asin 0375400796
upc 9780375400797
For Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich Our Lives Hardcover – February 10, 1998
by Catherine M. Wallace (Author)
In this direct, eloquent, unabashed argument on behalf of sexual fidelity--its meaning, its blessing, its rewards, its necessity--Catherine Wallace addresses a major concern of our time.
At a time when emotional commitments are increasingly nervous, fragile, and short-lived, Wallace's vision of faithful lovers--with its aura of warmth, calm, and emotional continuity--is almost shockingly attractive.
Speaking to heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, she reminds us how deeply the powerful physical tempest that is sexual desire is connected to heart and soul, how immediately and profoundly it spirals to the core of our very identity; how reductive casual sex can be, how easily it can mute, indeed injure, the capacity for ultimate sexual happiness that exists only within the full development of true intimacy--intimacy that arises as fidelity is established and a promise is kept.
What's the difference between fidelity and repression or mere sexual exclusivity? How can people stay faithfully married for decades, while continuing to grow--and to change--as individuals? How do we help our sons and daughters sort through the conflicting messages about sexuality with which they are bombarded from childhood? The author's responses to these and other questions powerfully suggest to us that honor and courage, commitment and kindness to self and others, are indeed within our reach.
Catherine Wallace's gentle, moving, and persuasive argument for fidelity as the core of an entire way of being again and again draws assent from the reader--and provides, at last, a mode of talking with our children about a subject crucial to their success in achieving the fulfilled lives we so fervently wish for them.
At a time when emotional commitments are increasingly nervous, fragile, and short-lived, Wallace's vision of faithful lovers--with its aura of warmth, calm, and emotional continuity--is almost shockingly attractive.
Speaking to heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, she reminds us how deeply the powerful physical tempest that is sexual desire is connected to heart and soul, how immediately and profoundly it spirals to the core of our very identity; how reductive casual sex can be, how easily it can mute, indeed injure, the capacity for ultimate sexual happiness that exists only within the full development of true intimacy--intimacy that arises as fidelity is established and a promise is kept.
What's the difference between fidelity and repression or mere sexual exclusivity? How can people stay faithfully married for decades, while continuing to grow--and to change--as individuals? How do we help our sons and daughters sort through the conflicting messages about sexuality with which they are bombarded from childhood? The author's responses to these and other questions powerfully suggest to us that honor and courage, commitment and kindness to self and others, are indeed within our reach.
Catherine Wallace's gentle, moving, and persuasive argument for fidelity as the core of an entire way of being again and again draws assent from the reader--and provides, at last, a mode of talking with our children about a subject crucial to their success in achieving the fulfilled lives we so fervently wish for them.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Most churches don't know how to talk about sex. For honest Christians, "Don't do it" and "Don't worry about it"--the most common church teachings, depending on where you come from--are equally unworkable. Furthermore, it's painfully difficult to find books that fully engage the revelations of the sexual revolution and also take seriously traditional Christian teaching on the value of monogamy. For Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich Our Lives by Catherine M. Wallace manages to do just that, in a tone that is never condescending or hubristic and with a style that is always fluid, literary, and humorous. For gay, straight, young, old, married, and single readers looking for guidance about how and when to have sex, For Fidelity offers sound advice. For some, it offers the answer. For everyone, it articulates an ideal of passionate commitment that should not be ignored.
From Booklist
Wallace suspended her academic career in literary theory to raise a family. Out of the latter experience, she turned to what may be called, loosely, family theory--specifically, in the talks and tracts adapted into this book, to sexual faithfulness in marriage and how to raise children to value and practice it. She initially came to her subject, not from religious conviction, but from noting that she and other baby boomers who became parents had arrived at fidelity pragmatically and almost thoughtlessly. Her subsequent thinking eventually arrived at a religious, specifically Christian, understanding. Taking a similar journey of insight with her as she considers sexual fidelity as a discipline, the major theories of sexuality in Western culture, the nature of true intimacy, sexual fidelity as a blessing, and the teaching of fidelity to children by the storytelling of example and experience is an adventure in intellect fused with spirit. Wallace is cogent, erudite, and advanced enough in her attitudes not to quarantine gay couples from straight: sexual fidelity, she asserts, is good for all committed love relationships. Her rich little book is a philosophical argument rather than a prescriptive adviser. It demands and rewards reflective reading and may prove to be a classic on its subject. Ray Olson
Product details
- Publisher : Knopf; 1st edition (February 10, 1998)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 172 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0375400796
- ISBN-13 : 978-0375400797
- Item Weight : 13.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 1 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,590,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #15,281 in Interpersonal Relations (Books)
- #19,039 in Sex & Sexuality
- #250,386 in Parenting & Relationships (Books)