Being absent from church on Sundays has meant being removed from one of my latest fixations: “Rebecca.” One of our newer choir members, more than once have I visually undressed her during service. She vaguely resembles Amanda Seyfried. I find her makeup and dark red lipstick sexually suggestive. (I’ve aggressively imagined the things she could do with her mouth.)
Despite my lusting over several female parishioners, I have not initiated a sexual relationship with any of them. Discretion has compelled me from refraining acting upon my desires. Such relationships between ministers and congregants are expressly forbidden in my church. According to psychiatrist Peter Rutter in Sex in the Forbidden Zone, sex in a professional-client relationship is unethical because it violates the trust placed by the client in her therapist or teacher or clergyman. (In Rutter’s account, the professional is invariably male.) There is an imbalance of power that renders it exploitative. “[C]lergy invite the women under their care to share secrets, sexual and otherwise, that they would never disclose to anyone else.” Robert Carlson believes that among the helping professions, ministers are most vulnerable to sexually inappropriate relationships. One male pastor admitted, “For the pastor there are more situations, more opportunities to act out sexually.” Carlson even warns against fantasizing about a parishioner: “When will and fantasy compete, fantasy always wins.”
The forbidden zone is nonetheless erotically charged. The temptation presented by Rebecca consists not only in her natural sexiness but in her verboten status. The risk of having sex with her is itself an aphrodisiac. A long, hard, pulsating, pounding, and sweat-drenched romp with her in the choir loft, were it to be discovered, would imperil my career in academia and ministry. Dr. Susan Block attributes the association between fear and sex to a reptilian part of our brain that evolution has yet to extinguish “no matter how moral or dignified we may think we are.” (She notes that sex is fittingly depicted as a serpent or a dragon in some cultures.) Rutter insists on the need to develop and maintain boundaries, but concedes their vulnerabilities. “In the moment it feels so easy, so magical, so relieving for us to cross the invisible boundary and merge with the woman in shared passion.” One pastor admitted, “My theology was unable to prevent me from acting out.”
My theology was unable to prevent me from acting out. I’m supposed to practice “celibacy in singleness.” Have my sexual exploits lowered my resistance to engaging in an inappropriate relationship? If the opportunity presented itself, I would find it tough to resist pulling down Rebecca’s panties.
Lutheran Guilt 