Hormones

Humans are organic, hormonal creatures.

We don't like to admit it. At least, in our post-enlightenment, rational, valuing-the-mind cultures, we don't like to admit it. I wonder if this is some persistent thread of gnosticism; unknowing subscription to the earth/body bad; spirit/heaven good line of thinking.

But there it is, the messy body. Keeping us anchored to the earth. Pulled by forces we don't understand and can't control.

The woman knows first hand the vagaries of hormones. Every month, the body changes, moods change, arousal changes, and emotions become unpredictable. And there not a damn thing to be done about it. For someone used to being in control this can seem like betrayal.

Men had chemicals that make women feel good; women have chemicals that make men aroused. Changes in the brain chemistry can lead to depression, psychosis, or perhaps even genius.

I think it's good to inhabit your body, instead of cutting it off in favor of the mind, or medicating it beyond recognition, or surgically altering it to a more "pleasing" shape in one way or another. We don't know or understand our bodies enough in our culture. Some of this fear of the body is expressed in fear of sex.

As for me, I'm ruminating on this because I'm bloated, and lethargic, and irritable at the moment; coinciding with the onset of that time of the month.