnosticism re sex means accentuating the interpersonal and spiritual, long live the ancient heresy; we need it today.

Eugene C. Bianchi

Emory University

Atlanta, Georgia