Reading Edward Hoffman's 1981 book "The Way of Splendor: Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology," in which he writes that the Kabbalah argues for the interplay of spirit and body. The body is sacred ground; good health is an active condition (not just the absence of disease), and sex is a profound connection of spirits through bodies.
For those of us who were sexually abused, the objectification of sex is particularly repellent. We were used, as the means of someone else's gratification. We know, in the flesh, how it feels.
Sex is a huge money-maker. It sells cars, billions of dollars in cosmetics and clothes (mostly for women), food and sodas, alcohol . . . you name it, sex sells it. In a capitalist context, any object -- including other people -- is a potential source of one's own aggrandizement.
These are not new ideas. But I was struck by the contrast between sex-as-commodity and the Kabbalah's alternative option. We are a sad culture, lonely, angry, and baffled, are we not? No one likes being diminished into an object -- and we do this to ourselves and others in so many ways.