Saint Teresa's texts are not at all ambiguous, and they justify Bernini's statue showing us the swooning saint in thrall to a stunning sensuality; it would be no less false to interpret her emotions as simple 'sexual sublimation'; there is not first an unavowed sexual desire that takes the form of divine love; the woman in love herself is not first the prey of a desire without object that then fixes itself on an individual; it is the presence of the lover that arouses an excitement in her immediately intended to him; thus, in one movement, Saint Teresa seeks to unite with God and experiences this union in her body; she is not slave to her nerves and hormones: