Crushing on the King of Kings

Most mornings, because of custody schedules and the way things work out, my drive into work is 40 miles, 25 of which are after I've dropped off the kids and I'm alone in the car. The drive is by rote now. I often have that sensation of actually not knowing how I got to the point in the drive when I will suddenly become aware that I'm at X or Y. I'm alert, though; other drivers are not in any danger. I just zone out. Usually, I listen to the local college station that plays alternative music. That's my preferred genre. I like to think that constantly listening to new music will prevent me from being one of those ossified folks who insist that there hasn't been any great music made in ______ years. Whatever, dude. Some rolling stones do gather moss as it turns out.

The other day, however, I was flipping through the radio dial catching bits and pieces of things. In the morning, I can hear everything from "Democracy Now!" to the blathering of bubble-headed bleach blondes doing morning schtick with their drive-time companions.

  I live out in the country, so "Christian stations" are as frequently encountered as roadkill woodchucks, and usually, I pay them about as much notice. But some woman was talking about her sexual purity, and I couldn't help it. I needed to hear what all the self-flagellating was all about. It just about made me cry. I did not hear the preceding discussion, so I wasn't sure about what exactly the nature of this woman's sexual "sin" had been, but I listened in rapt fascination and a sick feeling in my stomach as she recounted how she carried around her "brokenness" for ten years, until the night, in darkness because she didn't want him to see her face, she confessed her long-ago sin to her husband. Her husband, she said, responded in a Christ-like manner, by holding her and offering her forgiveness, allowing her to put the past behind her and move onto her new state of purity. The male interrogator was delighted at how her husband had been able to witness Christ to her. The cynic in me also could have sworn that there was a sexual charge to his voice: he had, after all, just been privy to a woman's confession of sexual sin, and I imagined that he had a woody imagining himself in a similar situation. Perhaps, he thought, her husband's forgiveness had been followed by a laying on of hands, or perhaps the sprinkling of holy semen upon her body? But I digress.
It was Foucault who reminded us that those cultures that set out to regulate sexuality are the ones that are absolutely obsessed with it, and a visit to the site of Focus on the Family would lead you to believe that ALL James Dobson and his cohorts think about is where penises are being inserted. If I worked in an office where sex was the topic of discussion 24/7, I'd be pretty sexually charged all day and might be tempted to do some laboratory work to test out our most recent hypotheses. But, on the flip-side, the thought of James Dobson would be enough to keep me abstinent for the rest of my life. Ewwww.

So, as usual, because I freely admit to being constantly fascinated by the interplay of bodies and
  politics and religion, I've been thinking about the soul-body-sex problem. I've just read the "Colorado Statement on Biblical Sexual Morality (CSBSM)," (available at Focus on the Family's web site) and it reminded me very much of more ancient documents I'm familiar with, such as Cherubino da Siena's Regola della Vita Matrimoniale, a 15th century marriage manual written by—who else?—a celibate monk. In this document that was released in October 2003, much is made of the "gift" of sexuality given to humans by God. God, apparently, defines the "moral" boundaries of what may or may not take place between man and wife (which is of course the only acceptable form of pair-bond allowed), but it is clear that God does not allow for any kind of exploitive or power-seeking sexual relationship, or any that dehumanizes either of the participants, or, of course, any kind of sexual relationship that does not take place within the heterosexual marriage bed. It is also emphasized that human beings do not need sex to be whole, and therefore, it is incumbent upon unmarried Christians to remain sexually abstinent until marriage.

The document makes many references to Biblical passages that exemplify or further elucidate the statements of the CSBSM. Many references are made to the "Song of Solomon," mostly because it illustrates the relationship between Jesus and the Church. Jesus is the bridegroom. (Not coincidentally, Catholic nuns are "brides of Christ," which in past times, meant that someone having sex with a nun was making a cuckold of Christ. Not that Focus on the Family is talking about Catholics.) It's important to keep this in mind because while God gave human beings sexuality as a gift, God does not partake of sex. Jesus was magically conceived. But in the metaphorical (and oh-so-sensuous) descriptions in "SOS," the relationship between Jesus and Church is sexualized.

1  How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!
  The joints of thy thighs are like jewels,
  the work of the hands of a cunning workman.

2  Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor:

  thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.

3  Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

4  Thy neck is as a tower of ivory;
  thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon,
  by the gate of Bath–rab'bim:
  thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon
  which looketh toward Damascus.

5  Thine head upon thee is like Carmel,
  and the hair of thine head like purple;
  the King is held in the galleries.

6  How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!

7  This thy stature is like to a palm tree,
  and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.

8  I said, I will go up to the palm tree,
  I will take hold of the boughs thereof:
  now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine,
  and the smell of thy nose like apples;

9  and the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my  beloved,

  that goeth down sweetly,
  causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.

10  I am my beloved's,
  and his desire is toward me.

In other surfing around the links provided by Focus, it became clear that one image that teen girls are supposed to hold onto in preserving their "purity" is that Christ is their suitor for now, and later, when they wed, their husbands will step into that role in their lives. Again, the cynical side of me sees Christian girls masturbating while staring at Jesus posters on their walls, but the notion of Jesus as teen crush is not so far from these representations of him.

Christian boys, of course, are also supposed to save themselves for marriage, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of attention paid to providing Christian girls with information about boys so they'll be better able to fend off the advances of Christian boys who might be more easily tempted by their natural urges. And, by no means should a teen think of her boyfriend as Jesus—sex is only for mature, married couples. (Those beautiful boys/Those Christian boys/So you can make me cum that doesn't make you Jesus.)

So, I want to get back to the woman who spoke of her "brokenness" and need to confess to her husband. I understand the concept of sexual guilt and shame. I have great empathy for those who feel it, because even now, in my own life, there are moments when I become aware that I'm right up against the borders of what is considered proper female sexuality.

It's funny to think in this era of "girls-gone-wild" sexuality, where the message seems to be that women are getting fucked without guilt and then posing for the cameras to prove it, I still don't see a lot of signs of an "empowered" female sexuality. And I think the Fundamentalists have masterfully dug into that deep, deep taproot in our culture that simultaneously tells women to be "out there" with their sexuality and then as quickly turns around and calls them "skanks" or "sluts, hos, whores" or whatever is the most recent incarnation of the "sexually promiscuous female" epithet.

If, for example, I engage in a sexual relations with a man who I have no intention of making my "boyfriend," what does that say about me? This should be a moot point; as a single adult there is no law that says I cannot do as I want. And yet, I have enough knowledge of the world, that is, past experience, to know that there are those who would condemn me for sexual behaviour that is not carried out within the context of a long-term, or potentially long-term, relationship. And there are times when I'm feeling vulnerable that those kinds of judgments from other people can sting. I can even internalize those messages and fuck with my own head.

So, imagine if you will, what it's like to be a very young woman who is only beginning to understand her sexual needs and wants, and add a layer of religious opprobrium and cultural mixed-messages, and voila. It's not difficult to hear the story of carrying around guilt for TEN YEARS about a sexual encounter.

That was what made me so damn sad the other day. That ten years of suffering had been borne by her over what she had done. She hadn't murdered anyone. I suppose that it would be fair to say that she had done herself harm, because I believe that if you think that you "should not" be having sex, then you shouldn't. It's that simple. But for FOF, individuals are not capable of making those decisions and should defer to FOF's interpretation of sacred texts.

What bothers me, but what I also find ingenious about groups like FOF is that they simultaneously define the behaviour as sinful, and then present themselves, and their conduit to Jesus, as the only way to rid oneself of the guilt that comes from the sin they've defined as sin.

It is a similar strategy with their politics. By constantly telling the public that sin is all around, cultural corruption is all around, they can offer themselves as as solution. And, what's more, they can offer guidance on which candidates to vote for, which parties to put in power, which laws need to be passed, in order to root out the sin.

For even the most self-confident of us, there are times when those messages of fear and guilt and pollution are able to sneak past the defenses. It is why some of us cannot let go of these topics.

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