the Ecstasy of Sexed Body: Existential Thomism and Metaphysics Sexual Difference

The Ecstasy of the Sexed Body expands and nuances John Paul II’s theology of the body through existential Thomism. Beginning with the historical developments that inform the current status of the sexed body in theology, Kathleen Cavender-McCoy delineates the problems of existing approaches, including the essentialism/existentialism dichotomy and psychological complementarity, while affirming the fundamental insight present in John Paul II’s understanding of the body’s ecstasy. Arguing that the soul is joined to the body in such a way that the self is limited by the body with which God has commensurated it, Cavender-McCoy shows that living well in one’s sexed body demands life-long discernment, contemplative practice, and asceticism. The Ecstasy of the Sexed Body ends by proposing a set of practices for embarking on a spiritual appropriation of one’s sexed body through lived experience in concert with God’s vocational call.