RELIGION, SEXUAL GUILT, SHAME, AND SEX NEGATIVITY
Today we begin a look at religion and sexuality. In my opinion religion has been a major player in promoting sex negativity throughout the world. Sin, guilt, shame, fear and punishment around sex taught to children stays with them for a lifetime. And the results can be traumatic sometimes leading to mental illness and trips to see sex therapists and other mental health workers some of whom are inadequately prepared to diagnose and treat sexual problems. This topic is so important in promoting sex negativity we will spend the better part of two class sessions on it.
*****************************************************************************
SEX AND GOD: How Religion Distorts Sexuality by Darrel Ray Dd.D. A psychologist very knowledgeable about religion explores it's relationship to sexuality. This book is not kind to the conservative religious community and may be disturbing to those with a strong religious background. Read at your own risk. I recommend it in the interest of academic freedom and the exploration of knowledge for its own sake.
******************************************************************************
Give Me Sex Jesus A feature length movie about how some conservative religions react to human sexual expression. There is a great deal of sex negativity taught by some religions that has long lasting consequenses and, for some, causes great pain and mental suffering. I have a good friend who is a sex therapist whose practice is heavy with patients trying to get rid of sex negative programming placed there when they were very young. These negative teachings have had disastrous effects on her patients sexual expression and marital happiness well into middle age. The mix of religion and sex is still a forbidden topic just beginning to enter the mainstream discussion in a new book titled:
Sex, God, and the Conservative Church: Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy
Schermer Sellers, Tina
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC
Return eligible through Jun 9, 2017
$31.36
The Vimeo link is: https://vimeo.com/137784146
*********************************************************************************
HOMEWORK FOR WEEK 4
I strongly recommend you watch Sex in A Cold Climate, a major documentary exploring sex negativity in the Catholic Church in Ireland. The movie is so critical of the Catholic Church it is still banned in Ireland from public showing today, many years after its introduction on British TV...
If you miss the class the full length video (50 min.) is available by CLICKING ON THIS LINK. DO NOT MISS THIS MOVIE...
******************************************************************************
The Ultra Orthodox Jews also have a very restricted view of human sexual expression as explored in the New York Times article titled THE ORTHODOX SEX GURU. The link is HERE
*******************************************************************************
SECULAR SEXUALITY WITH DARRELL RAY: Ray is the author of Sex and God. An ongoing series of interviews concerning how the religious community interacts with sexual expression. Discussions of religious upbringing and how it affects our sex lives. The link is HERE
********************************************************************************
On RElIGION, SEX, AND SHAME....
THIS LETTER ON SEX AND SHAME APPEARED ON AN E MAIL LIST FOR SEX THERAPISTS:
"""I can not turn the other cheek, not today.
I am constantly saddened at how we, as humans and cultures perpetuate the shame of sexuality. Whether we do it in some strange desire to control our purity, or pathologize it through creating dysfunctions and label addictions for anything we deem too frequent or too atypical. It sickens me that some would have you hate your bodies - your vessel of ecstasy and reproductive wonder. Many send the message that we need external controls on our sexuality because, if left to our own devices we would hole ourselves up in our bedrooms room and watch as our video screens fry from the heat of overuse, or best of all, contract diseases, exploit women or become home wreckers if we fall to the sin of prostitution.
This article in the Huff post actually made me cry. Today, I have had my fill of the distortion of something so manifest, so magnificent, yes, even miraculous as sex - and everything that comes forth out of it. Bonding, lust, pleasure, babies, families, embodiment, self-actualization and yes, love. I am sorry, but I curse those people with never-ending shame of their own.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-dimas/taught-to-be-ashamed-of-my-sexuality_b_6199926.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Thanks for listening, I know some of you will understand. """""
_________
The link to the Huffinton Post article titled I WAS TAUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF MY SEXUALITY is HERE
_____________________________________________
The above letter and article was responded to by very sex positive a Christian minister with these comments:
"I am struck by your real-life examples of those who "don't feel good about their sexuality." Seems to me that their interests in porn, flirting, kink and s/m simply reflect a desire to act outside what they have been led to believe is normative. Evidently then to want to explore sexually embracing sexual diversity outside of a heteronormative or refusing a bland vanilla-type (or is it tapioca?) sex life means they must assume a label of "sexual addiction" to justify their natural curiosity and personal interests. How sad! Then again, those who never have the courage to try on new behaviors while avoiding the label of addiction may instead suffer from shear boredom! Until we as a culture can get people to embrace sexual diversity as a given and something to celebrate, (regardless of what their religion may teach or their partner allow,) we will continue to have people repressing aspects of their sexuality and being pretty unhappy. For those who seek novelty or a change or simply want to be a sexual adventurer, we need professionals reassuring them this is all pretty normal!"
******************************************************************************
The link to the Huffinton Post article titled I WAS TAUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF MY SEXUALITY is HERE
_____________________________________________
The above letter and article was responded to by very sex positive a Christian minister with these comments:
"I am struck by your real-life examples of those who "don't feel good about their sexuality." Seems to me that their interests in porn, flirting, kink and s/m simply reflect a desire to act outside what they have been led to believe is normative. Evidently then to want to explore sexually embracing sexual diversity outside of a heteronormative or refusing a bland vanilla-type (or is it tapioca?) sex life means they must assume a label of "sexual addiction" to justify their natural curiosity and personal interests. How sad! Then again, those who never have the courage to try on new behaviors while avoiding the label of addiction may instead suffer from shear boredom! Until we as a culture can get people to embrace sexual diversity as a given and something to celebrate, (regardless of what their religion may teach or their partner allow,) we will continue to have people repressing aspects of their sexuality and being pretty unhappy. For those who seek novelty or a change or simply want to be a sexual adventurer, we need professionals reassuring them this is all pretty normal!"
******************************************************************************
TEN THINGS A HUMANIST NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT SEX (video)
A lecture on human sexuality by Dr. Marty Klein, one of the foremost sex educators, sex therapists, and family/marriage counselors in the US today. He gives a general review of human sexuality covering a wide range of topics with an informal and humorous presentation style. He can do it much better than I.(ABOUT 50 MINUTES) THE LINK IS HERE
****************************************************************************
A lecture on human sexuality by Dr. Marty Klein, one of the foremost sex educators, sex therapists, and family/marriage counselors in the US today. He gives a general review of human sexuality covering a wide range of topics with an informal and humorous presentation style. He can do it much better than I.(ABOUT 50 MINUTES) THE LINK IS HERE
****************************************************************************
Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality
Here is a very significant essay by Gayle Rubin, an academic cultural anthropologist, on human sexuality. It is required reading for graduate students working on degrees in sex education and sex therapy. This is a major academic paper on societies take on sexual diversity and explores social restrictions on sexual expression. It is not easy reading but has some profound thinking on sexual diversity. Give it a try and you will be transported back to your college days when you had to read something that is really challenging. Drink a cup of coffee first as you will need all of your faculties to understand it. Read slowly. DO NOT SKIM!
Gayle S. Rubin Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality http://www.feminish.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Rubin1984.pdf
******************************************************************************
Here is a very significant essay by Gayle Rubin, an academic cultural anthropologist, on human sexuality. It is required reading for graduate students working on degrees in sex education and sex therapy. This is a major academic paper on societies take on sexual diversity and explores social restrictions on sexual expression. It is not easy reading but has some profound thinking on sexual diversity. Give it a try and you will be transported back to your college days when you had to read something that is really challenging. Drink a cup of coffee first as you will need all of your faculties to understand it. Read slowly. DO NOT SKIM!
Gayle S. Rubin Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality http://www.feminish.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Rubin1984.pdf
******************************************************************************
VISIT THE WORK OF DR. MARTY KLEIN, ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST ENTERTAINING SEX EDUCATORS AS WELL AS A SUCCESSFUL SEX THERAPIST. ESPECIALLY READ HIS MANY BLOGS UNDER THE TITLE OF "SEXUAL INTELLIGENCE". THE LINK IS HERE.
*****************************************************************************
And here are a couple of essays by Marty Klein on sex and religion (Sexual Intelligence, Aug 2013)
Each month, Sexual Intelligence® examines the sexual implications of current events, politics, technology, popular culture, and the media.
Dr. Marty Klein is a Certified Sex Therapist and sociologist with a special interest in public policy and sexuality. He has written 6 books and 100 articles. Each year he trains thousands of professionals in North America and abroad in clinical skills, human sexuality, and policy issues.
Issue #162 – August, 2013
Contents
Young People Diss First Amendment; Porn Arrests Continue Back to top
Since 1997, the First Amendment Center has supported an annual survey of American attitudes about the First Amendment.
Can you name the five rights guaranteed by the first amendment? (See below *) Only 2/3 of Americans can name one. After freedom of speech, familiarity with the First Amendment (FA) drops dramatically. Over 1/3 of Americans can't name any of the rights it guarantees.
On the positive side, almost 2/3 of Americans say the FA does not go too far in protecting freedom. But 1/3 say it does. Perhaps most disappointingly (and dangerously), half of 18-30-year-olds agree that the FA goes too far in the rights it guarantees. African-Americans and Hispanics are equally dubious—1/2 of each group say it goes too far in its protections.
And yet 3/4 of 18-30 year-olds say musicians should be allowed to sing "offensive lyrics."
One wonders if these young people, Blacks, and Hispanics understand exactly what the FA protects. You want to criticize your Congressmember? It protects you. You want to worship rabbits, the sun, or Rush Limbaugh? It protects you. You want newspapers, websites, and TV to be able to investigate and report the news? The FA guarantees this right. You want to get a few dozen of your neighbors together and march to City Hall to protest the George Zimmerman verdict? You can.
You want your favorite musician to be allowed to sing "offensive lyrics," right? In Russia, the members of Pussy Riot will be in jail until they're sick and forgotten.
People who say the FA goes too far in protecting our rights presumably mean other people's rights. I've never heard someone say "I shouldn't be allowed to worship my own oddball religion," or "My songs are so radical I shouldn't be allowed to sing them in the park."
I'm in no way a conspiracy theorist (after all, never attribute to evil what can be explained by stupidity). But surely our government doesn't mind that half of our young people and largest ethnic minorities don't understand just how far their rights are protected—and why it's so absolutely essential that they are.
Speaking of which, do people who diss the FA understand that without it, their porn is gone? Their video games are gone, their Daily Show is gone, even their tattoos are in danger? And did I mention their porn is gone? And that without the FA, Mormonism could easily be outlawed, and evangelical Christians could be zoned out of building churches? And did I mention that porn would be gone?
Speaking of porn, yet another poor clerk was arrested May 7 for selling porn DVDs in a Florida convenience store. Fortunately, Minakashiben Patel was able to get pro bono representation from super attorney Larry Walters, who reminded Polk County, Florida of that First Amendment that 60 million Americans think protects us way too much.
Still, the state only agreed to drop the case if Ms. Patel "donated" $2,000 to the Drug Abuse Prevention Fund. And even then, she won't get back the DVDs seized by police, another financial burden. In fact, attorney Walters couldn't even learn the titles of the confiscated movies, because they're treated as contraband.
Sheriff Grady Judd's stated goal is to eliminate pornography from Polk County. One day he will die. But there will always be another generation of Sheriff Judds to replace him. That's why we'll always need another generation of attorneys like Larry Walters, and another generation that can name, and support, the extraordinary protections of the First Amendment.
[* Freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition the government, and freedom of speech.]<
Sex: Skeptics Say "Who's In Charge Here, Anyway?" Back to top
I just returned from TAM, an annual gathering of about 1400 skeptics hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation.
There were scientists, philosophers, environmentalists, computer geeks—in all, an intelligent, fun-loving crowd that takes reason seriously.
And so there were a lot of atheists. And a lot of t-shirts: the Jesus fish roasting on a grill of science. "We are all Africans." "Facts do not cease to exist because they're ignored." "Praise bacon."
I spoke on "Junk Science, Moral Panics and Sex," and was received warmly. In fact, during the course of the weekend I was approached by dozens of people variously thanking me, revealing their non-traditional sexual arrangements, or sharing their stories.
Many of those stories were about religion and its impact on their sexuality while growing up. There were tales of guilt, shame, Biblical warnings, and more guilt. By now, everyone's heard one of these stories: "When I was a kid I was told that God hated my sexual feelings, thoughts, or desires. I learned to hate or fear my sexual impulses. I was sure everyone could tell that I masturbated or had bad impulses." Etc.
I don't trivialize the power of these early injunctions; as a therapist, I clean up their debris every week. But there's another way in which religion undermines our sexuality: by stealing our sense of agency—about life in general, but particularly about sex.
For millennia, religion has colonized sexuality. Religion dictates who is eligible for sex, under what conditions, which activities, and which parts of the body in which combinations. It doesn't matter what the rules are; what matters is that there are rules.
Whether forbidding oral sex, forbidding intercourse during menstruation, forbidding sex between unmarried people, the dynamic is always the same. Believers are stripped of ownership of their bodies and their sexuality.
Sexuality is religion's worst nightmare, because it offers the possibility of personal autonomy. Anyone can be sexual—rich or poor, old or young, tall or short, educated or not. So religion attempts to seize sex as its own domain. Religion says that sexuality is about "morality" (rather than, say, science, art, friendship, conflict resolution, or even ethics). And religion claims a monopoly on morality: "Who would be good if they weren't afraid of going to hell?" they cynically question, reducing all people to the moral level of three-year-olds.
So religion says "sex is our domain." And since religion's idea of sexual "morality" is primarily about limiting sexual expression (rather than ethical or rational decision-making), religion's ideas about sex center on 'don't do this, don't do that.'
Again, the worst of it isn't the content of these limitations. It's the very idea that some external institution, thousands of years old, gets to enforce some arbitrary and meaningless list of behaviors that you can't do. Religion treats every believer like a child who's too greedy, selfish, ignorant, or violent to make rational, collaborative sexual decisions.
My patients from religious backgrounds, 40 years after their childhoods, still have trouble knowing what sexual behaviors they like, and feeling they have the right to choose sexual activities simply based on personal preference. Many couples are paralyzed by religious injunctions preventing them from cooperating or even talking about eroticism.
When it comes to sex, religion says Thou Shalt Not…think, consider, empathize, or decide. Just follow the rules.
As one t-shirt at TAM says, "Religion—together we can find a cure." Back to top
****************************************************************************
AN ESSAY BY A SEX POSITIVE CHRISTIAN MINISTER
At War With Pleasure by Beverly Dale An essay in Progressive Christian magazine by a Christian minister on pleasure, sex, and violence. Your attention is directed especially to the section of VIOLENCE and its relation to repressed sexuality with reference to the work of Prescott. This work BTW, cost Prescott his job and his career....
Embrace Our Bodies to Lay Down Our Arms
Many people assume that the best way to protect a nation is to have a strong defense and the latest military technology regardless of the cost. Some people think killing the enemy or conquering a nation
with dangerous leadership is a necessary solution either to end conflict or to bring peace.
In fact, the United States of America has so frequently engaged in warmongering that as citizens, we have become comfortable with two concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, playing war games of intimidation off the coast of Korea, leading forces against Libya and hosting 856 military bases over the planet. 1
As a feminist clergy I have studied violence in the context of sexuality and our views of our bodies, but especially women's bodies and sexuality in Christianity. After decades of research, I am convinced that our society's warped view of bodily pleasure, supported by the repressive teachings of the Church, have turned us into the bloody warmongering state we have become.
For example, what about our cultural passivity toward violence as entertainment, whether it occurs in the video games for children or on big movie screens? We allow explicit and bloody violence for children's consumption in media, but we censor nude bodies and sexual contact. What keeps us from defining violence as pornography?
The price we pay for violence We seldom consider the price we pay with our own
humanity when we embrace violence and yield to warmongering tactics to bully friends and foes alike As one veteran wrote, "The experience of killing your fellow human beings-whether innocent civilians or enemy combatants-fundamentally changes how you see yourself. War makes you doubt your own goodness; life itself seems cheap and meaningless."2 When we fail to consider what violence does to us as individuals and as a society we have clearly dismissed the warnings about the military industrial complex from former President Dwight Eisenhower, himself a general during World War II.'
Although many in the Church say the violence of war is unavoidable, it is instructive to heed the advice of the last remaining WWI veteran Harry Patch, who said of his war
experience, "At the end, the peace was settled round a table, so why the hell couldn't they do that at the start without losing millions of men?"4 And the war-weary statesman, Winston Churchill, during WWII said, "It is better to talk, talk, talk than to war, war, war."
But despite such warnings, the Church in the United States exists in a militarized country that embraces spending $135 billion on weapons programs' even as those in power seek to cut pensions for the aged, welfare for the poor, and benefits to immigrants, documented or not. Declaring ourselves to be the world's policeman, this nation consumed 45 percent of the entire world's military spending between 2004 and 2007. Why do we as a society embrace violence and engage in war when we have been repeatedly warned against it, and when it is clearly not rational?
The answer may lie in our evolutionary heritage.
War was not always the answer Though researchers cannot be sure when we changed our
minds, anthropologists think that H. sapiens has not always chosen war to settle conflicts. Christopher Ryan, Ph.D., and Cacilda Jetha, M.D., are evolutionary psychologists who recently published the New York Times best-seller Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (New York, Harper, 2010). Ryan and Jetha propose that the shift to embrace violence appears to be related to our movement from being a forager species to an agrarian one." Apparently the human species went from peace-loving to violence-prone, from being sexually free and egalitarian to sexually repressive and hierarchical, from female- empowered leadership to male-led domineering societies when we claimed land for individuals instead of sharing it in communities. Even today, in the few remaining forager societies with sufficient resources, people tend to work only half a day and spend the remainder of time in social and pleasurable activities in peaceful, small egalitarian communities.
In addition, two primate species, bonobos and chimps
(when freely studied in the forest, not studied where humans disrupt their food sharing patterns), both live as sexually free and female-led in small, peaceful communities using sexual pleasure and cooperation as incentives. These primates share 97 percent of our DNA.
Thus it appears from separate studies of current forager societies and of our primate cousins that the biblical vision of a Garden of Eden still exists. In other words, somewhere along our developmental path, human beings chose war and violence instead of shared pleasure.
Violence linked to sexual repression
According to the research of Dr. James W Prescott, the choice for violence and warmongering is directly related to societal aversion to pleasure and the level of abhorrence of uninhibited sexual expression. 7 Prescott's study of the world's societies' views toward sexuality and their correlated level of violence shows that violence is intimately related to sexual repression. He suggests that violence may stem from deprivation of somatosensory pleasure either in infancy or in adolescence, but that the adolescent experience of repression outweighs and obviates the infant's pleasurable experience. Prescott writes, "Physically affectionate human societies are highly unlikely to be physically violent." In fact, there's a 25,000-to-1 probability that violence declines in societies that value physical affection to infants and tolerance of premarital sex.
The links between feminine sexuality, female leadership, and non-violence are further supported by the work of archeological anthropologist Maria Gimbutas in The Language of the Goddess (New York, Thames & Hudson 2001)x and by historian Riane Eisler in The Chalice and the Blade (San Francisco, HarperOne, 1988).9 Their research and that from a variety of other disciplines challenges our notions of the inevitability of violence. These studies also propose an intertwining connection of increased violence with repressed or denied sexuality and pleasure.
biological drive for physical pleasure explains in part why the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists were given the prospect of an afterlife with access to multiple female virgins for sexual relations. It may also explain why at least one of them went to a strip club the night before his suicidal deed; his impending act of martyrdom entitled him to enjoy women as sex objects.
The research underscores the tendency for male soldiers in times of war to be tempted to rape as they pillage and why rape is now a preferred weapon of intimidation in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. It explains why a female U.S. soldier stands a greater chance of being sexually assaulted by her own colleagues than by enemies or civilians. According to the Pentagon, there was a 9 percent increase in sexual assaults among the military in 2008, but a 25 percent increase for those military women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. 10 The columnist Chalmers Johnson writes, "The U.S Military has created a worldwide sexual playground for its personnel and protected them to a large extent from the consequences of their behavior." 11
However, Military Sexual Trauma (MST) is nothing new for the citizenry. As Johnson notes, low-income Japanese woman living near the U.S. military base in Okinawa have endured an average of 350 sexual aggressions annually by U.S. soldiers throughout the 64 years of the base's existence.
Domestic abuse tied to lack of pleasure
This intimate interconnection between violence and sexuality is born out in the microcosm of the family that experiences child abuse. Research has shown that those who abuse their children are themselves sensually or sexually pleasure- deprived. The idea is that without pleasure and sexual expression of some form in our lives we will turn aggressive. 12 At a more mundane level we already know we link sex and aggression by accepting and perpetuating the idea that members of athletic sport teams should forgo sex before gamesY So the research seems clear: sexual repression easily leads
society with a focus on sexual plentitude with fewer restrictions on pleasure is less violent. In other words, it appears that the slogan "Make love, not war" of the sexual revolution was absolutely on target.
In fact, laboratory research shows that with animals the presence of pleasure actually inhibits the violence centers of the brain. According to Prescott, when the brain's pleasure circuits are "on" then the violence circuits are "off;' and vice versa. Among animals, he writes, "a pleasure- prone personality rarely displays violence or aggressive behaviors, and a violent personality has little ability to tolerate, experience, or enjoy sensuously pleasing activities." 1"
This scientific research poses a major challenge for religion being used to justify sexual repression. If a religion views pleasure as the suspected first step on a downhill slide into sinful hedonism, it can easily justify sexual repression and be more likely to condone violence. This may well explain why evangelical American believers are most adamant about preventing sexual activity among young adults by trying to limit access to contraception and science-based sex information at the same time they favor the death penalty and to support war. Pastors who condemn sexual expression in their sermons should not be surprised to find their parishioners also support violent public policies. 15
Research also makes it clear that warmongering itself is a sign of the perversion of passion into violence. It is important to remember that when this happens "the claustrophobic fusions of abuse and oppression can be mistaken for love and intimacy," according to Christian theologian Rita Nakashima Brock.16 She notes that "violence forms an intense emotional bond" and this can seriously damage or destroy capacities for healthy intimacy. As the New York Times documented, Iraqi war veterans returning with PTSD, diagnosed or not, continued their violent behavior and chose perhaps
for a variety of reasons to murder those closest to them: parents, wives, children and fellow soldiers. 17
Brock reminds us that just as This deep-seated yet thwarted to an embrace of violence, whereas a membranes hold together the body,
social "membranes" hold a community together. These membranes can become ruptured and toxic to others. From a faith perspective, she writes that, "violence damages the human soul-the complex thinking, feeling, inspirited, embodied self each of us struggles to integrate, to make whole." Rather than glorifying warmongering or soldiers trapped in a toxic culture of violence, we would do well as people of faith to remember that a leaning toward violence emerges from instincts that "arise from violated membranes, from broken selves," Brock writes. From a Christian perspective, this is clearly not the world of mutual love and justice that Jesus taught and that God intends.
The way to a less violent world
If we want a less violent world we have to commit to embracing sexual and sensual pleasures as being important as eating and drinking. We must focus on building an egalitarian society and dismantle the status hierarchies and income inequalities preventing us from the vision of a compassionate community where all have enough to fill their needs.
Proverbs 29:18 teaches, "Without a vision, the people perish." The vision can get sullied since all major faith traditions have holy writ that can be used to justify violence and control of women or other "sexual deviants." 1B However, each faith tradition also has sacred teachings that affirm peacemaking, harmonious egalitarian relationships, and appreciation for the gifts of pleasure and responsible sexuality. People of faith share a vision of one humanity living in many peace-filled communities.
Taking the research on primates or on forager societies as insightful clues and our sacred peacemaking traditions as our mandate, we must be willing to share resources with one another to create small communities of abundance and embrace pleasure, forsaking all efforts toward sexual repression. We must recognize the interrelationships of these social membranes that hold us together. In doing so, like the bonobos and our ancestors, we will begin to value pleasure over conflict, egalitarian sharing
over competition, and peacemaking over warmongering. We will be about the business of turning swords into plowshares as envisioned by the prophet Isaiah. It is a choice we can and must make happen. Anything less will be the genocide of our species. ll'il
NOTES
1 Danes, Anita, "The Cost of the Global U.S Military Presence," published July 3, 2009 by FPIF, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.
2 Meehan, Shannon P., "Distant Wars, Constant Ghosts," New York Times, March 5, 2010
? Eisenhower, Dwight D, Military Industrial Complex speech 1961 http//www h-net. org/ -h st306/ docu ments/i nd ust. htm I.
' 3 Lovgren, Stefan, "Sex and Sports: Should Athletes Abstain Before Big Events7" National Geographic News, Feb. 22, 2006.
,. Ibid. Prescott, 1975.
l i Zylstra, Sarah Eekhoff "Capital Doubts," Christianity Today, Feb. 19, 2008.
16 Brock, Rita Nakashima, "Whither Ecumenism7 A Theology for Ecumenism Beyond Violence," Mid-Stream, The Ecumenical Movement Today, Volume 41, Number 1, January 2002.
Sontag, Deborah and Lizette Alvarez, "War Torn," New York Times, Jan 13, 2008.
Ternan, Oliver, Violence in the Name of God, Religion in an Age of Conflict (Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2003)
Ryan, Christopher and Cacilda Jethci, Sex at Dawn. The Prehistoric Origins o f Modern Sexuality (New York, Harper Collins, 201 D)
Prescott, James W, "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1975, p 10-20. www.violence.de/ (A classic paper on the connection between sex and violence)
Gimbutas, Marija and Joseph Campbell, The Language of the Goddess (New York, Thames & Hudson, 2001 ).
Eisler, Riane, The Chalice and the Blade, (San Francisco, HarperOne, 1988)
Herbert, Bob, "The Great Shame," New York Times. March 20, 2009.
Johnson, Chalmers, "Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire and Ten Steps to Take to Do So," www.tomdispatch.com, July 30, 2009.
Prescott, James, "Child Abuse Slaughter of the Innocents," Hustler, October 1977.
*****************************************************************************
And here are a couple of essays by Marty Klein on sex and religion (Sexual Intelligence, Aug 2013)
Each month, Sexual Intelligence® examines the sexual implications of current events, politics, technology, popular culture, and the media.
Dr. Marty Klein is a Certified Sex Therapist and sociologist with a special interest in public policy and sexuality. He has written 6 books and 100 articles. Each year he trains thousands of professionals in North America and abroad in clinical skills, human sexuality, and policy issues.
Issue #162 – August, 2013
Contents
- Young People Diss First Amendment; Porn Arrests Continue
- Sex: Skeptics Say "Who's In Charge Here, Anyway?" An essay on RELIGION and sexuality.
- Virginia Attorney General Wants to Criminalize Oral Sex (DELETED)
Young People Diss First Amendment; Porn Arrests Continue Back to top
Since 1997, the First Amendment Center has supported an annual survey of American attitudes about the First Amendment.
Can you name the five rights guaranteed by the first amendment? (See below *) Only 2/3 of Americans can name one. After freedom of speech, familiarity with the First Amendment (FA) drops dramatically. Over 1/3 of Americans can't name any of the rights it guarantees.
On the positive side, almost 2/3 of Americans say the FA does not go too far in protecting freedom. But 1/3 say it does. Perhaps most disappointingly (and dangerously), half of 18-30-year-olds agree that the FA goes too far in the rights it guarantees. African-Americans and Hispanics are equally dubious—1/2 of each group say it goes too far in its protections.
And yet 3/4 of 18-30 year-olds say musicians should be allowed to sing "offensive lyrics."
One wonders if these young people, Blacks, and Hispanics understand exactly what the FA protects. You want to criticize your Congressmember? It protects you. You want to worship rabbits, the sun, or Rush Limbaugh? It protects you. You want newspapers, websites, and TV to be able to investigate and report the news? The FA guarantees this right. You want to get a few dozen of your neighbors together and march to City Hall to protest the George Zimmerman verdict? You can.
You want your favorite musician to be allowed to sing "offensive lyrics," right? In Russia, the members of Pussy Riot will be in jail until they're sick and forgotten.
People who say the FA goes too far in protecting our rights presumably mean other people's rights. I've never heard someone say "I shouldn't be allowed to worship my own oddball religion," or "My songs are so radical I shouldn't be allowed to sing them in the park."
I'm in no way a conspiracy theorist (after all, never attribute to evil what can be explained by stupidity). But surely our government doesn't mind that half of our young people and largest ethnic minorities don't understand just how far their rights are protected—and why it's so absolutely essential that they are.
Speaking of which, do people who diss the FA understand that without it, their porn is gone? Their video games are gone, their Daily Show is gone, even their tattoos are in danger? And did I mention their porn is gone? And that without the FA, Mormonism could easily be outlawed, and evangelical Christians could be zoned out of building churches? And did I mention that porn would be gone?
Speaking of porn, yet another poor clerk was arrested May 7 for selling porn DVDs in a Florida convenience store. Fortunately, Minakashiben Patel was able to get pro bono representation from super attorney Larry Walters, who reminded Polk County, Florida of that First Amendment that 60 million Americans think protects us way too much.
Still, the state only agreed to drop the case if Ms. Patel "donated" $2,000 to the Drug Abuse Prevention Fund. And even then, she won't get back the DVDs seized by police, another financial burden. In fact, attorney Walters couldn't even learn the titles of the confiscated movies, because they're treated as contraband.
Sheriff Grady Judd's stated goal is to eliminate pornography from Polk County. One day he will die. But there will always be another generation of Sheriff Judds to replace him. That's why we'll always need another generation of attorneys like Larry Walters, and another generation that can name, and support, the extraordinary protections of the First Amendment.
[* Freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition the government, and freedom of speech.]<
Sex: Skeptics Say "Who's In Charge Here, Anyway?" Back to top
I just returned from TAM, an annual gathering of about 1400 skeptics hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation.
There were scientists, philosophers, environmentalists, computer geeks—in all, an intelligent, fun-loving crowd that takes reason seriously.
And so there were a lot of atheists. And a lot of t-shirts: the Jesus fish roasting on a grill of science. "We are all Africans." "Facts do not cease to exist because they're ignored." "Praise bacon."
I spoke on "Junk Science, Moral Panics and Sex," and was received warmly. In fact, during the course of the weekend I was approached by dozens of people variously thanking me, revealing their non-traditional sexual arrangements, or sharing their stories.
Many of those stories were about religion and its impact on their sexuality while growing up. There were tales of guilt, shame, Biblical warnings, and more guilt. By now, everyone's heard one of these stories: "When I was a kid I was told that God hated my sexual feelings, thoughts, or desires. I learned to hate or fear my sexual impulses. I was sure everyone could tell that I masturbated or had bad impulses." Etc.
I don't trivialize the power of these early injunctions; as a therapist, I clean up their debris every week. But there's another way in which religion undermines our sexuality: by stealing our sense of agency—about life in general, but particularly about sex.
For millennia, religion has colonized sexuality. Religion dictates who is eligible for sex, under what conditions, which activities, and which parts of the body in which combinations. It doesn't matter what the rules are; what matters is that there are rules.
Whether forbidding oral sex, forbidding intercourse during menstruation, forbidding sex between unmarried people, the dynamic is always the same. Believers are stripped of ownership of their bodies and their sexuality.
Sexuality is religion's worst nightmare, because it offers the possibility of personal autonomy. Anyone can be sexual—rich or poor, old or young, tall or short, educated or not. So religion attempts to seize sex as its own domain. Religion says that sexuality is about "morality" (rather than, say, science, art, friendship, conflict resolution, or even ethics). And religion claims a monopoly on morality: "Who would be good if they weren't afraid of going to hell?" they cynically question, reducing all people to the moral level of three-year-olds.
So religion says "sex is our domain." And since religion's idea of sexual "morality" is primarily about limiting sexual expression (rather than ethical or rational decision-making), religion's ideas about sex center on 'don't do this, don't do that.'
Again, the worst of it isn't the content of these limitations. It's the very idea that some external institution, thousands of years old, gets to enforce some arbitrary and meaningless list of behaviors that you can't do. Religion treats every believer like a child who's too greedy, selfish, ignorant, or violent to make rational, collaborative sexual decisions.
My patients from religious backgrounds, 40 years after their childhoods, still have trouble knowing what sexual behaviors they like, and feeling they have the right to choose sexual activities simply based on personal preference. Many couples are paralyzed by religious injunctions preventing them from cooperating or even talking about eroticism.
When it comes to sex, religion says Thou Shalt Not…think, consider, empathize, or decide. Just follow the rules.
As one t-shirt at TAM says, "Religion—together we can find a cure." Back to top
****************************************************************************
AN ESSAY BY A SEX POSITIVE CHRISTIAN MINISTER
At War With Pleasure by Beverly Dale An essay in Progressive Christian magazine by a Christian minister on pleasure, sex, and violence. Your attention is directed especially to the section of VIOLENCE and its relation to repressed sexuality with reference to the work of Prescott. This work BTW, cost Prescott his job and his career....
Embrace Our Bodies to Lay Down Our Arms
Many people assume that the best way to protect a nation is to have a strong defense and the latest military technology regardless of the cost. Some people think killing the enemy or conquering a nation
with dangerous leadership is a necessary solution either to end conflict or to bring peace.
In fact, the United States of America has so frequently engaged in warmongering that as citizens, we have become comfortable with two concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, playing war games of intimidation off the coast of Korea, leading forces against Libya and hosting 856 military bases over the planet. 1
As a feminist clergy I have studied violence in the context of sexuality and our views of our bodies, but especially women's bodies and sexuality in Christianity. After decades of research, I am convinced that our society's warped view of bodily pleasure, supported by the repressive teachings of the Church, have turned us into the bloody warmongering state we have become.
For example, what about our cultural passivity toward violence as entertainment, whether it occurs in the video games for children or on big movie screens? We allow explicit and bloody violence for children's consumption in media, but we censor nude bodies and sexual contact. What keeps us from defining violence as pornography?
The price we pay for violence We seldom consider the price we pay with our own
humanity when we embrace violence and yield to warmongering tactics to bully friends and foes alike As one veteran wrote, "The experience of killing your fellow human beings-whether innocent civilians or enemy combatants-fundamentally changes how you see yourself. War makes you doubt your own goodness; life itself seems cheap and meaningless."2 When we fail to consider what violence does to us as individuals and as a society we have clearly dismissed the warnings about the military industrial complex from former President Dwight Eisenhower, himself a general during World War II.'
Although many in the Church say the violence of war is unavoidable, it is instructive to heed the advice of the last remaining WWI veteran Harry Patch, who said of his war
experience, "At the end, the peace was settled round a table, so why the hell couldn't they do that at the start without losing millions of men?"4 And the war-weary statesman, Winston Churchill, during WWII said, "It is better to talk, talk, talk than to war, war, war."
But despite such warnings, the Church in the United States exists in a militarized country that embraces spending $135 billion on weapons programs' even as those in power seek to cut pensions for the aged, welfare for the poor, and benefits to immigrants, documented or not. Declaring ourselves to be the world's policeman, this nation consumed 45 percent of the entire world's military spending between 2004 and 2007. Why do we as a society embrace violence and engage in war when we have been repeatedly warned against it, and when it is clearly not rational?
The answer may lie in our evolutionary heritage.
War was not always the answer Though researchers cannot be sure when we changed our
minds, anthropologists think that H. sapiens has not always chosen war to settle conflicts. Christopher Ryan, Ph.D., and Cacilda Jetha, M.D., are evolutionary psychologists who recently published the New York Times best-seller Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (New York, Harper, 2010). Ryan and Jetha propose that the shift to embrace violence appears to be related to our movement from being a forager species to an agrarian one." Apparently the human species went from peace-loving to violence-prone, from being sexually free and egalitarian to sexually repressive and hierarchical, from female- empowered leadership to male-led domineering societies when we claimed land for individuals instead of sharing it in communities. Even today, in the few remaining forager societies with sufficient resources, people tend to work only half a day and spend the remainder of time in social and pleasurable activities in peaceful, small egalitarian communities.
In addition, two primate species, bonobos and chimps
(when freely studied in the forest, not studied where humans disrupt their food sharing patterns), both live as sexually free and female-led in small, peaceful communities using sexual pleasure and cooperation as incentives. These primates share 97 percent of our DNA.
Thus it appears from separate studies of current forager societies and of our primate cousins that the biblical vision of a Garden of Eden still exists. In other words, somewhere along our developmental path, human beings chose war and violence instead of shared pleasure.
Violence linked to sexual repression
According to the research of Dr. James W Prescott, the choice for violence and warmongering is directly related to societal aversion to pleasure and the level of abhorrence of uninhibited sexual expression. 7 Prescott's study of the world's societies' views toward sexuality and their correlated level of violence shows that violence is intimately related to sexual repression. He suggests that violence may stem from deprivation of somatosensory pleasure either in infancy or in adolescence, but that the adolescent experience of repression outweighs and obviates the infant's pleasurable experience. Prescott writes, "Physically affectionate human societies are highly unlikely to be physically violent." In fact, there's a 25,000-to-1 probability that violence declines in societies that value physical affection to infants and tolerance of premarital sex.
The links between feminine sexuality, female leadership, and non-violence are further supported by the work of archeological anthropologist Maria Gimbutas in The Language of the Goddess (New York, Thames & Hudson 2001)x and by historian Riane Eisler in The Chalice and the Blade (San Francisco, HarperOne, 1988).9 Their research and that from a variety of other disciplines challenges our notions of the inevitability of violence. These studies also propose an intertwining connection of increased violence with repressed or denied sexuality and pleasure.
biological drive for physical pleasure explains in part why the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists were given the prospect of an afterlife with access to multiple female virgins for sexual relations. It may also explain why at least one of them went to a strip club the night before his suicidal deed; his impending act of martyrdom entitled him to enjoy women as sex objects.
The research underscores the tendency for male soldiers in times of war to be tempted to rape as they pillage and why rape is now a preferred weapon of intimidation in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. It explains why a female U.S. soldier stands a greater chance of being sexually assaulted by her own colleagues than by enemies or civilians. According to the Pentagon, there was a 9 percent increase in sexual assaults among the military in 2008, but a 25 percent increase for those military women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. 10 The columnist Chalmers Johnson writes, "The U.S Military has created a worldwide sexual playground for its personnel and protected them to a large extent from the consequences of their behavior." 11
However, Military Sexual Trauma (MST) is nothing new for the citizenry. As Johnson notes, low-income Japanese woman living near the U.S. military base in Okinawa have endured an average of 350 sexual aggressions annually by U.S. soldiers throughout the 64 years of the base's existence.
Domestic abuse tied to lack of pleasure
This intimate interconnection between violence and sexuality is born out in the microcosm of the family that experiences child abuse. Research has shown that those who abuse their children are themselves sensually or sexually pleasure- deprived. The idea is that without pleasure and sexual expression of some form in our lives we will turn aggressive. 12 At a more mundane level we already know we link sex and aggression by accepting and perpetuating the idea that members of athletic sport teams should forgo sex before gamesY So the research seems clear: sexual repression easily leads
society with a focus on sexual plentitude with fewer restrictions on pleasure is less violent. In other words, it appears that the slogan "Make love, not war" of the sexual revolution was absolutely on target.
In fact, laboratory research shows that with animals the presence of pleasure actually inhibits the violence centers of the brain. According to Prescott, when the brain's pleasure circuits are "on" then the violence circuits are "off;' and vice versa. Among animals, he writes, "a pleasure- prone personality rarely displays violence or aggressive behaviors, and a violent personality has little ability to tolerate, experience, or enjoy sensuously pleasing activities." 1"
This scientific research poses a major challenge for religion being used to justify sexual repression. If a religion views pleasure as the suspected first step on a downhill slide into sinful hedonism, it can easily justify sexual repression and be more likely to condone violence. This may well explain why evangelical American believers are most adamant about preventing sexual activity among young adults by trying to limit access to contraception and science-based sex information at the same time they favor the death penalty and to support war. Pastors who condemn sexual expression in their sermons should not be surprised to find their parishioners also support violent public policies. 15
Research also makes it clear that warmongering itself is a sign of the perversion of passion into violence. It is important to remember that when this happens "the claustrophobic fusions of abuse and oppression can be mistaken for love and intimacy," according to Christian theologian Rita Nakashima Brock.16 She notes that "violence forms an intense emotional bond" and this can seriously damage or destroy capacities for healthy intimacy. As the New York Times documented, Iraqi war veterans returning with PTSD, diagnosed or not, continued their violent behavior and chose perhaps
for a variety of reasons to murder those closest to them: parents, wives, children and fellow soldiers. 17
Brock reminds us that just as This deep-seated yet thwarted to an embrace of violence, whereas a membranes hold together the body,
social "membranes" hold a community together. These membranes can become ruptured and toxic to others. From a faith perspective, she writes that, "violence damages the human soul-the complex thinking, feeling, inspirited, embodied self each of us struggles to integrate, to make whole." Rather than glorifying warmongering or soldiers trapped in a toxic culture of violence, we would do well as people of faith to remember that a leaning toward violence emerges from instincts that "arise from violated membranes, from broken selves," Brock writes. From a Christian perspective, this is clearly not the world of mutual love and justice that Jesus taught and that God intends.
The way to a less violent world
If we want a less violent world we have to commit to embracing sexual and sensual pleasures as being important as eating and drinking. We must focus on building an egalitarian society and dismantle the status hierarchies and income inequalities preventing us from the vision of a compassionate community where all have enough to fill their needs.
Proverbs 29:18 teaches, "Without a vision, the people perish." The vision can get sullied since all major faith traditions have holy writ that can be used to justify violence and control of women or other "sexual deviants." 1B However, each faith tradition also has sacred teachings that affirm peacemaking, harmonious egalitarian relationships, and appreciation for the gifts of pleasure and responsible sexuality. People of faith share a vision of one humanity living in many peace-filled communities.
Taking the research on primates or on forager societies as insightful clues and our sacred peacemaking traditions as our mandate, we must be willing to share resources with one another to create small communities of abundance and embrace pleasure, forsaking all efforts toward sexual repression. We must recognize the interrelationships of these social membranes that hold us together. In doing so, like the bonobos and our ancestors, we will begin to value pleasure over conflict, egalitarian sharing
over competition, and peacemaking over warmongering. We will be about the business of turning swords into plowshares as envisioned by the prophet Isaiah. It is a choice we can and must make happen. Anything less will be the genocide of our species. ll'il
NOTES
1 Danes, Anita, "The Cost of the Global U.S Military Presence," published July 3, 2009 by FPIF, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.
2 Meehan, Shannon P., "Distant Wars, Constant Ghosts," New York Times, March 5, 2010
? Eisenhower, Dwight D, Military Industrial Complex speech 1961 http//www h-net. org/ -h st306/ docu ments/i nd ust. htm I.
' 3 Lovgren, Stefan, "Sex and Sports: Should Athletes Abstain Before Big Events7" National Geographic News, Feb. 22, 2006.
,. Ibid. Prescott, 1975.
l i Zylstra, Sarah Eekhoff "Capital Doubts," Christianity Today, Feb. 19, 2008.
16 Brock, Rita Nakashima, "Whither Ecumenism7 A Theology for Ecumenism Beyond Violence," Mid-Stream, The Ecumenical Movement Today, Volume 41, Number 1, January 2002.
Sontag, Deborah and Lizette Alvarez, "War Torn," New York Times, Jan 13, 2008.
Ternan, Oliver, Violence in the Name of God, Religion in an Age of Conflict (Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 2003)
Ryan, Christopher and Cacilda Jethci, Sex at Dawn. The Prehistoric Origins o f Modern Sexuality (New York, Harper Collins, 201 D)
Prescott, James W, "Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1975, p 10-20. www.violence.de/ (A classic paper on the connection between sex and violence)
Gimbutas, Marija and Joseph Campbell, The Language of the Goddess (New York, Thames & Hudson, 2001 ).
Eisler, Riane, The Chalice and the Blade, (San Francisco, HarperOne, 1988)
Herbert, Bob, "The Great Shame," New York Times. March 20, 2009.
Johnson, Chalmers, "Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire and Ten Steps to Take to Do So," www.tomdispatch.com, July 30, 2009.
Prescott, James, "Child Abuse Slaughter of the Innocents," Hustler, October 1977.
SECULAR SEXUALITY A podcast by Dr. Darrell Ray who explores the boundaries between sex, religion from an atheist point of view. He has written to books, The God Virus and Sex and God, both of which are worth a read for a look at how sex and religion relate -- not too well if you really want to know. Very entertaining but not for the timid or very religious. The link is here.
****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
In the last lecture we looked at how the religious community has used sex to control us. This week we will look at some of the negative results that are with us today filtering down from hundreds of years of sexual repression. Many of our social organizations like religion, law, medicine, politics and education are still laboring under the sex negativity so prevalent in the United States.
***************************************************************************
A SEX POSITIVE CHRISTIAN MINISTER
There are indeed a very few sex positive mainstream Christian clergy out there. Here is one of them, Rev. Beverly Dale, an ordained minister (Disciples of Christ). Videos of her several very sex positive messages are HERE And her website is HERE
A most unusual woman who deserves a look. You won't find many like her. Be sure to see her article in the Progressive Christian below.
******************************************************************************
YOUR PHYSICIAN AND YOUR SEX LIFE: WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT WHEN WE DON'T TALK ABOUT SEX -- An article exploring the medical community and its comfort with sexuality. Not so comfortable!! The link is HERE
******************************************************************
CENSORSHIP AND THE FEAR OF SEXUALITY: Marty Klein takes a close look at sex negativity and censorship. The link is HERE
****************************************************************************
A VERY SEX POSITIVE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTE
The Religious Institute is directed by a very sex positive Unitarian Universalist minister and is making major changes in sex positive education in seminaries. The link is HERE
******************************************************************************
POLITICAL SEX SCANDALS Alas, our political leaders, including a military person or two, are not exempt from their sexual urges even if some preach against homosexuality and for sexual abstinence. Just in case you have forgotten, Wikipedia lists them all HERE
*******************************************************************************
AN ESSAY ON SEX NEGATIVITY AND RELIGION. One of my favorite writers is a sex therapist Marty Klein. HERE is one of his pieces on sex and religion as seen through the eyes of an experienced sex therapist dealing with the results of religious suppression of sexuality.
******************************************************************************
SEX and Religion -- https://www.kinkly.com/2/13034/sexual-health/my-complicated-relationship-with-religion-and-sex
*****************************************************************************
We will finish up with a brief look at what SEX POSITIVE means.
DEFINITION OF SEX POSITIVE
"An approach to sex and human sexuality that embraces the full benefits of sexual interaction as healthy and uplifting, based upon the premise that sexual expression is good and healthy and that societal repression or control of the individual's sex-drive is bad and unhealthy.
Sex Positive people advocate comprehensive sex education, because even in a free-sex utopia one must still be wary of sexually-transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies."
Definition from Urban Dictionary
DR HASLAM'S DEFINITION OF SEX POSITIVE:
A sex positive person is comfortable with their emotional, spiritual, physical and sexual selves.
A sex positive person understands, accepts and tolerates their partners’ sexual needs, beliefs, practices, and yes, even kinks.
A sex positive person is open to exploration of a variety of sensual, intimate, and sexual experiences and freely shares their thinking with their partners.
A sex positive person can easily communicate their sexual needs to their partners – they can ask for what they want comfortably
***************************************************************************
A SEX POSITIVE CHRISTIAN MINISTER
There are indeed a very few sex positive mainstream Christian clergy out there. Here is one of them, Rev. Beverly Dale, an ordained minister (Disciples of Christ). Videos of her several very sex positive messages are HERE And her website is HERE
A most unusual woman who deserves a look. You won't find many like her. Be sure to see her article in the Progressive Christian below.
******************************************************************************
YOUR PHYSICIAN AND YOUR SEX LIFE: WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT WHEN WE DON'T TALK ABOUT SEX -- An article exploring the medical community and its comfort with sexuality. Not so comfortable!! The link is HERE
******************************************************************
CENSORSHIP AND THE FEAR OF SEXUALITY: Marty Klein takes a close look at sex negativity and censorship. The link is HERE
****************************************************************************
A VERY SEX POSITIVE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTE
The Religious Institute is directed by a very sex positive Unitarian Universalist minister and is making major changes in sex positive education in seminaries. The link is HERE
******************************************************************************
POLITICAL SEX SCANDALS Alas, our political leaders, including a military person or two, are not exempt from their sexual urges even if some preach against homosexuality and for sexual abstinence. Just in case you have forgotten, Wikipedia lists them all HERE
*******************************************************************************
AN ESSAY ON SEX NEGATIVITY AND RELIGION. One of my favorite writers is a sex therapist Marty Klein. HERE is one of his pieces on sex and religion as seen through the eyes of an experienced sex therapist dealing with the results of religious suppression of sexuality.
******************************************************************************
SEX and Religion -- https://www.kinkly.com/2/13034/sexual-health/my-complicated-relationship-with-religion-and-sex
*****************************************************************************
We will finish up with a brief look at what SEX POSITIVE means.
DEFINITION OF SEX POSITIVE
"An approach to sex and human sexuality that embraces the full benefits of sexual interaction as healthy and uplifting, based upon the premise that sexual expression is good and healthy and that societal repression or control of the individual's sex-drive is bad and unhealthy.
Sex Positive people advocate comprehensive sex education, because even in a free-sex utopia one must still be wary of sexually-transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies."
Definition from Urban Dictionary
DR HASLAM'S DEFINITION OF SEX POSITIVE:
A sex positive person is comfortable with their emotional, spiritual, physical and sexual selves.
A sex positive person understands, accepts and tolerates their partners’ sexual needs, beliefs, practices, and yes, even kinks.
A sex positive person is open to exploration of a variety of sensual, intimate, and sexual experiences and freely shares their thinking with their partners.
A sex positive person can easily communicate their sexual needs to their partners – they can ask for what they want comfortably