My sense is that shortly after our earliest forebears discovered God (or discovered his existence, if you prefer), they determined that sex was evil. And from that moment in our evolution, the act that for all other species is as natural as eating became our forbidden fruit. Except for the fact that the act of coupling sexually was also necessary to procreate the human race, that particular activity and all of the other forms of sexual gratification associated with it may never have been tolerated.
The Christian view of sex (at least the most rigidly doctrinaire version of it) is remarkably intolerant. How else can the Biblical story of the birth of Christ be rationalized? It isn’t so much that he was born without a biological father. It’s that his mother had to be a virgin, and as viewed specifically by Roman Catholics, remained a virgin for the entirety of her life, to the very day that she ascended to the heavenly reward her son and his father had waiting for her.
I’m only intending here to be mildly mocking of the Blessed Virgin and the tales surrounding her part in the Jesus story. Having her impregnated by God the Father, thereby carrying in her womb and ultimately delivering God the Son, is essential to the entire idea that is at the heart of Christian faith (that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son,” as the Gospel of John describes it).
But why must she have been a virgin? Why, at the least, couldn’t she have gone on to bear humans who were conceived in the “normal” human way?
Clearly, the writers of those pages of the scripture were accepting of, if not promoting, the idea that sex, the kind that results from the penetration of the erect male phallus into the female genitalia, was dirty or shameful or evil or all of the above.
And so it has remained in the minds of those with a belief system that accepts the basic thrust (pardon the pun) of Biblical verse. (This stuff is also in the pre-Christ portions of the Bible, the Old Testament as Christians refer to it, although there is less of a sense of filth attached to the act of sexual intercourse in those pages.)
Over the eras of human development, sex has been in and out of favor at various times and in various cultures. America’s attitude about it has also waxed and waned. The big change took place with the advent of the birth control pill, which in many ways led to the women’s liberation movement. With women now able to control whether they would become pregnant (or risk becoming pregnant) by engaging in sexual intercourse, they were free to explore more fully the pleasures of sex and to make the act of sexual intercourse much more two-sided, demanding their own physical gratification, just as their male partners almost invariably had theirs.
Sex in the latter half of the twentieth century came out of the closet, with couples engaging in it for the pure mutual pleasure it provides and without the least concern about its sinfulness.
But some have been troubled by the sexual freedom the pill allows. And, ironically, those most troubled (to the point of being condemnatory) are the same folks who demand freedom in their own lives with respect to what they believe and how they act.
Rick Santorum is the current leader of that gang. He espouses the sex-is-dirty-and-sinful-and-evil line, albeit not quite as blatantly. But don’t doubt for a minute that this man hates sex for the pure pleasure of it. How can he feel otherwise when he condemns contraceptives in such clear terms?
“I think the dangers of contraception … the whole sexual libertine idea … It’s not okay, “ he said recently, “because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage for purposes that are … procreative. … And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point that it’s simply pleasure.”
Simply pleasure? As if that’s a bad thing? He then went on to say, “I’m not running for pastor” (where did that reference come from?) “but these are important public policy issues.”
Contraception is an important public policy issue? Limiting sex to procreative purposes is an important public policy issue? Really? Based on what reading of the Constitution?
Is it too much to say that this man hates sex? Perhaps, but not by much. He certainly hates protected sex and extra-marital sex and as for same-gender sex, oh, don’t even get him going on that subject, unless you want him to start talking about how close we are to countenancing sex with animals.
Santorum hasn’t spoken about masturbation yet, at least not that I’m aware of, but if he were to be asked (and I’d love to have a reporter ask him), he would honestly condemn it as a violation of God’s plan and directives. The act is referred to negatively in Genesis and Leviticus, but again it is the Christian view of sex that most clearly regards the act as sinful. The most devout Christians abstain on the grounds that it is wasting (killing?) potential souls.
These are the folks who believe that life begins with the fertilization of the female egg by the male sperm. They recognize those tiny single cells (and the soon-to-be eight cell zygotes) as human beings, but what they are really concerned with is the soul that they believe attaches to these cells. Hence, the abhorrence of abortion and, in more extreme views, of contraception, for the pill destroys the egg after it has been fertilized (but before it implants in the uterus), don’t you see?
I could go on, but you get the point. The man hates sex unless it is done as only good servants of God understand it’s “supposed to be” done.
And this is the guy the Republicans want as our next president? God help us.
The Republicans don’t want him. Unfortunately, deeply conservative voters are rallying to him because he is the polar opposite of Obama. Fortunately, he won’t be the nominee so you won’t need to waste valuable print space on him.
I love “progressive” views of sex. You totally ignored my lament that my wife and I at our advanced age can no longer levitate during highly intimate moments.
Your statement of God the Father impregnating the Blessed Virgin is not correct. She was visited on by the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, not the lustings of a male god. That was what the Angel Gabriel told her.
What makes your point even more entertaining is a memory of an idea session at our parish. It was led by a feminist female who deeply desired to be a Catholic priestess. She posed the idea that the Church should “take on a more feminist view.” I asked if she meant “a more feminine view?” She insisted on “feminist.”
She also stated the Holy Spirit was female. I asked her if that meant when the Holy Spirit visited on Mary, it was a lesbian encounter? She enthusiastically replied, “YES!!!”
Not to discern or judge Santorum’s personal life, but his wife seems delighted with their relationship… not exactly Clintonesque.
And you call me a nut job? I just wish I could still levitate.
I’m no historian, but I vaguely recall learning that there was quite an uproar among many Republicans and mainstream conservatives when John F. Kennedy was running for president because he was a Catholic. The opposition claimed his religious conviction would require strict allegiance to the Pope, and this would compromise his oath of office, allegiance to the constitution, etc. The Pope, according to the critics, would become the de facto leader of the executive branch of government. Kennedy felt compelled to assure voters that the Catholic Church does not speak for him, nor does he speak for the church.
What a contrast from the conservatives of today! Why is it that “conservative values” are constantly changing? Why are mainstream protestant-types defending the Catholic Church’s bizarre position on contraceptives?
Here’s a question I haven’t heard asked of Santorum or Newt Gingrich (Catholic convert via Calista): The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty. Will they agree with their church and likewise oppose the death penalty? Maybe, like that good Catholic Antonin Scalia, they’ll separate church and state when it comes to that particular topic, but hold fast and faithful on the topic of wasting precious sperm and the potential for life. Luckily modern conservatism is conveniently flexible.
Ed, I am going have to take issue with some of your statements in this article. It is not the “Christian view” that sex is evil. I grew up in a very conservative evangelical fundamentalist church and we were taught that sex is a gift from God and that the instruction to be fruitful and multiply was intended to be a pleasurable task. The sin committed in the garden of Eden was a combination of pride and disobedience. Pride in this sense does not mean self esteem but a sense of entitlement that allows one to consider oneself equal to or better than the creator. It’s the sort of pride that allows people to pollute the environment, kill endangered species and drop bombs on human beings. It is the pride that allows people to believe that having dominion over nature is permission to destroy it.
One of the consequences of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was that people became self conscious and human interactions became complicated. They saw that they were naked.
The business about Mary being a perpetual virgin came about as a result of the church fathers and others putting much more emphasis on Mary’s virginity than the Bible does. In fact, virgin is a mistranslation of a word that just means a young woman. But the belief that all women who weren’t permanent virgins were evil helped to support the Catholic church’s recruitment of unmarried clergy. The requirement that clergy be celibate came about as a way for the church to prevent married clergy from leaving church property to their own heirs. No marriage, no heirs.
Now in this little fundy church I grew up in it was made clear that the good gift of sexuality, while not evil, was to be enjoyed only within the bonds of holy matrimony. And this is where we cross over from Biblical to cultural teachings. Virtually everyone is aware that the sex drive is powerful and that the age at which is strongest is no longer the age at which most people make good spouses and parents. Persuading young people to postpone sexual encounters until after they are legally married and mature enough to accept the associated responsibilities has probably always been an uphill fight. Teaching kids that anything involving genitalia is nasty and punishing them for showing any interest in sex have long been part of the effort to keep young people from reproducing too soon. Children who were taught that way a few years ago are now the adults who are dealing with the side effects of that education in their marriages and in their politics.
While sex is not, from a Biblical perspective, evil, it has always been dangerous. You don’t have to be Christian or any other flavor of religious to be aware that there are diseases that are spread by sexual contact. And of course there is the problem of children being brought into the world with no one prepared to provide for their material and spiritual needs. Not for nothing were new babies often referred to as “another mouth to feed.” If that little mouth is born to a father who happens to be married to someone who is not the mother, all kinds of expensive complications can ensue. The idea that sex is evil was invented to serve the need of controlling sexual behavior. Christians and faux Christians quote scripture to support their argument as they do with any argument. It’s always amusing to watch delegates debating policy at a church conference. Two debaters will quote different selected passages of scripture to support completely opposing viewpoints. But none of that makes anything they are saying the Christian point of view.
Evidence of how much of what appears to be Christian teaching is actually cultural can be found in studies about sexual attitudes. There is considerable evidence that lower income people are much much more conservative in their attitudes toward sex than are wealthier people. What it comes down to is that poorer people are simply not in a position to deal with extra children or to pay for abortions or for medical treatment of venereal diseases or for bribes to keep reputations intact. If teaching kids that sex is evil and calling on the Almighty to back you up is necessary to prevent young people from having to cope with the consequences of their youthful lust, so be it.
What I have noticed is that the people who pronounce any normal activity to be evil are the ones who have the most trouble controlling it in their own lives. Nobody rails against the evils of Demon Rum like a struggling alcoholic. Recall a few years ago televangelists denouncing one another for various sins only to be caught shortly thereafter committing the same sin. Is Rick Santorum merely exploiting the fears of people who find sexuality threatening or is he revealing his own worst enemy? And doesn’t it make you wonder with whom he is going to be found in the future in the bed, bath or beyond?
You know what i think is worse than the idea that R.S. doesn’t like sex? The idea that he does but that he is taking this extreme position (!) in order to appeal to people who really do hate sex as much as he purports to. It is very hard to be more conservative than the other crackpots in the race and that is what you have to be to satisfy the demands of the mad Tea Party. Now that everybody is anti-abortion and anti-gay they have to find new old issues to be ultra conservative about.