Sexuality is one of those hot button topics that seem to push human emotions to the edge of reason. Even rational secular minded people can lose perspective when confronted with open frank discussions and expressions of sexuality, especially if the sexuality being discusses includes adultery, polyamory, LGBT topics, or other “alternative” sexual issues. Our society has been veering to the right of rationality when it comes to sexuality in recent years, and one only has to look to the state of sexual education and the rate of teenage pregnancy in this country to see a sad testament to the failure of repressive tactics employed by the conservative forces in our society.
Societies have been trying to control certain aspects of human sexuality since the beginning of time, and modern times have shown little improvement. Long before written history societies were attempting to control female fertility cycles by offering sacrifices and rituals to their gods. Most of these rituals were committed with the goal of increasing birth rates among societies, or to increase food bounties to feed the increased birth rates brought about by earlier rituals. Little information exists, however, to suggest that proscriptions against “alternative” sexuality were ever a big concern for early societies.
After the establishment of codified Christian religion the controlling of sex and procreations took on a new importance. Sexuality was often associated with wanton Pagan beliefs, (Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden) and thus sexual pleasure became taboo in the Roman Catholic Church. Thinking about sexual pleasure became associated with “bad thoughts” and Pope John Paul II once cautioned husbands “If a man gazes on his wife lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Conservative religions splintered from the original Catholic Church and differed in various aspects of their doctrine, but most retained proscriptions against sexual pleasure. The Pilgrims of Plymouth were preoccupied with illicit sex involving buggery and sodomy, and they attributed sexual desire as coming from the animalistic side of man. Like Pope John Paul II, the pilgrims associated sexual pleasure, even among married couples, with adultery.
Little has changed in modern times where we have conservative groups like Focus on the Family mirroring the concerns of the Pilgrims by urging abstinence outside marriage, and by lobbying against homosexuality. We also have the Parents Television Council lobbying against non marital or heterosexual images of human sexuality in TV programs, and conservative preachers like John Hagee blaming natural disasters on gay pride events.
Conservatives here and in the Islamic world are consumed with controlling sexuality by urging young women to dress modestly less they might entice innocent males who might pass by and become overwhelmed with uncontrollable sexual desire. Meanwhile, the US State Department is busy charging video store owners with federal pornography charges for dispensing legal adult videos. The President of the United States has been doing his part to encourage controlled sexuality through abstinence by restricting AIDS funding unless programs are based on useless abstinence doctrines. The Republican Vice-Presidential candidate supports abstinence only birth control education, and has a pregnant teenage daughter to show her dedication to those principles.
It seems conservative forces are extolling ever greater energy to controlling sexuality in this country. Frank open discussions of sexuality are imperative if we are going to combat the millennia of repression and disinformation disseminated by conservative religious organizations in the past and in the present. Censorship is the death of creativity and clear thinking, and when we include human sexuality under the umbrella of censorship we create an environment where superstition and repression thrive.
Restrictions against free expressions of sexuality does nothing but assign human sexuality to the dark shadows of repression and cuts off an important avenue for shared experience and mutual understanding. The only cure for sexual repression is open and honest discussion about the variety and scope of human sexuality in all its diverse and unique iterations.
Sources: American Sexual History, the Psychology of Free Love, Elizabeth Reis, Blackwell Publishing, 2001. The Atlantic, Of Sex and the Catholic Church, Francis X. Murphy, CSSR, February, 1981. Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Early New England, Bruce C. Daniels, Palgrave Macmillan; Anniversary edition (August 25, 2005) Washington Times, Conservatives: Lets See Good (marital) Sex, Kelly Jane Torrance, August, 15, 2008. National Public Radio, Fresh Air from WHYY Pastor John Hagee on Christian Zionism, September 18, 2006. Huffington Post, Top 10 Outrageous Quotes from McCain’s Spiritual Advisers, Katie Halper, April 25, 2008.Rolling Stone, Jesus Made Me Puke, Matt Taibbi Undercover with the Christian Right, Matt Taibbi, May 1, 2008.Alternet, The Christian Right’s Slick Campaign to Make Abstinence Seem Trendy, Vanessa Valenti, August 28, 2008. Alternet, Yet Another Obscenity Trial? We Should Be Ashamed, Dr.Marty Klein Aug, 29, 2008.
