Thoughts on Sex and Religion

Although there is no uniform view of sex in the Church, there can be little doubt that, for the most part, the Christian community has negative attitudes about sex. Even within moderate congregations sexuality and sex are viewed in a restrictive light. Committing a sexual sin is viewed more gravely than most other sins. There is a spoof that has been circulating in various forms in blogs, in presentations and in books as being a credible document. The authenticity of a document credited to Ruth Smythers in 1894 is questionable. Though it appears to be a fictitious document, it reflects views commonly held during most of the 1800s and into the 1900s. Remnants of such views continue to reside within the Christians community, particularly within the fundamentalist and evangelical community. Even though it is a more recent document than it purports to be, and it is likely over the top at various points, as it helps to articulate the attitudes of the age, it is found here in the chapel for reflection and contemplation purposes.

To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of a proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and the most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her
life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. ….. While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured.

Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes on she should make every effort to reduce this frequency. Feigned illness, sleepiness and headaches are among the wife’s best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove effective, if used in late evening….Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying…A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the first year of marriage and to once a month by the fifth year of marriage…..By their tenth anniversary, many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with their husband.

Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quiet a variety of the most revolting practices…including among others…mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness….Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always hope he will stumble and incur some slight injury, which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.

When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist….

If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time….She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while he is huffing and puffing away. Above all she will lie perfectly still…

The wise wife….relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband’s desire for sexual expression.

For most of its history the church has viewed sex as evil, so evil that it must be managed carefully and firmly. Just over a century ago, wives were encouraged to keep strict control of sex within their marriages. A couple’s sex life was not something for them to discuss or come to a mutual understanding about. Women were cautioned not to allow themselves or their husbands to enjoy sex lest they be consumed by evil. The implication of the instruction is that sex is for procreation rather than pleasure.

Even today, within the church and outside of it, unmarried women who become pregnant frequently carry a disproportionate share of the blame for getting pregnant in the first place, and the subsequent responsibility for rearing, with little or no assistance or financial support from the fathers, the children they conceive. It’s still the case in western societies that sexually active women are often regarded, negatively, as sluts, and sexually active men are regarded, positively, as studs. The implication continues to be, within our current supposedly liberated, enlightened culture, that women should restrain their own sexual appetites, and those of their male partners who, after all, are just being men and can’t be expected to control themselves.

This attitude is not limited to western, predominantly Christian, cultures. One need only consider Muslim honor killings, the recent well publicized judgment of a rape victim’s guilt for her own rape and strict requirements that Islamic women keep themselves covered from head to toe, lest men be rendered unable to control their own sexual impulses. In Islamic societies, even more than in Christian ones, women are held responsible for ensuring that sex is confined to appropriate parameters. In both Christian and Islamic cases, the attitude toward men is negative. Men are animals who crave sex so much that if women do not exercise appropriate control, men’s animal instincts will bring about the ruination of both women and men. In Christian societies, women were taught to be the moral exemplars in their homes, on matters of sex as well as in other areas. The church and society as a whole expected women to be the moral centers for their families and society at large, a view that does not speak highly of men. Within many churches, females are still charged, more strongly than men, to maintain high moral and sexual standards.

There are groups within Christian circles, and some church teachers, who are teaching a more balanced view of sex and sexuality. While a range of their more progressive and balanced teachings are found on the Internet, many pastors and teachers do not speak to the issues in their congregations for fear of being viewed as heretical.

Though most Christians have long since repudiated in private the extreme views of their great-grandparents, the underlying view of sex and sexuality as being evil remains. For evidence of this one only has to look at laws that remain on the books in many communities. Though the laws have been long disregarded, no politician will request that they be removed least he or she be viewed by the electorate as a sexual pervert. One such law is the Nevada law that says sex without a condom is illegal. In hotels in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, every room is required to have twin beds that are a minimum of two feet apart when a couple rents a room for only one night. Also in Sioux Falls, it is illegal to make love on the floor between the beds!

Many of our horrific views of sex and sexuality go back to both Augustine and the early mystics of the second and third century mystics, and possibly the apostle Paul, whose writings on such matters sometimes seem to be contradictory and undoubtedly were taken out of context. The mystics secluded themselves from society by living in caves, in the woods and on poles with the hopes that they would thereby be free from temptation and sin. These forerunners of the monastic movement shaped their Church’s definitions of sin and righteousness. The playboy Augustine, when he became a Christian, held that sex was the devil’s tool to lead people away from God. He argued that, to be holy, one must cease participating in sex. Hence, he put down the foundation for priests to be celibate and for sex’s only godly value being in procreation. To its shame such archaic, unhealthy thinking continues to pervade North American society.

– the deacon