Sex? Just for one please!

We had a little fun a few days back dealing with Mormon advice regarding masturbation. Of all the issues that religious folk get worked up about this one amazes me. By definition it is one activity that can have almost zero impact on others. If some fundamentalists spent more time masturbating and less time running the lives of others we’d all be better off. But their masturbation obsession is rooted in their contempt for being human.

I recently came across an essay that was written on the topic for Christians. The take in it was interesting in what it revealed. First the author admits there is no Biblical mandate on the topic at all. But he smuggles in bizarre religious concepts about life.

First, sex is not about reproduction per se or even about pleasure. It’s about wholeness therefore any sex outside heterosexual marriage “is destructive to wholeness.” Now sex is not about wholeness. It really is about genes needing to replicate. It’s not even about pleasure, though pleasurable it may be. It is pleasurable to ensure that people seek out sexual opportunities and that is sufficient for genes, in general, to get replicated, which is the goal.

This doesn’t have to be precise. Every sex act need not lead to replication. In nature the mere pleasure of the act guarantees that enough sexual acts that do lead to reproduction will be performed so that genes replicate. People who don’t enjoy orgasms don’t have them and aren’t likely to reproduce. That sort of evolution pretty much guarantees that most people will like orgasms and seek them out.

Now the Christian has to ignore all of this since that’s nature and science. They prefer fantasy. So the pleasurable nature of sex, which leads to the reproduction of genes, is downplayed. They are always suspicious of it. Thus the emphasise on “wholeness”. The author I’m reading argues that pleasure per se is “sexual selfishness”.

Now here we get to the similarity between Christians and socialist. Both argue that individuals must live for the sake of others not for his own sake. The fact is that people have sex because it is pleasurable. That it is pleasurable for their partner as well, if there is one, is icing on the cake but it’s not the cake. But the Christian argues that seeking sexual pleasure for it’s own sake is wrong. As the author says: “a self-giving life style is not a self-centered one.” One must live for the sake of others. Sex is not for pleasure but for wholeness and what it contributes to the social network. It is not something that God particularly likes: “The aim of our lives should be to please God, and to do that we must deny the flesh, put to death our selfish desires,, starve the appetites of our inner sensualities and lusts, and feed upon the Word of God.”

In other words the Christian is basically at war with human nature. The way humans are engineered is bad. People must work hard at not having a human nature. Of course they fail. They fail because a thing is what it is. People are people. But it is the failure that the Christian seeks. Failure leads to guilt and guilt makes people easier to control.

Here are a few gems on the topic from some Christian authors.

John White wrote a book Eros Defied. It’s a monstrous book, perhaps one of the most evil books written by religious nutters. White says he has compassion for “victims of masturbation.” Perhaps, but he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word victim. He starts out saying that masturbation is a sin full stop. “It is a sin because sexuality was not given to us for that purpose.” By this he means some supernatural being designed it. But apparently this deity forget to set it up so it would only work the way he intended.

God screwed up sex. He forgot to establish it so that it only works when a penis is inside a vagina and a marriage license is on the wall. At the very least he could have easily made it so that the desire to have sex only exists when around a member of the opposite sex. But he didn’t. He made it so people have orgasms by themselves. In fact he designed it so that if they don’t have orgasms by themselves they may have them while asleep! How negligent of him. I think we should sue. God designed a flawed product and apparently whines when the product works the way he made it. In fact he blames the product for the defects. What a twit!

For Mr. White individuals are not self-owners. Again this is a similar point between Christians and their secular equivalents on the Left. Christians say man lives for the sake of God. The Left says man lives for the sake of others. They both agree that man must not be allowed to live for his own sake.

Nor should one evoke the self-ownership principle with these people. You are not a self owner says the Christian and the Marxist. You are owned by a god or by the collective. White says: “My body is mine only in the sense that I am responsible for its proper use.” In other words you have all the costs but none of the benefits. “My body was not designed to masturbate,” claims White ignoring the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Yes it was! That was designed to do this is indicated by the fact that the practice is virtually universal.

Talk about being oblivious to reality. Religion, and some ideologies, are totally opposed to the facts of reality. They are at war with reality. They attempt to mould and shape society instead. White says: “My body was designed to be used exclusively to glorify God.” Again this is obviously false. If some god had designed bodies to only glorify himself -- rather self-centered of him I think -- then he could have made it so that is all the body can do.

White again: “To use it in any other way is to rob God of something that is his by right, for their are no morally neutral actions.” Now if I understand this White is saying that the only thing that people must do is glorify God and anything that is not glorifying the deity is theft! Not only do you not own your self you are a thief if you think you do. You are a slave to the deity who owns you. You must only glorify the deity or be guilty of a vile sin. Talk about a childish concept of god. These Christians worship a deity with the moral maturity of a a three year old.

Finally White argues, “masturbation is a form of idolatry. Our bodies are to be offered to God. Masturbation is to make a god of my bodily sensations, or relief from the tension that I feel.” Even sex with a married partner is wrong if it is for pleasure he says., “copulation can be entirely selfish, a mere using of somebody’s body to gratify myself, which is little different from masturbation.” This is rather Catholic of him considering he’s a pesky evangelical.

Protestants, especially the more evangelical types, like to pretend they are not taking the Catholic view that all sex must be for reproduction alone. But they constantly slip into this position when not vigilant. White has done that. Sex for pleasure is idolatry he says. So any sex must be for non-pleasure related reasons. That’s rather hard to do since sex is inherently pleasurable hence the cause so many of these moralists getting caught, literally, with their pants down. White’s view would require that one take steps to make sure sex is not being done simply for the fun of it. That would seem to require one to shun condoms, birth control, etc. It really does limit one to the Catholic view that all sex acts must be inherently open to producing a child and that any act, that does not include that possibility, is sinful.

That makes not only masturbation sinful but birth control, oral sex, homosexuality, ad infinitum. In fact it rules out the bulk of human sexual activity as immoral and evil. It is guaranteed to destroy self-esteem. It reinforces the Christian view that man is evil, impotent, and disgusting. Their view of sexuality is rooted in their contempt for humans. At the core these Christians hate humanness.