According to The Harvard Crimson, 13% of Harvard students claim to have had sex in Widener Library by the time they’ve graduated.
They’re not alone.
A decade ago, Angela White recorded herself having sex in the library of an Australian university. The school professed to be “shocked and appalled by this brazen act,” which culminated in the porn starlet exulting in her tits being covered with cum. (White framed her act as promoting literacy: “I’m a firm believer in the power of education, so if the scandal encouraged a few people to pick up a book then I’ll take that small victory.”)
“Molly” was a librarian at my Christian college. She was the nerdy librarian personified: thick glasses, long brown unkempt hair, frumpy dress. Her prim demeanor suggested that she had yet to be properly fucked. I often fantasized about pressing her body against a shelf of books, lifting up her skirt, and having my way with her in the stacks.
On that particular Friday evening, we may have been the only students in the library. Playing footsie under the table progressed to making out. I pulled up her blouse and fondled her breasts. We made our way down to the subterranean level occupied only by shelves of bound theological journals. In a corner, I undid my pants as Rhonda got on her knees. I peered out of the corner of my eye as she gave me a blowjob, the only witnesses being decades-old copies of Novum Testamentum. Then she got on her hands and knees, pulled up her skirt, and pulled down her panties. I got behind her, slipped myself inside her, and started pumping. The strain of trying to muffle the sound of my grunts intensified the pleasure; it didn’t take long for me to come inside her.
And then we walked past the circulation desk as we exited the library as if nothing happened.
A female parishioner recently introduced me to a friend of hers, “Jess.” Jess is a graphic design artist who works for a parachurch ministry. She invited me to her office to test a new website design. Later I invited her to lunch. Jess is sweet and somewhat adorkable, and I enjoyed getting to know her. She attends a conservative Presbyterian church, reads Max Lucado, and doesn’t watch R-rated movies. I find both her shyness and the way the bangs of her brown hair frame her face winsome. The following Sunday she attended my church and sat in on my adult Sunday school class. (She even gave me some resources to help me with my preparation for my class on Galatians.) We started seeing each other regularly after that.
Last Sunday our late afternoon coffee date was hindered by the shop’s closing early, so we walked a few blocks to the ice cream parlor. Over milkshakes, she invited me to travel with her to Virginia to visit her family. Our interactions have been entirely chaste, of course.
Jess is pretty, feminine, sweet. I’m attracted to this type of woman. My previous girlfriends have fit this type. They exhibit a certain purity. (When I attended her young adults group at her church, Jessica made a point of decrying explicit sex in contemporary films.) I find Jess physically attractive, yet I struggle to translate that into sexual arousal….
She may as well be wearing a chastity belt.
Even the prospect of “corrupting” her (taking her virginity and initiating her into the realm of carnal delights) doesn’t arouse me. (And it’s safe to say that I have a corruption kink.) Jess’s chastity repels my lust.
Meanwhile I’ve continued to furtively visit escorts and indulge in hookups.
Nineteenth century art, literary critic Bram Dijkstra contends, depicted women as either Madonna or Whore. Freud in “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love” said that a man can only get sexual gratification from a degraded woman (a mistress or a whore). Freud argued, “The whole sphere of love in such persons remains divided in the two directions personified in art as sacred and profane (or animal) love.” There are two archetypal ways that I view women: either as the saintly Madonna or the lascivious whore. Jess obviously falls into the first archetype. She does not produce, to again quote Freud, “any sensual excitation but in affection which has no erotic effect.” I can’t imagine virginal Jess succumbing to bestial lust. I’m romantically drawn to the “girl next door.”
But it’s the slut who excites me. So I seek out that Proverbs 7 woman, “dressed as a harlot,” when that primal sexual instinct erupts within me.
The sexually liberated woman both arouses and unsettles me. Positioned against the chaste vestal, she challenges the conventional notions of femininity with which I was raised. One of the messages I received in the purity culture was that women are divinely ordained, through their inherent virtue, to quell the tempestuousness of male sexuality. In The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti writes, “Making women the sexual gatekeepers and telling men they just can’t help themselves not only drives home the point that women’s sexuality is unnatural, but also sets up a disturbing dynamic in which women are expected to be responsible for men’s sexual behavior.” The tempting “daughter of Eve” — alluring, sexually potent — corrupts my attempts at sexual virtue.
“Eve. The original bad girl of the Bible, Eve is cast as weak and susceptible to Satan, ravenous for forbidden knowledge….” That’s what Kristen Sollee writes inWitches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive. Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden set the template for femininity. “Prevailing archetypes of womanhood in the Bible become virgin, obedient wife or deviant whore.” Luther wrote, “The word and works of God are quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitutes.” When I was seduced by Jezebel into committing fornication (cf. Rev 2:20), temptation proved irresistible.
Much contemporary popular culture (as exemplified by the erotic adventurousness of the protagonists on Sex and the City) posits that uninhibited sexual expression is empowering to the modern woman. Samantha is the lustiest of the quartet, seeking to “have sex like a man.” The antithesis of my romantic ideal of the “good girl,” she won’t let anything stand between her and her next orgasm. “Girl power” has become synonymous with sexual assertiveness. I recall the unreserved sluttiness of the sorority girls at the nearby public university when I was in college. They were nothing like the modestly attired girls from my Christian college. They unnerved me. And aroused me.
I’ve never considered myself much of a seducer, which explains my attraction to transactional sex. But I’ve recently found myself becoming more…assertive.
Consider a recent night with “Julie.”
Julie is active in her Presbyterian church’s young adults group. She teaches math at a middle school. I was introduced to her when I dated Ingrid; I noticed her auburn hair, cherubic face, and plump rump. Our interactions had been pleasant but brief – there was no hint of a romantic interest from her.
I had also managed to hear some gossip about her scandalous behavior at a New Year’s Eve party.
A few months later, I found myself at a party she and her roommates hosted at their house. Presbyterian abstemiousness did not mark the occasion – there was plenty of alcohol, and it was obvious that Julie had liberally imbibed.
I sensed that Julie could be a slut that night.
I sat next to her on a couch, somewhat secluded from the other partygoers. We chatted about our respective experiences at small Christian colleges. (The code of conduct at her school in the Wesleyan tradition expressly prohibited any sexual activity outside of marriage; she flirtatiously hinted that she hadn’t been entirely faithful in observing it.) As we talked, our legs touched on the couch. I caressed her arm. She started kissing me. (I could smell the alcohol on her breath.) I responded aggressively, grabbing one of her breasts through her sweater with one hand while, with the other hand, rubbing her crotch through her pants.
You tear down my reason It's your sex I can smell
I suggested that we head to the basement.
She ended up following me down to the basement. After some more sloppy kissing as I pressed her body against a washing machine, I quickly pulled her clothes off – it didn’t take long to strip her down to her underwear. As I turned off the lights, she stripped off her bra and panties. Having heard the rumors of her prodigious oral abilities, I wanted to feel her mouth on my cock. We moved onto an old couch. I placed the palm of my hand on the back of her head and guided her head to my crotch. She took my cock and proceeded to give me a blowjob. But I didn’t want to come in her mouth. I got on top of her on the couch.
She spread her legs apart.
Neither one of us brought a condom. But the prospect of fucking her without protection only fueled my lust. After a few awkward moments of positioning ourselves on the couch, I slowly pushed myself inside her. (Despite our haste, I needn’t have worried that she wasn’t wet enough. I imagine the alcohol and her arousal temporarily anesthetized whatever sexual guilt came from her Wesleyan Holiness background.) I made no pretense of lovemaking as I fucked her.
You let me violate you You let me desecrate you You let me penetrate you You let me complicate you
I struggled to stifle my groans lest our acquaintances catch us in flagrante delicto. As I fucked her faster and harder, thrusting my cock into her pussy, I felt my sweat drip onto her body. At this moment, she was no sister in Christ.
I wanna fuck you like an animal I wanna feel you from the inside I wanna fuck you like an animal You get me closer to God
The intensity of our fucking was too much. My body convulsed. An orgasmic burst deep in her pussy. That primal sound of release.
We disengaged. Without saying a word, she picked up her bra and panties (which had been discarded on top of the washing machine) and got dressed. She then stumbled up the stairs and rejoined the party.
Having (temporarily) sated my carnal urge, I put my clothes back on and quietly exited the house.
There’s an elite all-girls prep school in my neighborhood.
And, yes, the uniform of this illustrious institution includes a plaid skirt.
One recent morning at the coffee shop, I espied one of the students in her uniform – short plaid skirt, crisp white blouse, tight blue blazer emblazoned with the school seal. Her long blonde hair cascaded down the back of her blazer. A pair of tanned legs protruded from her skirt.
She surely was aware of her own ripeness.
If I felt such ripe excitement it was surely because my body was already ripe for it….I would toss and turn in my bed, calling for a man’s body to be pressed against my own, for a man’s hand to stroke my flesh.
It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May! That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray.
Camelot
The month of May derives its name from Maia, a nymph in Greco-Roman religion. According to the Homeric Hymns: “Maia bare, the rich-tressed nymph, when she was joined in love with Zeus….And the purpose of great Zeus was fulfilled.”
Springtime is an aphrodisiac.
Now is the month of maying, When merry lads are a playing, Each with his bonny lass Upon the greeny grass.
English Ballad by Thomas Morely (1595)
Ancient May Day festivals are said to have been orgiastic. Young men and women copulated in nature to ritually fertilize the fields (and to biologically fertilize the young women). The maypole is an obvious phallic symbol, a representation of the divine phallus plunged into Mother Earth to fertilize her womb. (It’s sexual symbolism led dour English Puritans to ban it during the Interregnum.)
Beltane was an ancient Gaelic festival which falls between the spring equinox and summer solstice which celebrated fertility. Wiccans and other neopagans mark it as an observance of the sexual union of god and goddess which fecundates nature. One self-proclaimed witch enthuses, “Celebrations include the obvious pleasures of sexual coupling!” Some engage in the “Great Rite in Truth”: the uniting of man and woman in ritual sex.
Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight, Or he would call it a sin; But - we have been out in the woods all night, A-conjuring Summer in!
The vow of chastity for a nun, Elizabeth Abbott notes in A History of Celibacy, was the supreme vow. Especially for those who had entered the convent unwillingly, keeping that vow proved “immensely difficult.” Abbott reports, “Though the majority of nuns likely remained chaste, a significant minority faltered and fell.” Some convents were “hopelessly dissolute.” An English abbess bore twelve children. Cannington in Sommerset was described as a bordello. (One nun in particular enjoyed “feverish sex” with a lecherous chaplain.) “Nuns arranged rendezvous within and without the convent and sometimes shucked off the habit.” Some Anglo-Saxon kings plucked their mistresses from the convents. At the Watton nunnery in Yorkshire in the twelfth century, a young nun was discovered to have seduced a laborer; Aelred of Rievaulx wrote, “She went out a Virgin of Christ, and she soon returned an adulteress.” She also returned pregnant. If anything, conventual misbehavior was even more egregious on the continent. Boccaccio’s tales in The Decameron had some basis in reality. In late 15th century Venice, one friar preached in the basilica that the nunneries “not convents but whorehouses.” Thirty-three convents were prosecuted for enabling fornication with nuns. At the Benedictine Sant’Angelo di Contorta, the nuns engaged in “dissolute deeds” in their cells and birthed illegitimate children. Two abbesses fornicated with both aristocrats and commoners. The pope shut it down in 1474. Benedictine nuns in Milan so egregiously violated their vows that, according to city councilors in 1538, they were nothing more than “lay prostitutes.”
After Vatican II (which coincided with the start of the sexual revolution), over 300,000 nuns renounced their vows. The incapacity to remain chaste undoubtedly explained much of the exodus. (A teaching nun confessed that she knew she had to exit religious life when she started having “dreams and fantasies about my eighth-grade boys.”)
Easter Monday. A respite after a Holy Week crammed with liturgies, practices, and social events. Despite my spiritual struggles, I faithfully served my parish. On Maundy Thursday, the congregation had communally confessed, “We have sinned in thought, word, and deed.” On Sunday, in lieu of Sunday School, we gathered for Easter Breakfast. I struggled to keep my eyes from darting toward the slender blonde MILF in her white dress and envisioning how talented she must be in bed.
I had sinned in thought. Now I would sin in deed.
The prostitute represents the unconscious which enables us to put aside our responsibilities.
Charles Baudelaire
I went online searching for possible encounters. I had seem “Jane’s” ads before. She’s a mature woman who occasionally visits from the Pacific Northwest. On short notice, she would do. I called her directly and was answered by a soft-spoken lady. She was hosting at a motel across the river. We quickly set something up. I hurriedly prepared for our encounter, retrieved the needed “donation,” and battled the rush hour traffic as I made my way across the bridge.
When I finally arrived, she opened the door wearing a long black dress and gave me a hug and a light kiss. Jane had been a teacher for many years; now she was ostensibly devoted to another form of education. An awkward conversation soon gave way to our tongues in each other’s mouths. After I discreetly placed the donation down on the desk she immediately she pressed her huge ass against my cock. She invited me to get comfortable and started undressing me while I stripped off her bra and panties. She played with my erect cock as we embraced. She proceeded with a CBJ.
But I needed a view of that ass.
Jane had quite simply the largest derriere I’ve encountered among the many escorts I’ve visited. I bent her over the bed to marvel at it. All the responsibilities I have at church and in the classroom were set aside. I applied the condom myself before moving behind that bodacious butt and mounting her. I grabbed onto those massive cheeks and just started pumping. The room resounded with the sounds of my pelvis smacking against her ample flesh and her moans.
Take it, I grunted as I started to perspire. Take it. My body strained to penetrate her ever more deeply. Finally I couldn’t hold out any longer. My fingers dug deep into her ass cheeks as I groaned my pleasure.
Was Hooters forced into bankruptcy because it’s no longer sexy enough?
Annie Joy Williams in The Atlantic suggests just that. “Hooters knew how to sell just enough sex to be palatable to people like my Southern Baptist neighbors” in Tennessee, she writes. Conservative churchgoing men could ogle buxom young women under the pretense of ordering chicken wings. The “titillating naughtiness of Hooters,” of “smacking the ass of the woman wearing the tight shorts,” as one academic puts it, was its raison d’etre. Now, according to a former Hooters waitress who decamped to dance at a strip club, the restaurant chain is “just too tame for today’s customers.” In an age of OnlyFans, girls in tight t-shirts and shorts aren’t sexy enough.
One prominent evangelical theologian sees Hooters’ potential demise as an opportunity for evangelization: “The Hooters parking lot down the road might be emptier than it used to be. But will your church’s lot be fuller?”
Without an abundance of female flesh, probably not.
A British historian is researching sexual misbehavior among Presbyterians in Ireland and North America in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Her research “asks what Presbyterian women and men in past centuries got up under the sheets (or, in many cases outside in fields, barns, up against a tree or on the roadside).” She writes:
As a historian of Presbyterian sexuality, I want to assure you all that these Presbyterian folk far from deserve this prudish reputation. A scroll through the records of the Presbyterian church courts brings to light a whole range of naughty goings-on. Stolen trysts in fields and forests; heavy petting and dry-humping on the roadside; misbehaving ministers riding drunk on horseback, seducing the wives of their church members; runaway wives and bigamous husbands; and enough baby-mama drama to rival any soap opera abound in the records.
According to the Westminster Confession, one of the purposes of marriage is the “preventing of Uncleanness.” “Unmarried (and married) persons who engaged in illicit sexual activity were labelled as fornicators and subjected to discipline by Presbyterian church courts.” Discipline generally consisted of a “public rebuke,” in which the offender acknowledged his transgression before the whole congregation and without which the sacraments were withheld. Public shaming served to uphold communal standards of behavior. “Historians of Presbyterianism, in both Ulster and Scotland, have noted that the discipline of sexual misdemeanours accounted for a large proportion of church business.”
A social media feed recounts some of her findings:
Early spring. Days grow longer. Daffodils are already in bloom. Easter approaches. And at a nearby coffee shop, in line in front of me was a cute coed with a long, blond ponytail in yoga pants. My eyes veered downward and admired her tight young ass. Then, as she spun toward a table, I surreptitiously glanced at her crotch.
I had already sinned (cf. Mt 5:28). But I desired to fully consummate it.
Purity culture instructed me that “women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control” (1 Tim 2:9). A few years ago, a prominent Christian blogger announced that she was refusing to wear “lust-inspiring” yoga pants and leggings. The message I received as a young man was, “Don’t think about sex.” But the blonde coed in front of me made it almost impossible to heed that admonition.
Lutheran Guilt 