Yet more thoughts on the relationship between sex and secularism….
“I used to be a born-again Christian.”
“You were?”
“But I gave that up a long time ago.”
“What happened?”
“I wanted to have sex.”
– A 46-year old woman on her loss of faith
In his essay on Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault associates our cultural obsession with sex with the “death of God” and the decline of traditional religious belief. Personal liberation is sought not through participation in religious institutions but through sexual experience. In his book Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion, Phil Zuckerman wrote a chapter entitled “Sex and Secularity.” Based on numerous interviews he conducted, Zuckerman determined that sex (or rather the traditional religious strictures surrounding sex) makes “apostates” out of a lot of former believers. The “ultimate spiritual battle,” as one woman described it, between faith and sexual desire often results in the loss of the former.
“I couldn’t be a good Christian and have sex. And I guess my hormones took over and that became more important.”
– A twentysomething woman, formerly Pentecostal
The internal struggle between religious ideals and sexual urges summons contradictory impulses. “Oh, I’m not supposed to be doing this but I want to do this,” a woman remembers thinking in high school. Sexual desire itself was seemingly condemned. Many were burdened by the guilt that accompanied sexual exploration. A woman who recalls wearing a “love waits” ring in high school said, “Oral sex was all over tenth grade and — we knew we weren’t having sex — so technically we weren’t doing anything wrong that way. But we would feel guilty and cry about it…and just feel really bad.” Zuckerman concludes that suppressing one’s sex drive in accordance with traditional religious teachings can be emotionally damaging and result in a loss of faith.
“That was the first time I ever went down on a guy. And I remember being SO guilty about it…it was, like, such a deep guilt — like I had let down my future husband, I had let down God….I would just cry and cry and cry.”
– A 20-year old female college student, a former nondenominational Christian
Dr. Laura Schlesinger succinctly summarized the sexual ethics of most religions: “Holy sex is between a husband and a wife…. Unholy sex is everything else.” When the desire for greater sexual expression conflicts with this narrow definition of what’s permissible, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that many reject the worldview that produced it. Such a restrictive view of sex is, in fact, unnatural. “If there is any one form of human interaction that is ‘natural,’ surely it is sex,” Zuckerman writes. “We are neurologically wired for it, emotionally dependent on it, and physiologically designed for it.” There is evidence that secularism leads to better sex. According to multiple studies, avowedly secular people report experiencing less guilt and fear surrounding sex, as well as engaging in more sex with more sexual partners in a wider range of sexual practices, including oral and anal sex.
Lutheran Guilt 