LUST
The man who arranges himself in a sling, awaiting anointing with Crisco, has come in perfect love and trust like a child to baptism. Lust can be a sacrament that washes us clean of envy, pride and anomie, and returns us to daily life with a satisfied heart, renewed hope and greater compassion. The mouth is not the only orifice that generates poetry; we must learn to listen to the hymns of our other openings, other lips. If “gay literature” did no more than rescue our genitals from revulsion, and celebrate them instead, it would be heroic.
— Pat Califia in POZ magazine, October 1998
another eye opens 
April 25, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Thanks, Don, for rescuing this provocative quote from oblivion.
It elevates lust to a redemptive level that I believe
it seldom achieves. (And that would be just satisfied lust, certainly less common than the unsatisfied forms.)
Still, perhaps our lust contains at least the potential to achieve something like the spiritual grace that Pat Califia claims for it.
And three cheers for anything that seeks to rescue our “genitals from revulsion.” Whether it’s “gay literature” or amateur porn
(so much more democratic and inclusive than its professional counterpart), God bless it.