Profane Love

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 in Witches, 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.

But, unlike Jess, I find the slut so fuckable.

“She had sex”

“Claire” was a member of my youth group in high school. With her brown hair and round bosom, she was easy to notice. I was too shy to speak with her, but she was a faithful presence in youth group until our junior year when she suddenly disappeared. Her absence puzzled me until I heard why she had left the group.

“She had sex,” I heard it whispered.

Claire had tearfully confessed to some of the other girls in youth group that she had sex with her boyfriend. Her mother had discovered evidence of her transgression via a discarded condom wrapper on her bedroom floor and lacy thong panties in her drawer. She forced Claire to publicly confess her sin. Then Claire’s family left the church.

Claire had “fallen.” My young mind was confused as to how she could present a façade of righteousness in church each week while engaging in sexual impurity. For a young Christian girl, sexual transgression cast doubt on the sincerity of her faith and imperiled her salvation. Ye shall know them by their fruits (Mt 7:16). While I expected the provocatively dressed secular girls who attended the public high school to egregiously sin, I hadn’t expected that of a good church girl like Claire. And she was irrevocably tainted. No Godly young man seeking a wife would be attracted to any young women stained by impurity.

I recently thought of Claire and Beth, girls I knew who failed to live up to their pledges of purity. Undoubtedly there were more who had fallen of whom I remain unaware. One assumption, both spoken and unspoken, in the culture I grew up in was that females, by dint of design, had it easier than lascivious males in controlling their sexual urges. Those girls who couldn’t were simply categorized as “sluts.” Despite some maturity on my part, this schema somehow still remains embedded in my erotic imagination, which I’m certain helps account for my Madonna-whore complex.

Lust-Love Split

One of our older female parishioners (as they are wont to do) set me up for a date with “Lauren.” She’s a smart, lively lady in her mid-30s, with curly light brown hair. She arrived at the coffee shop early Sunday evening in a pretty blue dress. We got to know each other in the autumn twilight over pumpkin spice lattes. She currently works as an insurance underwriter, but her background is in historical interpretation. (She was formerly an assistant curator at a prominent historical site.) She spoke of family and her Catholic faith, and I very much enjoyed her company. We agreed to meet again.

While I was a gentleman, I couldn’t help but notice her shapely legs and her moderately-sized but round bosom. Unlike Colleen, there was a certain sensuality about Lauren. My experience with Catholic girls is that they are either frigid prudes or wanton sluts. Lauren doesn’t seem to fit into either category. She’s intriguing.

My hesitancy to form romantic attachments stems from several factors: a preternatural shyness, a profound introversion, a discomfort with emotional intimacy. Another factor is my recognition of my difficulty in practicing sexual fidelity. I continued to visit call girls when I was dating Colleen. Jack Morin wrote of the “lust-love split.” For me, love is alienated from sexual desire. I’ve written about my Madonna-whore complex. The allure of the prostitute, according to one psychoanalyst, is that her sexual assertiveness and availability — her lustfulness — provides a release for those primitive, predatory urges that can perturb a troubled erotic conscience. Sexual attraction for me involves a significant degree of sexual objectification. My sexual relationship with the Deaconess was enabled by the fact that I was able to reduce her to a vehicle of sexual pleasure. Or to put it another way, once she signaled her sexual availability, the Deaconess transferred herself to the other side of the “good girl/bad girl” binary.

The “good girl“ – Virtuous. Saintly. Chaste. The romantic relationships I’ve had have been with good girls. The girls with purity rings who believe that “true love waits.”

The “bad girl“ – The sinner. The femme fatale. The whore. She’s the one who sexually arouses me.

Meanwhile, I await my next date with Lauren.

Object of Desire

Colleen reached out to me over the holidays. We hadn’t seen each other since last spring. It was nice to hear her voice. After meeting for coffee (one of her passions) we tentatively rekindled our relationship. I’m accompanying her to hear Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 this weekend.

Colleen is smart and lovely. She’s a companion for coffee dates and Bible study, for walks in the park and chaste hugs at the end of the night. Yet I find it hard to develop any sort of sexual attraction toward her. Even the vaguest erotic thoughts about her are quickly suppressed. Her commitment to purity negates her as an object of desire. She’s a “good girl” – virtuous, innocent, chaste, virginal. By putting her on a pedestal, I’ve de-eroticized her.

So my gaze wanders to the Whore. The Whore is impure. Debased. Stripped of any pretense to sanctity, the Whore is the one who’ll give me a dirty blowjob on her knees in a dark corner. That fallen “daughter of Eve,” the temptress and seducer who entices me to yield to my corruptibility: “For although the devil tempted Eve, yet Eve seduced Adam” (Malleus Maleficarum, 1484).

My attempts to sublimate my sexual drives have proven unsuccessful. I continue to date “good girls”:

Yet I continue to lust after sluts:

Seeing Colleen only intensifies the dichotomy that defines my sexual life. With Colleen I’m considerate and unfailingly chaste. I can’t even imaging doing anything inappropriate with her. The sinful flesh will not be denied, however. My aspirations for purity are no match for my erotic impulses. Today I made an appointment to visit Betty.

Betty has moved closer to my residence, making our regular rendezvous even more convenient. She met me at her spartan incall apartment wearing a skin-tight black dress that highlighted her ample bosom. I set down the donation, and we made small talk on the couch. Perhaps she sensed I was in an especially amorous mood, for she asked if we would like to get “comfortable” after just a few minutes. Her black dress came off. So did my pants. The condom came on. Soon I was running my fingers through her soft black hair as she orally pleasured me. Then Betty accommodated my request and bent over the bed. I moved behind her and slowly entered her. Through it all, I was conscious of my impending date with Colleen. Guilt over my transgression hovered over me. Yet I confess that it also produced an erotic charge that intensified the pleasure I experienced. As I furiously fucked Betty, I gloried in my shame (cf. Phil 3:19).

Proverbs 7 Woman

I’m meeting “Colleen” for coffee tomorrow evening. Mrs. Swan from the adult Sunday school class I teach set us up. “She’s such a nice girl!” Mrs. Swan enthused. As a single young man in ministry, this isn’t the first time a parishioner has arranged a date for me.

Colleen and I have communicated with each other via e-mail and text. She really does seem like a nice girl. She graduated from a local Christian college and is a child counselor. She’s active in her church. She adores coffee and the works of Tim Keller. She’s, um, not unattractive. Her online blog evidences a genuine spirituality. One of her recurrent themes is a desire to be a “Proverbs 31 woman.”

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Most of the young women I’ve dated fall into this mold. I’m genuinely attracted to that type.

But I can’t seem to resist a “Proverbs 7 woman”:
And behold, a woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot….
“I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.
Come, let us drink our fill of love until morning;
Let us delight ourselves with caresses.” (10, 17-18).

In my experience, dating and sex have generally been separated. Growing up, I somehow was conditioned to distinguish between “good girls” and “bad girls.” Good girls were the ones you accompanied to Bible study, innocently held hands with, and chastely kissed on the cheek at the end of the night. Of course, good girls don’t think about sex. They’re pure and untainted. Bad girls were literally soiled. “Damaged goods.” There’s an OKCupid question that asks: “Could you respect someone you slept with on the first date?” At a certain level, I honestly have to answer, “No.”

But I’d still gladly sleep with her.

In The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti critiques the cultural shibboleth that a young woman’s moral worth is dependent upon whether or not she is sexually active. “Women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs.” “Dirty girls” demonstrate a lack of character by their inability to abstain from sex. “Unable to live up to the ideal of purity…many young women are choosing the hypersexualized alternative that’s offered to them everywhere else as the safer–and more attractive–option.” If you can’t be a virgin, you might as well be a slut.

I couldn’t imagine committing myself to a young woman who wasn’t saving herself for marriage. But good girls seriously devoted to preserving their chastity aren’t fuckable. Since good girls were off limits, I subconsciously channeled my erotic energies toward women who advertised their sexual availability, divorcing sexual expression from romantic affection. Sex was dirty, so dirty girls were the ones you went to for sex.

Prostitute use is exciting not simply because it involves sexual contact with a…‘whore’, but also because this contact represents an act of vengeance against ‘good’ women’s demands for monogamy and sexual restraint.

– Julia O’Connell-Davidson

Mine is a classic case of the Madonna-whore complex. Love and sex are not equivalent. Ideally I’d find a nice girl who loves sex. Yet I can’t seem to even conceptualize that. I date Proverbs 31 women. I fuck the woman from Proverbs 7.

Sex without Love

“Lindsay” is beneath me, our bodies covered in sweat after an extended round of aerobic sex. Her legs are spread as she receives me. My body strains as I approach climax. But before I come, she lets out a shriek, then she cries out:

“Fuck me like you love me! Fuck me like you love me!”

But I couldn’t love her.

Sex and love mean different things for me. I think I have a “Madonna/whore complex.”

Growing up I learned that sex was dirty and should be saved for someone I love. I’ve always been romantically attracted to “good girls.” As Deborah Tollman states, “Good girls are not sexual.” The last young lady I dated was smart, funny and resolutely chaste. I found her physically attractive. I became quite fond of her. Yet I struggled to become sexually attracted to her. Sex for me has become detached from emotional commitment. The “whore” arouses me.

Perhaps the the idea that love and sexual fulfillment fit neatly together is fallacious. Theodore Reik says, “I believe that love and sex are different in origin and nature.” Objectification is inherent in sex. Immanuel Kant posited, “For the natural use that one sex makes of the other’s sexual organs is enjoyment, for which one gives oneself up to the other. In this act a human being makes himself into a thing.” According to Kant, “[S]exuality is not an inclination which one human being has for another as such, but is an inclination for the sex of another. . . . [O]nly her sex is the object of his desires.” When I find myself aroused by a woman’s breasts, buttocks or legs, I’m not attracted to her as a person but as a bundle of sexual stimuli. Philosopher Alan Soble hints at the darkness of sexuality: “The sexual act itself is peculiar, with its uncontrollable arousal, involuntary jerkings, and its yearning to master and consume the other’s body.” Sex, with its intense passions, eviscerates reason and volition, reducing us to subhuman mammals. Kant wrote:

[When] a man wishes to satisfy his desire, and a woman hers, they stimulate each other’s desire; their inclinations meet, but their object is not human nature but sex…. They make of humanity an instrument for the satisfaction of their lusts and inclinations, and dishonour it by placing it on a level with animal nature.

The sheer bestial nature of the sexual act suggests that sex and love aren’t intrinsically linked. Sex can be reduced to a biological instinct designed only to release physical tension. “Most animals do not experience anything like intimacy as they mate,” writes Robert Solomon. Upon reflection, it seems quite odd that the aggressive manner of penetrative sex should signify tenderly affection. Philosopher Russell Vannoy writes, “Indeed, just how does a penis that is vigorously thrusting up and down in a vagina express anything at all, with the possible exception of dominance…?” In his book States of Desire, Edmund White argues, “S&M sex may merely be a more frank expression of the dynamics underlying all sex.” A vigorous session of sex, for me, holds no romantic connotations, unless one thinks hair-pulling and ass-slapping romantic. It satisfies my animalistic passions. In stripping sex of its romantic veneer, we see sex as it really is. “The sexual sophisticate advocates sex without love,” writes Alexander Lowen. That’s why I despise the phrase “making love.” “Fuck,” in its vulgar and obscene way, more truthfully captures the essence of sex.

Moreover, the fact that I am aroused by total strangers, including women I encounter only digitally, would appear to validate the argument that delinks the sexual instinct from committed love. Robert Solomon writes:

The fact that excitement is essential to sexuality explains how it is that many people find danger highly sexual… It allows us to understand one of the most apparent anomalies of our sexual behaviour, the fact that our most satisfying sexual encounters are often with strangers, where there are strong elements of tension, fear, insecurity, guilt, and anticipation. Conversely, sex may be least satisfying with those whom we love and know well and whose habits and reactions are extremely well known to us.

Sex severed from romantic affection may just be hotter. Vannoy’s conclusion is that “on the whole, sex with a humanistic nonlover is far preferable to sex with an erotic lover.”

I have difficulty establishing close relationships with people; I distance myself from others. This certainly colors my perspective. A session with an escort or casual sex with an acquaintance makes few demands on me, allowing me to satisfy my sexual cravings while investing little emotion or affection. Coupling sex and love would summon all those insecurities my lust keeps at bay.

“Where such men love they have no desire, and where they desire they cannot love.”
Sigmund Freud