…American women… have learned it should be for them to decide when and how often they shall take upon themselves the sacred duties of motherhood, but as law and custom give to the husband absolute control of the wife’s person, she is forced to not only violate physical law, but to outrage the holiest instincts of her being to maintain even a semblance of that freedom which by nature belongs to every human soul.
My relationship with my body has changed. I used to consider it as a servant who should obey, function, give pleasure. In sickness, you realise that you are not the boss. It is the other way around.
Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they 'own' their bodies—those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!
The idea that we are "stewards of the earth" is another symptom of human arrogance. Imagine yourself with the task of overseeing your body's physical processes. Do you understand the way it works well enough to keep all its systems in operation? Can you make your kidneys function? Can you control the removal of waste? Are you conscious of the blood flow through your arteries, or the fact that you are losing a hundred thousand skin cells a minute?
It is not her body that he wants but it is only through her body that he can take possession of another human being, so he must labor upon her body, he must enter her body, to make his claim.
Remember this: your body is your slave; it works for you.
The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.
In order to live a fully human life we require not only control of our bodies (though control is a prerequisite); we must touch the unity and resonance of our physicality, our bond with the natural order, the corporeal grounds of our intelligence.
Be able to sneeze without sounding ridiculous. That means neither stifling yourself or spraying your immediate vicinity.
The reason for fasting is to understand the relationship between what's you and what's the accumulative body.
It's a little hard to speak when you're not supposed to move.
To surrender one's vulnerable body to water has always seemed to me a limpid act of will that has no coutnerpart or equal, unless it is sex.
Just because the only way you can maintain control over your bodily passions is to sit straight in your chair, knees together, hands delicately arranged in our lap, fingers tightly intertwined, does not mean that I am required to do the same.
