Why do Christians hate sex?

"Write what you know," the adage says, which is one of many good reasons why I don't write about sex much. I do, however, write about American politics and American Christianity, and about the intersection of American politics and American Christianity, and these days it's awful hard to write about any of that without also writing about sex.

What's up with that? How did our privates become so very public? And why, in particular, do American Christians seem so very obsessed with a punitive and negative politics of sex?

Such questions have many dismissive answers, half-joking remarks about repressed prudes and misogynist perverts. And those half-jokes wouldn't be half-funny if they weren't also half-true -- many of the most vocal and strident sex-obsessed activists do seem to be repressed prudes and misogynist perverts.

Some of the anti-sex-obsessed just seem like they're the embodiment of Mencken's definition of a puritan: "someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun." But when we keep encountering conservative activists describing their "first girlfriend" as a farm animal, or ad libbing about man-on-dog love, or writing novels in which the heroine is raped by a bear, then I think it's safe to say there's something much darker going on than mere puritanism.

But apart from the explicit perverts, I think there's also a lot of other stuff going on at a lot of other levels that's worth exploring. And anyway, I'm not a therapist, I'm a journalist with a background in theology. So I'm not particularly interested here in somebody like James Dobson, who seems like raw material for a string of Ph.D. dissertations on a variety of dysfunctions. I'm more interested in the otherwise normal-seeming Ned-Flanders-type evangelical Christians next door, the people who seem to find the Dobson types persuasive even if they themselves don't seem to be working through quite so many issues as America's favorite spanking guru.

So, then, it's a somewhat unfairly provocative way of framing the question, but: Why do Christians hate sex?

Comments

[Isabeau]

Didn't the late pagans hate sex first? I'm thinking Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, etc.

[Skyknight]

That was linked to the Hellenes' dread of loss of control. For them, ANY form of emotional outflow (which sex would classify as) was to be shunned, for such would probably result in one's spiritual perfection getting loused up (read: torn asunder by the emotions' rampage). Now consider that the zenith of said spiritual perfection was, in many cases, supposed to be transfiguration to a purely spiritual entity. This actually lay at the heart of some 19th-century misogyny, I understand--women and their sexual allure were inciting lust in men, and thus frustrating their ascendancy! (Now they get to explain what was frustrating women in that ascendancy...)

Of course, I don't think present-day erotophobia is going to match groups like the 12th-century Catharists, who completely interdicted sex (although there, the idea was to avoid binding more souls to this irredeemably corrupt world).

[bulbul]

Then again, some episodes in the history of Christianity were marked by the opposite phenomenon: heretic groups in 12th and 13th century Italy like "fratelli apostolici" (followers of Fra Dulcino) were described as engaging in group sex, sexual promiscuity and the concept "free love" was one of the characteristics of the "adamite" part of the Hussite movement in 15th century Bohemia and I vaguely remember some late 18th century Russian orthodox sex who saw sex as just another way of worshiping the Divine in every human being. So go figure.

[Kevin]

My grasp of church history isn't the greatest, but I think this one can be traced back to Augustine.

[bulbul]

One more thing, Fred: I am not sure whether we have already discussed how evangelicals used the word "Christian" when they actually mean "we the evangelicals" or even "our Bible study group". Needless to say, I find this practice rather disturbing and so I'm very glad you have specified which particular group of Christians you are referring to.

[Tenebras]

Umm... can somebody fill me in the this whole "bear raping" book? I'm starting to think that I should start reading best-sellers again. I mean, bear rape?

[bulbul]

Tenebras: IIRC, this refers to Scooter Libby.

[Fhydra]

I never noticed it before, but conservative activists do seem to mention animals whenever they're talking about sex. Weird. But that could be what it's all about. They don't want to be animals. For example, conservative activists hate evolution because if they accepted it as true, then they'd have to accept that they're related to monkeys and apes.

I think this could be the reason they hate the idea of having sex as well. They associate sex with animals, and they don't want to do anything that makes them less than human. That's why there are "pure" forms of sex, which is only between one man and one woman who are married, and they only have one position.

But I'm like you, Fred, and I don't know much about sex either, so I could be wrong in the assumptions I'm making here.

[Mara]

I think it's all about control -- and the loss of control. Good sex is all about feeling safe enough with the other person to be comfortable in the ecstatic moment.

There are a few conservative Christians who talk about how they want sex to be "special", to be saved for marriage because casual sex cheapens and coarsens the experience. I do get that point of view and actually agree with it to some extent (though I'd exchange the term "marriage" for "committed relationship". But I wish these folks weren't so intent on legislating their convictions in such a negative and punitive way (i.e., opposing HPV vaccine because it might lead to premarital sex; teaching "abstinence only" and nothing else, because too much information... you know.)

Part of the problem is that it's hard to both a) teach kids that sex is good, then b) tell them they can't have it yet. So the message that is often conveyed instead is that sex is bad, period -- especially if it's a subject that simply isn't discussed. If it isn't discussed, it must be dirty and shameful, right? It's hard for those kids to shake that message when they become adults, so many conservative Christians grow up with "sex is dirty" hard-wired into their subconscious. And when they go off the rails, that's the area they choose because that's where the greatest temptations are -- i.e., forbidding something makes it more tempting.

Back during the Clinton scandal, I remember hearing an interview with a psychotherapist who said that her most messed up clients, in terms of wierd hangups about sex, were the Southern Baptists and other conservative Christians of that sort.

Also, it's easy to preach against, and legislate against, sexual immorality (though it's hard to police without actually invading bedrooms). It's a lot harder to preach against greed, graft, social injustice, and all the other stuff that shows up in the gospels -- you risk annoying the important, rich members of your congregation. Sex is a much safer topic.

A few related links (starting with humor, sort of): New 'Anti-Abortion Pill' Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive (The Onion)

Contra-Contraception
I could've seen this coming -- the assistant pastor in the church I grew up in preached against all birth control except the rhythm method. He and his wife must've had the rhythm wrong, because last I heard they had 10 kids.

[Skyknight]

Mara: {gentle snicker} "[C]ommitted relationship", in lieu of "marriage"? But...isn't the former also known as "common-law marriage"?

{teleports to safety}

[straight]

The reason I hate sex is because it's constantly being used to try to sell me something. Just once I'd like to be able to go to the grocery store without having a set of tits shoved in my face.

Sure, American Evangelicals are obsessed with sex, but so is everyone else in America. The American delusion that sex is THE good is at least as pathological as the Evangelical delusion that sex is THE evil. Two sides of the exact same coin, and the two delusions feed each other.

[J]

Wow . . . where to even begin? I anticipate making a lot of posts in this thread.

I'll just begin by saying that Christians--of all the conservative denominations, Catholic, evangelical, even Orthodox--seem not only right now but throughout history to have been concerned with Lust to the almost total exclusion of the other six sins. Frankly they just don't care about them, no matter how destructive they are. Christians seem to believe that nothing can be really called a sin if it isn't sexy and if you try to talk about other sins, their immediate and overriding impulse is to redirect the conversation to sex.

This is especially maddening because our world is NOT being torn apart right now because people are having too much or the wrong kind of sex. War and terrorism have NO sexual basis. And yet conservative Christians not only fail to speak out against war and violence, they honor and profess their admiration for those who do it. If a Christian soldier goes to Iraq and is court-martialed for shooting civilians, I think it doubtful the pastor of his church would utter the meekest peep about the sin of wrath. If a Christian happens to be attracted to people of his or her same gender however, then they can pretty much expect to be treated--with total official sanction and participation--as shit.

[J]

The American delusion that sex is THE good is at least as pathological as the Evangelical delusion that sex is THE evil. Two sides of the exact same coin, and the two delusions feed each other.

I disagree completely.

[J]

And so what IS the ultimate good "straight"? If your answer is "God" or "helping others" then explain to me why those things are somehow in conflict with enjoying sex and resenting the idea of being told how or with whom to have it?

Maybe we're talking about "philosophical monogamy" here: The assumption that you can only give allegiance to one "thing" and if you happen to like sex, then surely you can't like God, too.

[J]

Hmm, no one else seems to be posting so let me continue to monopolize the floor:

Americans of all stripes think our culture is too sexy, but frankly it isn't There's very little real sex out there in "the media". If you have the least bit of sophistication as person, you rapidly lose patience with the idea that Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI, Sex in the City,, Brittany Spears, Janet Jackson's boob, or any of the rest is any way sexy. It's like people saying that the American national diet has too much sugar in it: Frankly, it has very little real sugar in it: What it does have is a fuckload of corn syrup.

Real sex is to American "sex"(imagine "copyright" sign here) as Guinness is to Bud Lite.

[twig]

I agree with straight that sex shouldn't be seen as the 'ultimate good' and J, why do you assume that whatever is the 'ultimate good' (if such a thing even exists or should exist) would somehow be in conflict with enjoying sex?

Good sex is obviously not only a human instinct, but pretty much seems necessary for good mental and spiritual health. Sex is a wonderful thing.

However, the form of 'sex' that straight mentioned, on the cover of every magazine, being pre-packaged and obsessively examined and deconstructed and used as a value judgement, used to sell and market - I'm not so sure that's a good thing either.

The answer to "no sex, sex bad!" shouldn't be "sex as commodity".

(Apologies to straight, if this wasn't at all your point.)

[twig]

J, exactly. What sort of 'sex positive' culture could have such a conniption over a five second flash of a woman's breast?

[FDChief]

I'd have to agree with the "sex is animalistic" theme. Sex is the ultimate non-contemplative act. If it's good - at least IMNSHO - it utterly extracts you out of yourself, spreads you across all your senses ("sensual", in fact) and entwines you with your partner in an almost symbiotic way. It IS difficult to contemplate the Eternal when your are writhing around entwined in a very specific, earthly Other...

This sort of thing has GOT to horrify anyone whose ideal is a sort of rarified spirituality, a chaste contemplation of the Greater Good. Sex DOES tie one to this world, specifically to the one you are having sex with. It does a heckuva job tingling all the earthly pleasure receptors, and therefore producing a splendid inattention to the stuff religions like, like obedience, humility, self-denial...I can just imagine all those good citizens, like Augustine, imagining the dreadful consequences of what would happen if all that lusty sex got out into the public square. I forget the exact quote, but doesn't Nicolas Cage (from the movie "Moonstruck") say something like that: "Life means we love the wrong people and kill ourselves...!"??

So I think the Augustinian goal was to keep all that anarchistic, animalistic lust safely tucked away in marriage, if it had to be acknowledged at all.

I'm sure I had something more to add here, but my thought process got derailed in the comments.

straight, where in the world do you buy your groceries? More importantly, can you give the rest of us directions to the store?

/humor

[straight]

Americans of all stripes think our culture is too sexy, but frankly it isn't There's very little real sex out there in "the media". If you have the least bit of sophistication as person, you rapidly lose patience with the idea that Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI, Sex in the City,, Brittany Spears, Janet Jackson's boob, or any of the rest is any way sexy. It's like people saying that the American national diet has too much sugar in it: Frankly, it has very little real sugar in it: What it does have is a fuckload of corn syrup.

But see, you sound just like an Evangelical. "I'm not against sex, I'm against all the crap in our culture pretending to be sex."

Sure, America's not obsessed with sex, as long as you define whatever it is obsessed with as "not sex."

[straight]

And so what IS the ultimate good "straight"? The assumption that you can only give allegiance to one "thing" and if you happen to like sex, then surely you can't like God, too.

I'm not claiming there is only one ultimate good, I'm claiming that American culture seems to think there is. I actually agree with you that to call America's obsession "sex" is an insult to sex. It's more like an obsession with some weird mix of adolescent fantasies about sex and "falling in love" with someone new, and most of it all mixed up with trying to sell you something or manipulate you in some way. And I still say it's the mirror image of Evangelical hangups/taboos about sex.

[Duane]

I think Christianists obsession with the sin of lust is their honest-intentioned effort to retrofit their otherwise banal nature into Biblical specifications like "deceitful above all things" and "desperately wicked" (and that is just one verse).

The truth is that by and large we aren't the terrible human beings described in the Bible. We are, generally speaking, boring and predictable. We take care of our family, don't shoot up the workplace and let others merge in front of us during the daily commute.

Without lust, it's hard to make the case that we are such depraved human beings that we require the intercession of a supernatural being. And since lust is driven by biological factors outside of our control, there will always be ample "sin" from which to be delivered.

[J]

But see, you sound just like an Evangelical. "I'm not against sex, I'm against all the crap in our culture pretending to be sex."

Fair enough. Let me make this suggestion to prove I'm a Different Thing than evangelicals:

Let's rehabilitate good ol' Dr. Jocelyn Elders and teach kids to masturbate. Yeah, that's right, you heard me. Want to make abstinence stick? Discretely give every kid a copy of It's Perfectly Natural, mount a campaign to take away the stigma that masturbation-is-only-for-when-you-can't-get-sex.

This would be a true litmus test for the evangelicals too: Since there is 0.00000% chance of getting pregnant or a disease from being in the Sticky Fingers Club, it'd be worthwhile to see them try and rise up against it. It'd be a rubiconian moment: "If it's true what you say and you aren't 'against sex' then surely you'll have no problem with this, right?"

And if they balk, then all will be revealed and I predict they will join the Catholics on the long, slow demographic slide out of existence.

[Bugmaster]

Well, I can sort of see why Christians would be against sex. God explicitly commands them to avoid adultery; furthermore, they believe that a man who ever covets a woman who doesn't happen to be his wife has committed adultery in his mind.

So, the only way to avoid the adulterous thought-crime is to eliminate the very notion of sex for pleasure from our lives. I.e., the only way to avoid lustful thoughts is to eliminate lust as an idea. Hence, all notions of sex as something good must be condemned.

Sadly, this tactic is about as effective as trying really hard to not think of a white elephant, but that's another story...

[Bugmaster]

Oh, and inicidentally, I don't see any point in trying to distinguish "Christians" from "other people who believe in Jesus". From my (admittedly atheistic) perspective, a Christian is anyone who believes that Jesus was YHVH's avatar who was sacrificed for our sins and later rose from the dead, and that the New Testament has divine authority. Everything else is just interpretation.

[Steve]

What sort of 'sex positive' culture could have such a conniption over a five second flash of a woman's breast?

A hypocritical one.

[Mara]

Skyknight writes, "Mara: {gentle snicker} "[C]ommitted relationship", in lieu of "marriage"? But...isn't the former also known as "common-law marriage"?"

{teleports to safety}"

Snicker away. Gay people (I'm not one, but have friends who are) don't have that right in most states of the union. Hence my choice of words.

Also, I have non-gay friends who live together in long-term relationships without being married -- and really don't want to be considered to have "common-law marriages". I respect their choices. They're responsible adults, their actions don't harm anyone, and it's none of my business why they haven't chosen to have the state license their relationship. There are good, valid reasons to get married; there are good, valid reasons not to be married.

J writes, Real sex is to American "sex"(imagine "copyright" sign here) as Guinness is to Bud Lite.

Yes, exactly. Let's hear it for Guinness! Unfortunately, most Americans still seem to prefer Bud Lite.

I agree (and has already been stated, many non-evangelical Americans agree) that our culture is too saturated with the artificial images of sex, but I think one can learn to filter that stuff out if one wants to. And you can teach your kids that the stuff is not good for them. There are good feminist arguments against this junk -- it's disrespectful of women (and men, in the case of cheesecake ads), etc.. Media awareness, the ability to critique ads and dismiss their messages instead of being suckered in, is a good skill for any kid to learn.

Yeah, you see Cosmo when you go to the grocery store, but it's easy to ignore. With TiVo, it's even easier to filter out the commercials and other junk. Don't want your kids to dress like Britney Spears? Don't let them watch her videos and don't buy them those clothes. They'll thank you for it when they're older. Don't want to see internet porn? Don't click on those links.

It's called good parenting. People who whine about how much sex permeates our society often want society to do their parenting job for them.

FDChief writes, I'd have to agree with the "sex is animalistic" theme. Sex is the ultimate non-contemplative act. If it's good - at least IMNSHO - it utterly extracts you out of yourself, spreads you across all your senses ("sensual", in fact) and entwines you with your partner in an almost symbiotic way. It IS difficult to contemplate the Eternal when your are writhing around entwined in a very specific, earthly Other...

Or, as some of my pagan friends would say, "All acts of Love and Beauty are Sacraments."

There's the Eastern school of thought that views sex as a path to the divine -- Tantra, the Kama Sutra, and so on. I've read a few modern books on Tantric sex and they actually seem a bit on the boring side, but the idea that sex is sacred would seem to bolster the concept of keeping it special, wouldn't it?

In good sex, you sometimes do seem to touch Eternity -- with the Other. You lose yourself. Which is why it's hard to see some of these people really understanding, or enjoying, good sex. They are so bound up in themselves that they probably couldn't get their mind into that transcendent space at all. So maybe all they know is the animalistic side of sex, which can seem coarse.

[rashomon]

Sex is a commodity because there is a philosophy that sex is forbidden. Because people don’t have sex, it can be used to control them as long as sex doesn’t equal sex. Sex can equal food or a car or whatever you want to sell, so it seems that you have a sexual culture when in fact you have a desexualized culture. If you buy a car because you think it’s a hamburger, you probably not full but hungry. Think about Americans going to a European beach where women go topless, it’s not as easy for them as someone who has grown up around that. In the states, you have to pay good money, then it may still be hidden under a T-shirt and cold water, to see that sort of thing but there they just give it a way for free.

That doesn’t answer the question why. For this you can’t really blame Jesus, he didn’t say anything bad about sex that I know of, but must look to Jewish law and views on women and Aristotle both of which said women are dirty which eventually leads to sex being dirty. Jewish law said that women were unclean and inferior to men. Women have menstruation, which make them unclean. Unclean things are inferior to clean things, so women are also inferior but men still want to have sex with these unclean things (see how easy it is to dehumanize people with this logic), which makes them also unclean. The desire for sex is the desire to be corrupted. Aristotle went so far as to say true love is not possible between men and women because one was dependant on and subordinate to the other. Women could not hold the virtues that made a person good, according to Aristotle, which had a lot to do with physical power. This thinking deforms people’s relationships to sex and it’s not limited to Christianity. I remember reading in A Million Mutinies about male prostitutes in Pakistan. They would dress like scantily clad women and walk around the street but because it was not a woman then it was not such a big deal. You would think that the guys deforming themselves to become more feminine would be a greater sin but it doesn’t work out that way. I am not saying that at a conscious level people think in these terms (women aren’t dirty, only sluts that make me want to have sex with them are dirty. The asexual virgins are clean like angels, who are also neutered.) but the tradition grew out of this so that sex has grown to be thought of as dirty, even though most people probably don’t know why.

[rashomon]

Biblical adultery is when a man has sex with someone else's woman or a woman has sex with someone who is not her husband. Remember, in the Bible, women are subordinate to either their father or their husbands (when I say subordinate, its more like propriety) and so the man is stealing when he has sex with those women without permission. So men can still have sex outside their first marriage through polygamy, Father's give permission for the daughter to become a wife, consort, or servant in the house of another man or by having sex with a woman who is not under the control of a man.

[Grey Duck]

I would argue that Cosmo is just as disrespectful to men as it is to women. (Or if not equally disrespectful, at least also disrespectful...)

After all, it assumes that men care for naught outside of a good set of cleaveage. It assumes shallowness and a lack of intellect.

[rashomon]

Sidenote: humans are one of the few animals interested in having sex when the women's body isn't ready to concieve, so having sex without procreation in mind actually makes you less like an animal. (Animals tend to breed when the female is in heat.)

[coriolis]

I think the "Christian" hatred of sex is fear of the transcendent. They don't like pot much either. And mushrooms? Fuggedaboutit.

I see them as being afraid of anything that may be greater than themselves. Thus the four spiritual laws.
Must keep God in the box.

[Bugmaster]

Thus the four spiritual laws.

Ahahaha ! Is that a real, sincere Christian site, or a spoof (a la Landover Baptists) ? I've never seen it put so succinctly.

1. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life.
2. Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.

Sounds to me like God should've spent some more time writing the design docs.

[Fred]

Due to Bill Bright and the Kampus Krusade for Khrist's views on "the role of women" there's a nice parody of those "Four Spiritual Laws" that begins: "God LOVES you and offers a horrible PLAN for your wife" ...

[rob]

Oh, it's real. I've been handed tracts like this from the campus ministry. Would somebody please get these people a graphic designer?

[Perry]

Let's rehabilitate good ol' Dr. Jocelyn Elders and teach kids to masturbate.

Or Dr. James Dobson, who, surprisingly enough, is pro-masturbation.

[Jessica Guilford]

Something that's only been mentioned glancingly: the present conservative evangelical thing is often still fighting the 1960s/70s, at least rhetorically. A lot of the stuff they were talking about in the 1980s when they had their first real taste of power were related to resentment of hippies (free love, drugs, swinging, abortion, feminism, minority racial/sexual visibility, moral relativism, etc.). Dobson still makes fun, on a pretty regular basis, of slogans like "If it feels good, do it" and "You've come a long way, baby." Dobson also has a nasty habit of viewing the 1950s through glasses so rose-colored they're practically maroon.

So to some extent I think the conservative loathing of sex looks like a reaction against hippies. The other part of it is that it's sex, which as Molly Ivins noted once, is not a subject that ever inspired a lot of clear thinking.

The animalistic theory has a lot going for it, too: I'd never noticed that it's a pattern with them.

[Vanya]

Does Christian hatred of sex really differ from Muslim hatred of sex in any significant way? While certainly there were/are pagan and Christian traditions that truly believed in chastity for its own sake, avoiding earthly distractions and maintaing control, as other posters have noted, the American evangelical and fundamentalist Muslim obsession with sexual control is only tangentially related to those beliefs. The "hatred of sex" is all about controlling women. In the evangelical tradition I've never heard that there is a real premium on male chastity, only female. It's all about repressing the female sexual urge and giving men control over female sexuality. This attitude predates Christianity and Islam, I don't think it is necessarily inherent in the religion. It is interesting that any ideological system that attempts to control the way people think and behave feels compelled to wage war on sex. The Soviet Communist Party and Chinese Commmunist Party under Mao were as puritanical as any Christian or Muslim sect, despite the fact that their intellectual forefathers in the late 19th century had often supported "free love" and female emancipation.

[Psilan]

Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 7, aka Paul's Rules of Marriage.

(1) Celibacy is best. Paul wishes all men would be that way.
(2) Marriage is allowed only in cases when one cannot be both celibate and free from tempation, and then it functions as a release-valve so that the married will not be tempted.
(3) There are no acceptable circumstances for divorce.
(4) All should seek to remain in the married status as when one first converted. This is because Paul wants us to be free of worldly concerns so that we might focus exclusively on God.

Is it any wonder Evangelicals hate sex?

[Niels Jackson]

Why do Christians hate sex?

You should follow this up with some equally accurate and insightful questions, such as:

1. Why do doctors hate food? They're always saying that people shouldn't eat too much food, or that people should stay away from all kinds of food (McDonald's, cookie dough cheesecake). We know that McDonald's is good food, because people like to eat it, and whatever people like must be good for them. And yet, doctors are so stuffy about insisting that people should stay away from such good food! Instead, they're always whining about eating only the "right" types of food -- vegetables, fruits, etc. Why do doctors hate food?

2. Why do firefighters hate fire? Fire is such a wonderful and marvelous thing that God created. It brings people warmth, especially on camping trips. It heats their houses. It cooks food. A fireplace creates a romantic environment on a chilly night. And yet firefighters are constantly trying to put out fires? Why do they hate fire so much?

[Rasselas]

Like some above, I am inclined to think that contemporary conservative religions despise sex for the reason that contemporary commercial enterprises like sex: i.e., for each, sex is a strong lever with which to move the masses. "The Democrats will turn your daughters into sluts" is not all that different from "Axe bodyspray will turn the girls around you into your willing slaves." Lies and lying promises.

A tangential note: pace Godwin, a lot of comment threads suggest that we might be able to add a couple of theories about the workings of the Internet:

(i) In any comment thread in which sex is or becomes a topic, someone will inevitably appeal to the example of the mythical, monolithic "Europe."

(ii) In any comment thread, topic notwithstanding, someone will mention beer.

[Felix P]

There's a great book I'm in the middle of right now about this very issue: Elaine Pagel's "Adam, Eve and the Serpent". short version: it was early church politics. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679722327/sr=8-5/qid=1147360900/ref=pd_bbs_5/104-8822250-3127104?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[hapax]

It isn't only "Eastern traditions" (e.g. Tantric Buddhism) that view sexual pleasure as an approach to the Divine. It is a strong element in Jewish mysticism as well; for example the pleasure a man takes with his lawful wife as a participation in the Divine embrace of the Shekinah.

[OG]

Thus the four spiritual laws.

They've been around since at least the early 70s. I remember making bags of candy to give out for Hallowe'en and putting one of those little booklets in each one. Same graphics, too.

[wintermute]

Neils:

Doctors rely on a large and continually growing body of research into the effects of diet on health. Studies are conducted, data are collected and interpreted, and our understanding of the difference between "good" and "bad" food grows. On the basis of this, it's resonable to say that eating nothing but 5 Big Macs a day for a month is going to cause problems, just as eating nothing but celery would be bad for you. As nutritionists have been saying for as long as I can remember, the key to eating right is balance and moderation; the details change as new studies shed more light on the role of specific neutrients, but I think you'd regard the "lentil and mung bean only" diet with some justified skepticism.

Firefighters deal every day with the negative effects of fire; they're perfectly positioned to understand exactly why leaving a candle burning when you go out can lead to disaster, and everyone seems to agree that having your house burn down is a bad thing. Especially if there are people inside; anyone who claims otherwise would be viewed as being psychopathic. This does not negate the fact that fire, if treated with respect and caution is far more good than bad, doing everything from cooking dinner to driving your local power station.

I don't really see how either question is relevant. The Christians in question [yes, I'm generalising here] tend to make statements that boil down to "if two people are in a commited and loving long-term relationship, but haven't entered into a contract to consider their incomes jointly when calculating their tax burden, then sex is bad". This tends to be based on logic like "God told me so, and if you don't believe me then you're going to Hell".

I will agree that certain forms of sex are bad (those that deny the concept of consent, for example), and that there can be negative effects of sex (unwanted children, abortions or STDs), but these hardly become impossible just because you're married - it's perfectly possible for a virgin bride to have a cold sore, and for her husband to contract genital herpes from it on their wedding night, to pick an obvious example.

Of course, if this dislike of sex is based on well-founded logic aimed at reducing the negative effects of sex (as I imply from your analogies), then wouldn't it make sense to promote homosexuality as being "better" than heterosexuality, as two of the three most obvious negative effects listed above are negated? Why do "maral leaders" speak out against homosexuality so much more often than rape or child abuse? I'm certainly not suggestign that they think those are "good" sex, but they do seem to be "less bad" than teh gay...

[McJulie]

Food? Sex? Clothing?

It's all related. Back in the old days, before proselytic religions like Christianity, there was no difference between religion and culture. Your religion was who you were as a people, and it included all the laws about appropriate behavior that every society has, written or unwritten.

I think this is possibly how we are hardwired to act -- if you set a bunch of people down in a wilderness with no cultural influences at all, they will evolve a tribal style of religion where God or gods want you to plant your crops at a certain time and avoid the red berries and marry your first cousin but never your sister. And, incidentally, the tribe over the hill that worships a different God or gods? They are heathen, possibly not even human, and they are going to your hell, and it's okay to make war on them and take their stuff.

So, Jesus comes along and his followers popularize a new kind of religion, one where all humans are part of the same tribe and it's not about what you eat or wear or how you have sex or plant the crops -- it's about how you treat other people, whether they're part of your tribe or not.

We have been so steeped in Christian culture for 2,000 years that we don't tend to realize how radical of an idea this was.

But we are still hardwired to be tribal, and to relate it to religion, and to food and clothing and sex and all other aspects of culture. So, even though Jesus preached the first non-tribal religion, we have 2,000 years of people trying to drag the religion based on his teachings back into the realm of the tribal.

This is not an intellectual or spiritual impulse -- it's a base impulse, like violence and greed and cruelty. Which I suppose is why you so often find them manifesting in the same people.

[Niels Jackson]

Wintermute -- my only point is that it's quite simple-minded to claim that someone "hates" something (whether it be food, fire, or sex) when they merely believe that the thing (food, fire, or sex) has 1) proper uses, and 2) improper or possibly dangerous uses. You can disagree with Christianity on the improperness of adultery, for example, just as you have the right to disagree with a doctor's recommendation of a low-carb or low-fat diet. But it's silly to say that the Christian opposes adultery because he "hates" sex, any more than the doctor "hates food."

[wintermute]

Neils:

And my only point is that the doctor has consistent, rational (but not neccessarily correct, and thus open to change as new information is uncovered) reasons for his opinions on what constitutes "good" and "bad" food. And that, in most cases, that opinion is "all things in moderation".

By contrast, the fundamentalist has inconsistent and irrational opinions on sexuality that are beyond question, and can never be subject to revision.

Why do you think they are the same?

[Matt Austern]

The issue isn't whether Christians oppose adultery. There are lots of things that one might expect Christians to oppose based on a reading of what Christians call the Old Testament, and a somewhat different set of things (with some overlap) that one might expect Christians to oppose based on a reading of Jesus's words. One can argue about whether adultery is in the intersection of those two sets; there are plausible claims to be made either way.

But that's not Fred's question. The question is: why do some Christian sects seem to have such a preoccupation with sex? I don't think you can make a case from the Christian Bible that sexual sin is far more important than anything else, but nevertheless some flavors of contemporary Christianity treat it that way. Why?

[Niels Jackson]

OK, try a different analogy. Orthodox Jews keep kosher restrictions. They believe that you can't have certain types of foods, or foods prepared in certain ways.

Obviously, anyone who isn't a Jew might think that those restrictions are illogical or pointless. But even so, it would be ridiculously overbroad to pretend that Orthodox Jews "hate food." No, they obviously don't hate "food" as a general matter. They simply believe that certain types of food are not to be eaten.

And even Fred would have to admit that at least some types of sexual activity are immoral -- maybe adultery, or orgies, or sadomasochism, or bestiality, or fantasizing about child p**n. So for him to accuse more orthodox Christians of "hating sex" is as if one sect of Orthodox Jews accused another sect of Orthodox Jews of "hating food" merely because they interpreted the kosher restrictions a bit more strictly.