I have never understood the obsession that Christians had/have with sex (well, really the fear of it). I mean, if you use their reasoning, (which I don’t, but let’s try it for a minute) God made humans in his image. God is perfect and does not make mistakes. So, the way we are is the way “god” made us, right? Okay. So, god created us needing sex. All humans crave sex when they hit puberty (at least most) and I think it is pretty natural for humans to want to fulfill their cravings for sex as much as they need to eat, sleep, and drink water. Right? So why do Christians have so many hang-ups about sex? It seems that sex, homosexuality, premarital sex etc…are on their list of “serious sins.”
When I was a teenager I was not really allowed to talk to a person of the opposite sex, and I especially could not be alone with them. I guess my parents knew that if I was alone with a boy/man that I would try things like kissing and stuff. But really, what harm was there in me kissing my boyfriend when I was age 17? Why was it seen as so evil? I felt that if my parents found out I was kissing (not to mention other things) I would be kept in the house until I was 35. So, it had to be kept very secret.Human touch, kissing, hugging and sex are very pleasurable and we NEED them! Demonizing our sexual desires and making teens (and adults) feel bad for craving sex will only set them up for sexual dysfunction later! We should be concentrating our efforts on teaching teens to respect their bodies, use protection, be respectful of others, and being safe. Isn’t that more important?
Along these lines is the stupidity with many Christians who say that being gay is wrong and a choice. Let’s use the “Christian” logic again. God made us in his image. God is perfect. God made us with a sex drive. We are sometimes sexually attracted to the opposite sex, the same sex, or both. Yay god! Where is the problem?The problem sets in when religious leaders preach and push their own sexual repression and dysfunction from the pulpit and all the sheep followers begin to think of sexuality as an evil that needs to be avoided. However, somewhere inside them, they feel ashamed because they love sex. They lust after people and they get excited when they see the human body. They take this shame and guilt and push this belief onto their kids and people in their church. I guess if they can’t feel good about their sex drive, no one should. As I have mentioned before, I think a big problem with Christian preachers (and others) is that they repress their own desires- often for people of the same sex- *shock- and this turns into a hatred of the LGBT community. Why? Because they hate THEMSELVES!
What does this do? It makes people feel ashamed when they feel good. It makes people feel like freaks when they are attracted to the same sex! It causes teenagers to try to have sex before they are ready, keeps them from talking to their parents, and may keep them in the dark about the protections that are available to them. Why would loving parents do this to their children? All in the name of god.
Some religions even attempt to tell married couples what they can and can't do within their marriage. Things such as masturbation, sex toys, other partners, period sex, and watching porn, use of contraception, where they ejaculate (Catholics believe a man should "cum" inside of a woman only!) and other crazy rules are seen as a sin and are not allowed for married couples. I find it beyond ridiculous to think that people will continue to follow a religion that dictates what they do in their own bedroom!
No wonder I ran from Christianity! Who wants to stick around for that kind of abuse when you find yourself attracted to someone of the same sex? I prefer to be around people who love and accept me the way I am!
Let’s teach our teens that sex is natural and good and fun! Let’s teach them to listen to their instincts and respect their body and others’ bodies too! Let’s teach our kids that sex (when they are old enough and mentally ready) is part of life and love and goes with being human!
Question for all you LGBT haters out there? At what point in your life did you choose to be heterosexual? Think hard now! Watch this video!
Peace and great sex to all of you!
I sympathize with these sentiments. My upbringing in a devoutly Baptist environment has permanently wrecked my sexual outlook. Try as I can to reasonably deconstruct the silliness, it would appear this stuff will just stick with me for the rest of my life.
ReplyDeleteLike a lot of us out there, I'm raising my own son *much* differently. That'll have to do.
One of the podcasters at MBMBAM recently put it best. When you're Baptist, "you take those feelings, put 'em in a bottle. Then you find a bigger bottle and put that bottle in it."
My comedian brother has a joke...when did you first know that you were hetero (asked by GLBT), his reply first time I saw a poster of Allisa Milano (not that funny, I guess). The whole celibate clergy thingy denies basic human qualities. It's just not natural. I guess it is supposed to bring one closer to God, but it really takes one far away from their humanity. Death and sex are not to be acknowledged in Western society...and that is the problem.
ReplyDeleteKriss
ps blog mo'
ugh, my mom actually insists that she chose to be heterosexual. :P Some people, you just can't win no matter what.
ReplyDeleteFor Laura:
ReplyDeleteIf your mom chose to be heterosexual, does that mean she was a homosexual before?
"The problem sets in when religious leaders preach and push their own sexual repression and dysfunction from the pulpit ..."
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of toxic fundamentalist messages about sex stem from this, and homophobia to boot.
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAs a now-agnostic and former evangelical (the smart kind, not the fundy kind ;) I do think churchianity is overly obsessed with sex.
Thankfully so do some christians, but they are probably the minority.
I also think the paranoia around sex before marriage may actually end up having a detrimental effect on Christian marriages, ironically. Speaking from experience.
I could say much more, maybe will, but gotta run!
Jonathan from Spritzophrenia :)
To be fair to christians, though they say that God created us, they also say that the world is "fallen".
ReplyDeleteIn other words, we're all a bit broken in how we work, so not everything we think or feel is directly from God.
I think this yields some insight into the sexual world, because a lot of it is messy. Where exactly to locate the cause of the messy-ness is hard to pin down. Some of it is probably from repressed religious ideas, but I have a feeling that even if there were no religion we'd still be a bit messy and broken. So maybe this "fallen" idea is useful sometimes?
Jonathan from Spritzophrenia :)
mac, I have no idea. The conversation left me wondering if my mother could be bisexual or something, but she's not exactly the kind of person one could ask. The whole thing left me wondering.
ReplyDeleteas a womyn who both loves and adores God and can feel her heart skip a beat over certain folks of the same gender - the whole thing is stupid - the heart/mind/body is what it is - i can no more not feel attracted to certain people than i can chose to wake up with a second head atop my shoulders.
ReplyDeletei remember my first two crushes in grade school - one for each gender - in the first grade - that says to me i was just born the way i was born which says to me it must be okay since i do fully believe God made me.
see? so simple for me really.
as for teenagers? i just want my daughter safe - from rape, intimidation, disease, unwanted pregnancy, shame, and guilt. i sure hope that's not too much to ask!
This is a great post! The further I get away from Christianity, the more blatantly obvious it is - to me - that the rules and regulations about sex is about MEN having Power - mostly over women - but over other men too. Christianity is still about the patriarch having control over female sexuality. No amount of spinning on how to re-interpret the historical Jesus as someone who advanced female rights changes the fact that patriarchal religions are plain and simple confused and afraid of female sexuality... and sexuality that does not naturally create offspring for the patriarch (homosexuality). I think one of the best things feminism has going for it is the women and girls who leave patriarchal religion behind and remind the secular world that we still have a long way to go, baby. Thanks for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteAtleast women are allowed to look at men. Matthew 5:28 states "Any man, who has ever looked at a woman lustfully, has commited adultary in his heart."
DeleteI am currently struggling with sexual questions about masturbation. I have always felt guilty about it. I want to believe that God is a loving God and wants me to be happy. If masturbating brings me joy and satisfaction, then God would be happy for me. I think Christians should focus more on God's unconditional love than all of these rules we are supposed to live by to be holy. Are Christian leaders missing the boat about God creating us in his image, loving us no matter what and getting to heaven based on our love of God and Jesus rather than our works and deeds? My God is a loving God. I will worship God in a church, but I suppose I will be my own Christian and not belong to any particular religion. Maybe that's best since it seems that religion has gotten away from God and closer to comparing who's holier.
ReplyDeleteDude I agree with you that God is a loving God and I think that's awesome that you love and worship him. The question here is about freedoms and restrictions. So many people talk about how Christianity takes away their personal autonomy and freedoms, in this case the 'freedom' we are talking about is masturbation. My question is if by removing the 'restrictions' of the Gospels we become inherently more free? I would argue not. Consider the metaphor of a fish for instance. One would not take the fish out of its stream, carry it to the top of a mountain and say 'good for me, I have made this fish free! I have liberated it from the restrictions of that river it was stuck in'. Of course nobody would say this because the fish dies out of its natural habitat. This is a simple metaphor, but I think its illustrate how true freedom is actually found with appropriate restrictions that place us where we belong. In the case of the Word of God, God has told us where our true freedom can be found. Because we are made in his image, and because he revealed himself to us we can trust in his words. Our truest form of happiness and our greatest freedoms are found by following him and trusting the truth of what he says. If you have an intrinsic sense of guilt by masturbating doesn't suggest that something is wrong? Follow that instinct and jump fully into the 'river of God'. We will all die if we try to climb that mountain. As for people who try to say they are holier than you, take a look at who said that in Christ's time. You're right, it's time to get back to Biblical Christianity and avoid those who are strictly Christians to fit into society. God Bless!
DeleteThis is a slightly ridiculous analogy. To "take the fish out of the stream and carry it to the top of a mountain" would be to force the fish, against its natural inclinations and desires, into an alien environment where it's natural freedoms and life-support mechanisms do not operate. This is ironically exactly what sexual repression does. The fish no more wishes to live on top of the mountain than a normal man wishes to be celibate his whole life. It is when you take someone away from his natural and God-given desires that you take away his freedom and life.
DeleteI am a very thankful ex Christian who is a Nichiren Buddhist. It has taken me a long time to come around through experimentation using self talk, or self hypnosis, visualizations, affirmations, Wicca, Satanism, Hinduism, strict Atheism, to always come back to my Gohonzon. Not prostelyzing Buddhism here, but just to give some hope to anyone who thinks they can't overcome their sexual hangups that are to be laid directly at the churches feet. It IS there fault. Not in what they say, but HOW they said it. The nukes are going off, the sky is going to fall, I am going to have a heart attack(induced of course by almighty yahweh or jehovah, take your pick), because after all my desire for a really beautiful woman is of the world and it is evil. I have to lie to women(or men) that I am not attracted to when all I have wanted since I was twelve was that girl who I would lay in my bed masturbating over. I am currently 32 and it wasn't until I was about 28 or 29 that I realized I was still looking at sex like I did when I was 12. Christianity causes people(I think men more than women only because us guys it seems even in my own religion now can be overbearing) to not grow up sexually and hide behind this "just wait for the one from god until you tie the knot because sex is so good" mumbojumbo which sounds good at first glance and nothing against people who GENUINELY want to do that(more power to them) but people do this more often than not because of what Anonymous said. How many times did I say things like they did? The bottom line is NO ONE ON THIS PLANET HAS ANY RIGHT TO TELL ME WHO I CAN OR CAN'T SLEEP WITH IF IT IS NOT HURTING ANYONE. At the end of the day do the people who made anonymous feel guilty about masturbating, does whether he or she masturbate in their own bedroom with or without a toy, does that have any bearing on the pastor or any of the so called manipulative little friends at church? NO! It took me a long time to understand that. What I am doing with my girlfriend or wife(if I ever get married) is none of anyone else's business. I also think since I have gotten over 30, I have ZERO tolerance for religious people trying to tell me what my sexual morals should be. I am a grown man and my former pastor ain't my daddy.
ReplyDeleteRemember one thing.... Religion, it's all about power & control. If You control a person's sex life, and you've pretty much got that person under your control. You can force those people to support you with tiths, by your lies. If you make the most pleasurable facet of human existance 'DIRTY'.... as christianity does, or 'only for procreation' then freedom becomes only a distant dream.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of the above comments. I grew up in a pretty conservative Catholic household. During high school I just to hate myself for masturbating. I tried to suppress my desires, which I think did a lot more harm than good. I felt guilty for looking at women. I'm pretty much atheist now, but I'm still struggling with guilt.
ReplyDeleteI think my upbringing is one of the reasons that I've had trouble with women. I just to associate sex as being evil and that most women would want to have sex in a relationship. I'm in my senior year of college and still haven't had a girlfriend. I'm glad that I've started realizing this in college and not later in life, but it still sucks that I had to go through this in the first place.
I also agree that most religions use sex as control. All of us have sexual urges. And if you can control that, then you can control everyone. This is also why I believe that original sin is used for the same reason. If you can make people guilty for being human, then you can control them.
Just because you're attracted to a DOG OR CAT doesn't make it okay to have sex with it. The GOD that created the heavens and earth is a GOD of order. He does everything in line with his word. Just because you're gay don't try and make it seem right to everyone else. Romans Chapter 1 really breaks it down. There's a way that seems right to a person but the path leads to death.
ReplyDeleteHumans aren't dogs or cats though, you can't use that as a comparison. A human can consent to another human. An animal can't communicate, therefore can't consent. It's dehumanizing for you to compare bestiality to gay folks. You are a waste of air, and a piece of garbage. Good day, sir.
DeleteDear Anonymous (of course you are too much of a coward to have your name here),
ReplyDelete1) I have not known anyone that is attracted to a dog or a cat. I am sorry if that is one of your issues. Comparing human LGBT people to a dog is one of the lowest forms of ASSHOLE I can imagine. Such a nice Christian you are!
2) In case you didn't notice, this is an atheist blog. I don't believe in your god or your holy book, so throwing out Romans Chapter 1 is a waste of your time. Go get some support on a christian blogs.
3) YOU do not have a right to tell me what is right and what is wrong if you follow a god who refuses to help starving children and make positive changes in the world- even though you most likely believe that he/she/it is able to do so.
4) If you really believe that your god will send me to hell for loving a person with the same genitals, then you are as sick as your biblical god, who, ironically, is evil (if you actually read your book that you claim to follow).
5) Stop being a brain-washed sheep and go read your stupid bible with an open mind. Your god is NOT a god of order. If he even existed, the world would not be so fucked up.
It's alright, i understand but there is much more out of our visual cortex to be seen. How about Demonic Entities?
ReplyDeleteYou believe this is bigotry? Think again.
Where will soul go after body(vehicle for this world) die?
Allot of elders in Orthodox(my religion) faith saw sights about what happened after we die here.
-There is demons around dying person and there is one or two angels. After dead soul(if not mortally sinned allot) goes to Aerial Toll Houses(Google about it)40 Earth days.
20 'stairways' with tormenting questionings about sins and goodness we did.
*
At the first aerial toll-house, the soul is questioned about sins of the tongue, such as empty words, dirty talk, insults, ridicule, singing worldly songs, too much or loud laughter, and similar sins.
The second is the toll-house of lies, which includes not only ordinary lies, but also the breaking of oaths, the violation of vows given to God, taking God's name in vain, hiding sins during confession, and similar acts.
The third is the toll-house of slander. It includes judging, humiliating, embarrassing, mocking, and laughing at people, and similar transgressions.
The fourth is the toll-house of gluttony, which includes overeating, drunkenness, eating between meals, eating without prayer, not holding fasts, choosing tasty over plain food, eating when not hungry, and the like.
The fifth is the toll-house of laziness, where the soul is held accountable for every day and hour spent in laziness, for neglecting to serve God and pray, for missing Church services, and also for not earning money through hard, honest labor, for not working as much as you are paid, and all similar sins.
The sixth toll-house is the toll-house of theft, which includes stealing and robbery, whether small, big, light, violent, public, or hidden.
The seventh is the toll-house of covetousness, including love of riches and goods, failure to give to charity, and similar acts.
The eight is the toll-house of usury, loan-sharking, overpricing, and similar sins.
The ninth is the toll-house of injustice- being unjust, especially in judicial affairs, accepting or giving bribes, dishonest trading and business, using false measures, and similar sins.
The tenth is the toll-house of envy.
The eleventh is the toll-house of pride- vanity, self-will, boasting, not honoring parents and civil authorities, insubordination, disobedience, and similar sins.
The twelve is the toll-house of anger and rage.
The thirteenth is the toll-house of remembering evil- hatred, holding a grudge, and revenge.
The fourteenth is the toll-house of murder- not just plain murder, but also wounding, maiming, hitting, pushing, and generally injuring people.
The fifteenth is the toll-house of magic- divination, conjuring demons, making poison, all superstitions, and associated acts.
The sixteenth is the toll-house of lust- fornication, unclean thoughts, lustful looks, unchaste touches.
The seventeenth is the toll-house of adultery.
The eighteenth is the toll-house of sodomy: bestiality, homosexuality, incest, masturbation, and all other unnatural sins.
The nineteenth is the toll-house of heresy: rejecting any part of Orthodox faith, wrongly interpreting it, apostasy, blasphemy, and all similar sins.
The last, twentieth toll-house is the toll-house of unmercifulness: failing to show mercy and charity to people, and being cruel in any way.
**
Now you tell me that sex BEFORE MARRIAGE is NOT a sin.
Why is it that the straight up loony tune comments on my blog are always anonymous? I could barely read all of your bullshit comment. If you want to believe that way, go for it! If you want to be around people who will agree with you for your loony beliefs go for it!! (This is not the place for that) I am not sure what compelled you to write all of that bullshit, or maybe you just copy and paste it to other blogs as well, because honestly it makes no logical sense. I will tell you that sex before marriage, to me, is not a sin because I don't believe in god and I don't believe that doing anything human, like sex, is a sin. If you want to think it's a sin, go for it. But keep it to your own damn self. Your off-the-wall views have no place in politics because it sounds to me like you use your "religion" as a platform for hate. Go to a blog where people believe the same as you (sadly, I am sure there are many) and stay off my blog, which its obvious from the very start, is a blog about my personal experiences.
ReplyDelete