Oh God, Don't Stop

July 31, 2000

EXTRACTS

Oh GOD, Don't Stop! -A NerveCenter Discussion-

will7

I essentially gave up religion for sex. Now sex has become part of my religion.

prettykitty

Why would God have made sex so pleasurable if it's a sin, if it's only about procreation? He/She could have made it semi-pleasurable, like when you stick a Q-Tip in your ear — pleasurable but not so much that you spend all day with a Q-Tip in your ear. How many people are Q-Tip addicts? Are there any groups called "Q-Tips in Your Ears Anonymous"? No.

unknown1

In ancient times worshippers would sometimes sacrifice animals or humans (and less dramatic things) to their gods in exchange for good fortune and/or protection from this, that or the other thing. Nowadays, it seems, sacrificing one's sexuality to their god is seen as the highest form of worship. Personally, I'm not sure how great of an improvement that is. I'm not suggesting a return to human sacrifices, but sex? Why place so much religious emphasis upon virginity and intercourse?

opiate

Sex is everywhere.

It's everywhere because people are so passionate about it, because we spend so much time thinking about it. Sexual desire is one of the most powerful human/animal forces.

Religions, I think, seek to cultivate that feeling in their followers, to make them fall in love with (a) god. By abstaining from sex, followers can redirect their desire toward their god(s). That's the idea, anyway, and I actually think it's beautiful.

But it gets ugly when the religion becomes an institution. I think of the ascetic wandering through the countryside living on a few grains of rice a day, and I feel almost envious of that person's ability to transform all physical desire into spiritual love; but when I think of an old friend who spent years repressing and resenting his homosexuality at the behest of the Catholic Church, I feel only pity and anger. When abstinence (or moderation) mutates from dogma to decree it becomes dangerous; it becomes an instrument of control.

I support — and envy, at times — those who choose by themselves to pour their sexual energy into their art or their spirituality, but those who do not choose to do this and are made to feel worthless for it, these people need to be saved from their "saviors."

rbs

Not all religions are about brain-washing. Not all religious people are brain-washed.

Just because the Church said something doesn't make it Christian. Some of us choose to remain in the Church and struggle to make it (and ourselves) more authentically Christian. I know that there are Muslims and Jews who feel the same way about their religious institutions and I'm sure the same must apply to non-Western religions as well.

unknown1

Unlike most governments, employers or relationships, any particular Church claims to hold "God Given Truths" which are unchangeable and unreformable. After all, if something is a "God Given Truth" then it cannot change according to what its followers may or may not want. According to the official stand of the Church, God does not change, Truth does not change, and therefore any changes in the Church or its doctrines reflect the desires and will of God, not of the followers. It is one thing to disagree with another human being of equal or greater power, but it's another thing entirely to disagree with God, and most churches claim that to disagree with their "God Given Truths" is to be unacceptably challenging God, and therefore challenging the church hierarchy. If any church admits that its own followers can affect and reform it, then it is also admitting that its doctrines may be subject to human will as well as to God's. And as we all know, human will and human interpretation are extremely fallible.

Also, when someone chooses to follow a certain Church (as opposed to an employer or government) they are betting their soul and eternity, not just some paychecks or secular policy. There is a huge difference. Thus if someone disagrees with a Church doctrine, there is vastly more at stake.

Opiate, yes, sexuality is seen everywhere, but religions have been dictating sexual codes to their followers long before the Internet and commercial advertising. Religions dictating some sexual codes goes back at least to the Neolithic period when fertility rites were in fashion.

gwynne

Yes, our Puritan heritage is still taking its toll. But in truth, most of the churches that I've been a part of — the more open-to-reform Protestant ones — have no particular doctrines concerning sexuality. Neither does the Bible, with the exception of a couple lines easily taken out of context (and there are indeed passages which support sexuality, i.e. all of Song of Songs). Jesus spoke highly of celibacy, but Jesus advocated abandoning any worldly things that interfered with spirituality — money, sex, career, even family. People who'd learned to "be like children" and devote their lives to spiritual simplicity — rather than worry, guilt or material gain — he didn't have a problem with. In fact, Jesus wasn't really big on condemning anybody, with the exception of hypocrites. I constantly marvel at the irony of the Religious Right; I can see very little Christian doctrine in their practices.

Those of us who choose to participate in religious institutions do so, not to be told what to do, but to be given an outlet for spiritual exploration and a community in which spirituality is accepted. There are churches in which I would feel very, very uncomfortable, because of the residue retained from centuries of religious stupidity. But this isn't always the case, and unfortunately, most people seem to think it is.

I've recently been attending a Congregational church, which is actually very active in local outreach movements, particularly gay rights and economic equality — not because of political affiliations, but because of basic human rights. The Church is generally in need of reform, but as Rbs said, I believe that it's worth reforming. Religion and sex are not dynamic opposites — in fact, they can be beautifully entwined.

abaddon

In the broadest sense, religion is the rituals we use to manage our current level of understanding of reality until we progress to the next level, or until the rituals become instinctual/habitual. We need to be able to simultaneously nurture belief and foster analysis.

Current organized religion tends to downplay the things that I find bring the most health in people (i.e. touch, intimate exploration with others, openness to new ideas), and so it's hard for me to see something as controversial and emotionally raw as sex fitting well into the current paradigm.

However, I could easily see a sex-centered religion where people forget the abstractions of philosophy per se, and generate their own body technology to enrich their lives.

Wow, that even sounds weird to me.

rinchen

As a Buddhist, I feel pretty good about sex. Meditation practice in particular has made the ups and downs in sex and love, as well as other areas, a little more manageable.

gwynne

I've always thought of both sex and religion as acts of union and creation: sex as a physical union of bodies and the creation of an indescribable intimate experience; religion as a guide to understanding the universe, how everyone is connected. It amazes me that they've become so separated,

The whole concept of "divine virginity" was not actually developed until the Christians stopped being persecuted and started becoming the persecutors. When Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, Christianity was still being seen as a "way out" for women. In other words, joining the Christians was the only real alternative — albeit a subversive one — to getting married and leading a life based on traditional familial roles. (The early Church disliked any kind of hierarchy, so they shunned the era's patriarchal values. This is why the idea of chastity came into it in the first place: without families, Christians were able to completely separate themselves from society.) As soon as Christianity entered into the status quo, however, it became a means of controlling women, locking them up in monasteries and telling them that losing their virginity was a fate worse than death, and that it was "the one thing God is incapable of forgiving" (according to "Saint" Jerome). I always wondered how the whole "anti-sex" angle in Christianity got started, because the Bible certainly doesn't dwell on it.

couldabin

I've long suspected that the Christian hang-up on sex was intimately tied to the Virgin Birth account. I mean, really:

She's pregnant.

Her: "I've never had sex!"

Them: "It's a miracle!"

No wonder we've felt sheepish ever since.

gwynne

It was always a universal interpretation of Christian doctrine that Jesus was, indeed, conceived without intercourse. The story itself is a great read; the reactions of Joseph and Mary (in Luke) are very human: Mary is terrified and Joseph decides to "divorce her quietly." The divergence in interpretation occurs with the question, "Why was Jesus conceived by a virgin?" I'm pretty sure the early Christians (i.e. Paul) took this at face value: well, he was the son of God, so the virgin birth confirms that God, not a mortal man, is the father. When Christianity became dominant, the new "Christian elite" took a different stance: Jesus could not have been conceived by vaginal sex, because that would have made Mary's womb "impure" and "tainted." From this perspective sprang the belief of the Immaculate Conception, meaning that Mary was born without sin and remained without sin throughout her life. While I respect this view in terms of the powerful female deity, I think it undermines the whole point of God's son being born to a human woman, before her marriage, in a stable. To me, this indicates a pattern that defies worldly standards — it's the modern-day equivalent of being born to a teenage girl in a homeless shelter in Newark. Furthermore, nowhere in the Bible does it state that Mary remained a virgin after Jesus' birth. It does mention Jesus' "brothers and sisters." Is this a figurative reference? I guess that's up to the reader.

The Adam and Eve story, by the way, underwent a similar transformation. Their crime, as initially perceived, was disobeying God and trying to attain all the knowledge of the divine. The "Christian elite" redefined Adam and Eve's crime as one of lust, reinforcing a) that God sees sex as sinful, b) that women are inherent temptresses and must be subdued and c) that we are all born tainted by "original sin" (another concept that does not originate with the Bible).

So, anyway, has anyone else ever fooled around in church? (Okay, I'm a pastor's daughter, so it was sort of inevitable.)

boomerboy

Fantasies about Sister Carol Dorothea in sixth grade probably don't count. Discovering the convent Kotex closet. Realizing that "Delta" symbolized other things besides the Trinity. Watching Sister Leo Marie's breasts roll around under her habit while she wrote on the blackboard. Figuring out that the priest doesn't get undressed before vesting. Looking at Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Teresa" and wishing I had read the book. Trying to pick up a girl in the Sistine Chapel until we realized we only lived a block from each other.

Other than that, no.

So, can anyone report a religious sexual experience, other than St.Teresa? Or perhaps a sexual religious experience?

soulshaker

I know that when I am with my lover there is a heightened sense of closeness not only to her, but to a higher level of awareness, of being. This doesn't mean that I get closer to god when we're fucking (though there are moments), but it does mean that I am experiencing something that is beyond anything neurophysical, biological or of normal consciousness. I feel closer to her, and with that I am closer to feeling a oneness with everything.

gwool

Boomerboy, Does this mean yelling out "Oh god?" Would this be the so called immaculate conception? Why is the aforementioned conception deemed immaculate? Was there no wet spot?

Or does a religious sexual experience involve role playing and altar boy costumes? How about a crucifix replete with head spinning and green bile projectile vomiting à la Linda Blair in The Exorcist?

Or is it a woman yelling "Jesus Christ" when you're a little jumpy with the trigger finger, if you know what I am saying, thereby leaving her in the lurch?

I don't know, I can't imagine seeing God while in the act. Seeing stars, maybe, from hyperventilating, but not God. God's not the first person I'd think of to add to the bedroom if my wife and I opted for a threeway. Linda Blair, maybe, but not God.

boomerboy

After reading Emma Taylor's letter from the editor, Are You There God, It's Me, Emma," I came back to this page and I am struck by the negative tone of this board compared to Emma's open, honest search for a place in her life for being a fully sexual being and a fully spiritual person who misses something that religious experience feeds.

Religious tolerance is in short enough supply in the world. Thoughtful hedonists should give each other the room to discuss ideas that seem foolish, like trying to reconcile our sexual lives with our religious and spiritual and moral experience.

erasrhed

I never had an intensely religious upbringing, though I was always "strongly encouraged" by my dad to go to church every Sunday. I was raised Episcopalian, and by teenage years got the impression that church was just rituals and rules where automatons stood, knelt or sang on cue . . . and there was occasionally some helpful advice on life. I didn't perceive a consistency between what was preached and how the constituents lived and so started questioning the whole religion thing. But I was paying attention that whole time and don't recall hearing anything from the pulpits seriously dowsing the fires of passion. Maybe that's just Episcopalians.

I'm journeying down my own path to enlightenment, and eventually may find a group that embraces spirituality like I do while incorporating healthy sexual thinking as well. It's all part of the beauty of life! Until then, I'd like to raise a glass to Emma and all of y'all who seek to find sex in the spiritual, and the spiritual in sex.

L'Chaim!