In the United States, the George W. Bush administration decided that it was worthwhile for tax money to be spent on "Abstinence-Only Education" programs, to try and teach young Americans to avoid sexual relationships before getting married. The stated goals of these programs were to reduce unplanned pregnancy and prevent STDs. Of course, abstinence education did nothing toward either of these goals, because people are sexual, whether married or not; because it's as natural a part of being human as eating and breathing; because people are intelligent and know that sex is a good and healthy part of life; and because getting married to someone you've never made love with is a colossally dumb idea. Abstinence-only programs have been very effective at their actual purpose, which is to divide people politically along crazy social lines. Brothers and sisters, parents and children-- instead of banding together to cast off the yolk of robber barons-- fight bitterly over social issues like flagburning, human rights for minorities, and abstinence-only education.
WHAT IS MARRIAGE ANYWAY?
Those who would trap our genitals in rusty metallic cages call upon Christianity and the Bible to justify their position, but this is entirely misguided. Marriage as we know it today (in the U.S. and many other countries) is a secular institution, a contract with the state, wholly absent from the bible. Getting married means signing paperwork before an agent of the state. Then you get some tax breaks, hospital visitation rights, and all the traps and pitfalls of the modern family court. None of this has any basis in the Bible at all. Tying the knot is not required in order to live together, nor does living together require marriage. The same goes for having children and being in love. These things-- living together, having children, being in love-- are the core of a healthy family (in the modern conception, which is itself somewhat arbitrary). Being married just doesn't even enter the picture.
As for the modern wedding ceremony, it's great fun and excitement, but it has no legal connection to marriage, to living together, to having children, or to being in love. Any couple with the desire and the money, can have a wedding ceremony, and if they just skip the paperwork, it doesn't even carry any legal meaning. It's also rather expensive. Did you ever stop and wonder how churches get away with charging for wedding ceremonies? If it's really God's Holy Will that every couple walks down an aisle to the tune of "here comes the bride", then shouldn't His ordained ministers be charitable enough to let us simply go through the required motions without being charged for it? If the U.S. Republican Party were serious about encouraging holy matrimony, they'd subsidize the ceremony, not some ridiculous abstinence propaganda.
Those who, in God's name, command us to abstain until signing some paperwork with the State of California-- they are insulting their own god, belittling and mocking him. As if the omnipotent creator of the universe gave a damn about your paperwork with the State of California. Or any other state or institution.
It's instructive to look at the noble wedding rites of Heian-era Japan. In the Heian era, one respectable way to marry a girl was to enter her room and make love with her. This had to be done three nights in a row, and you had to make sure someone in the house heard the two of you getting it on. Then you'd exchange love letters and eat some special food together, and you're married. Once you admit the existence of this type of wedding, the whole idea of "no sex until marriage" collapses like the unwieldy abomination of control and suppression that it is.
IS SEX SPECIAL?
One of the arguments of the pro-abstinence crowd is that sex is special. That you should "save yourself until you've found someone you'll spend your life with". Recognize this as the huge pile of lies that it is. If this were true, woe to any unfortunate rape victims! The truth is, sleeping with someone is as special as you make it. Before I met my girlfriend, I had some casual partners and there was nothing special about our flings. I mean, nothing special in the sense of angels weeping for joy for the seeds o' true love are sewn and two lives are forever joined in holy bliss and blah blah blah.
Sex can be special if you want it to be. There's no connection to whether or not you've filed paperwork with city hall. Nowhere on a marriage license does it say, "your sexual relationship is now licensed to be special." Neither is there some magic limit, like you only have so many magic points to cast your "special love" spell.
When you do love someone, making love plays an integral part in that. The formula is like this. Sleeping around does not require love, however, love (at least romantic love) does require sex. Some Christians believe it's better for a couple to live a sexless marriage than to divorce, as if by just tolerating it somehow, they're being "good Christians". Sexless marriage is just a fancy living arrangement.
When the two are combined-- love and lovemaking-- they enhance each other cyclically. Better love inspires better sexual performance, which in turn inspires better love. Emotions run absolutely wild and both parties feel beloved, accepted, fulfilled, protected. A good couple falls more and more in love with each other all the time, and if that's not the case then why would you even think about getting married?
SEX IS GOOD
Sexuality is a good, healthy part of being alive, and if you're not getting laid regularly, it's going to physically mess with your brain chemistry. I know, because I didn't become fully sexually active until I was 23. I was raised in exactly the sort of household that votes power to men like Bush, and I was raised with extremely unhealthy ideas about sex. Throughout my childhood, it was an evil thing and a filthy thing. Something bad men do to innocent girls against the girls' will. I was in great danger of living a life of solitude, victimized by the uncaring greedy lies of a modern church industry. By the time I was on my own, I knew enough to know that was all nonsense, and I saw that normal healthy people everywhere were sexually active. And I envied them. But the damage was done and I was royally fucked (or should I say, royally fuck-proofed). Fortunately I realized that whatever power I have, is power right now, that the past is the past and there's no use being a victim. It was a grueling ordeal, but I was eventually able to heal the damage my parents dealt me and get a normal sexlife. I really feel for all the guys who weren't so present-minded or determined.
This world is a place of wonder, and our purpose here is to enjoy the abundance of creation. If the Christian God is real, then this universe is a gift from him to us, and he wants us to enjoy every last part of it. Christians get their heads full of absurd ideas like, this world is a "screening system" to "screen out the bad guys". That this life is a hell that you have to endure and follow certain rules to avoid another, worse hell. If you actually read the Bible, Jesus explicitly tells his followers that they are saved by grace. That is, according to the Christian philosophy (which just about zero modern "Christians" know or care about), we're saved (from hell) by the sheer generosity and compassion of the creator, and our behavior has absolutely nothing to do with it. That's because, if an omnipotent creator God is real, then he's not some petty tyrant spying on our underpants!
Since our purpose in this world is to enjoy fun and pleasure (in Christian-ese: to "make a joyful noise unto the lord"), let's kick off the chastity belts and get down to some noisy, kinky, good healthy fun!
FURTHER READING
If you want to read more details about how I went from sheltered eunuch to sexworthy guy, check out My Time In The Seduction Community.
For some alternative ways to express your love to that special someone, read Variations Of "I Love You".
Read about the difference between what we want on the surface and what we really want deep down. Deep Desires And Surface Desires.
WHAT IS MARRIAGE ANYWAY?
Those who would trap our genitals in rusty metallic cages call upon Christianity and the Bible to justify their position, but this is entirely misguided. Marriage as we know it today (in the U.S. and many other countries) is a secular institution, a contract with the state, wholly absent from the bible. Getting married means signing paperwork before an agent of the state. Then you get some tax breaks, hospital visitation rights, and all the traps and pitfalls of the modern family court. None of this has any basis in the Bible at all. Tying the knot is not required in order to live together, nor does living together require marriage. The same goes for having children and being in love. These things-- living together, having children, being in love-- are the core of a healthy family (in the modern conception, which is itself somewhat arbitrary). Being married just doesn't even enter the picture.
As for the modern wedding ceremony, it's great fun and excitement, but it has no legal connection to marriage, to living together, to having children, or to being in love. Any couple with the desire and the money, can have a wedding ceremony, and if they just skip the paperwork, it doesn't even carry any legal meaning. It's also rather expensive. Did you ever stop and wonder how churches get away with charging for wedding ceremonies? If it's really God's Holy Will that every couple walks down an aisle to the tune of "here comes the bride", then shouldn't His ordained ministers be charitable enough to let us simply go through the required motions without being charged for it? If the U.S. Republican Party were serious about encouraging holy matrimony, they'd subsidize the ceremony, not some ridiculous abstinence propaganda.
Those who, in God's name, command us to abstain until signing some paperwork with the State of California-- they are insulting their own god, belittling and mocking him. As if the omnipotent creator of the universe gave a damn about your paperwork with the State of California. Or any other state or institution.
It's instructive to look at the noble wedding rites of Heian-era Japan. In the Heian era, one respectable way to marry a girl was to enter her room and make love with her. This had to be done three nights in a row, and you had to make sure someone in the house heard the two of you getting it on. Then you'd exchange love letters and eat some special food together, and you're married. Once you admit the existence of this type of wedding, the whole idea of "no sex until marriage" collapses like the unwieldy abomination of control and suppression that it is.
IS SEX SPECIAL?
One of the arguments of the pro-abstinence crowd is that sex is special. That you should "save yourself until you've found someone you'll spend your life with". Recognize this as the huge pile of lies that it is. If this were true, woe to any unfortunate rape victims! The truth is, sleeping with someone is as special as you make it. Before I met my girlfriend, I had some casual partners and there was nothing special about our flings. I mean, nothing special in the sense of angels weeping for joy for the seeds o' true love are sewn and two lives are forever joined in holy bliss and blah blah blah.
Sex can be special if you want it to be. There's no connection to whether or not you've filed paperwork with city hall. Nowhere on a marriage license does it say, "your sexual relationship is now licensed to be special." Neither is there some magic limit, like you only have so many magic points to cast your "special love" spell.
When you do love someone, making love plays an integral part in that. The formula is like this. Sleeping around does not require love, however, love (at least romantic love) does require sex. Some Christians believe it's better for a couple to live a sexless marriage than to divorce, as if by just tolerating it somehow, they're being "good Christians". Sexless marriage is just a fancy living arrangement.
When the two are combined-- love and lovemaking-- they enhance each other cyclically. Better love inspires better sexual performance, which in turn inspires better love. Emotions run absolutely wild and both parties feel beloved, accepted, fulfilled, protected. A good couple falls more and more in love with each other all the time, and if that's not the case then why would you even think about getting married?
SEX IS GOOD
Sexuality is a good, healthy part of being alive, and if you're not getting laid regularly, it's going to physically mess with your brain chemistry. I know, because I didn't become fully sexually active until I was 23. I was raised in exactly the sort of household that votes power to men like Bush, and I was raised with extremely unhealthy ideas about sex. Throughout my childhood, it was an evil thing and a filthy thing. Something bad men do to innocent girls against the girls' will. I was in great danger of living a life of solitude, victimized by the uncaring greedy lies of a modern church industry. By the time I was on my own, I knew enough to know that was all nonsense, and I saw that normal healthy people everywhere were sexually active. And I envied them. But the damage was done and I was royally fucked (or should I say, royally fuck-proofed). Fortunately I realized that whatever power I have, is power right now, that the past is the past and there's no use being a victim. It was a grueling ordeal, but I was eventually able to heal the damage my parents dealt me and get a normal sexlife. I really feel for all the guys who weren't so present-minded or determined.
This world is a place of wonder, and our purpose here is to enjoy the abundance of creation. If the Christian God is real, then this universe is a gift from him to us, and he wants us to enjoy every last part of it. Christians get their heads full of absurd ideas like, this world is a "screening system" to "screen out the bad guys". That this life is a hell that you have to endure and follow certain rules to avoid another, worse hell. If you actually read the Bible, Jesus explicitly tells his followers that they are saved by grace. That is, according to the Christian philosophy (which just about zero modern "Christians" know or care about), we're saved (from hell) by the sheer generosity and compassion of the creator, and our behavior has absolutely nothing to do with it. That's because, if an omnipotent creator God is real, then he's not some petty tyrant spying on our underpants!
Since our purpose in this world is to enjoy fun and pleasure (in Christian-ese: to "make a joyful noise unto the lord"), let's kick off the chastity belts and get down to some noisy, kinky, good healthy fun!
FURTHER READING
If you want to read more details about how I went from sheltered eunuch to sexworthy guy, check out My Time In The Seduction Community.
For some alternative ways to express your love to that special someone, read Variations Of "I Love You".
Read about the difference between what we want on the surface and what we really want deep down. Deep Desires And Surface Desires.
Posts
5 comments:
This is absolutely great man, and written beautifully. Being raised in a Muslim family and fed the same kind of crap I can fully relate to you about everything you've written. Again, great article. I really enjoyed it
Great article, and I know all too well what this is like... I was raised in a Catholic family, and while my mother tried to give me a more positive view of sex (though she still wanted me to wait until marriage), the lessons we learned in grade school were much more powerful (and much more frequent). To this day, talking about sex with my boyfriend of 3 years is difficult, because talking about it brings up all those old feelings of shame/guilt/awkwardness that I felt as a thirteen-year-old being told that french kissing is bad. (Weirdly enough, the actual act itself causes no mental distress for me. Just talking about it. It's very strange.) The damage done by religious "sex-ed" is hard to shake off.
"Sleeping around does not require love, however, love (at least romantic love) does require sex."
Nitpick: I feel obliged to point out the existence of non-aromantic asexuals. There do exist people for whom romantic love does not require sex; they just happen to be quite rare and I doubt I have ever met one.
Also I'm incredibly glad that my (Christian) parents believed that faith should be chosen rationally and deliberately, and did not try to teach me religion beyond taking me to church a few times so I could see what it was like. They may be a bit disappointed by my choice, but all they have said about it is "God loves atheists too".
neato article. I enjoyed reading...
thanks,
lisa
I grew up in a mixed religion household but we were compelled (due to my parent's desire to marry in a church) to be raised as bona-fide Cathaholics. Going to college (in the late 70's) initially disturbed me for what I thought to be a sin against God's will, and I too, was twisted for several more years until I was able to release myself from the constraints of this system. I have regained my spirituality and sexuality and can thank my creator for both, but it has nothing to do with regimented religion and narrow mindsets.
Post a Comment