Christianity, Sex, and Fear

I wrote this as a journal for the group but I felt like turning it into a personal journal so that I can submit it to other groups (you can't submit group journals to other groups it turns out) Obviously, the group I wrote this for is an anti-hate group, and a pervading hatred within our culture is toward the LGBTQ community, reflected by the current sub-focus (is that a word?) of that group and many of its members. I feel like talking about the ways in which the relationship between sex and Christianity (as a part of culture) has impacted me personally.

I grew up in a Catholic family. My mom was a convert, my dad a cradle Catholic from Wisconsin, his family Catholics from Sicily (Italy). Sex is often times a pretty touchy subject.  It was handled with a little less than finesse in my family, and at best we blush and laugh in the light of our own childish ignorance, and at its worst that ignorance brings about fear, manifesting itself in anger or indifference.

For me that fear set in once I learned that I was not allowed to talk about it and by logical extension, not even think about it.  No one around me seemed to think about it at all, or at least I gathered that through their disinclination to talk about it with me. Acceptable thoughts about sex seemed to me to be set in stone, spelled out in textbooks. My innocent questions about it, which at first glance seem to indicate a deviation from the written rule or unwritten rule, were met with fear in the form of anger, a pious repetition of things I apparently should have already come to understand, or worse, the raised eyebrow which says better than words "are you crazy or are you just stupid?"

My parents never talked to me about sex in any meaningful way, their suspicion and fear of it went so far as to prevent them from explaining to me the function of it as it pertained to my particular gender, age and body.  The best book they ever got me was one that explained my menstrual cycle and other sex related bodily functions and physical changes.  The book was fine, their not talking about it was fine, but what may or may not have been fine was that they had unknowingly transferred their fear into me.  Here I am talking about it candidly today, so that learned fear obviously didn't sink me or cripple me for the rest of my life.  As horror films exposed me to irrational fears of the first kind later in life, the fear of sex exposed me to the phenomena or the art of masked/hidden/secret irrational fear in general, which has manifested itself in other things in my life, not just fear of sex. ("all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well")

(Here's an interesting article: phys.org/news/2014-08-virginit…
an excerpt: "While the whole point of these support groups is to honor sex in marriage, these men have gotten so used to thinking about sex as something negative that they bring those concerns with them to the marriage bed," Deifendorf said. "Once they're married, these men struggle to manage those concerns in the absence of the supportive community they once benefited from.")

(here's one about "sex positive parenting": www.huffingtonpost.com/lea-gro… )

While I attribute that learned fear from growing up in a Catholic family, I know that the particulars of my situation might differ greatly from others and that I cannot speak for all Christian families. I do, for whatever reason, feel as though Christian culture and the fear of sex are somewhat more related than fear of sex and other cultures. I realize also that a paralyzing fear of sex is not something that comes out of Christianity itself. That fear doesn't seem to come from the Bible where "be not afraid" is repeated throughout, as not so many other things are as often repeated.  There is also "seek and you shall find. Knock, and the door shall be open to you".  Fear of thoughts and fear of thinking is not part of the catechism, as far as I can tell, so then how is it that this fear seems to have pervaded our culture? I hear about hatred all of the time. Religious people hating people who are different or who hold different beliefs. Anger and hatred might come in part from some kind of fear.

I've heard some interesting thoughts about that, one of which is that we might still be recoiling from the damage done in ancient times, by our procession of corrupt popes and incompetent leaders who, out of fear themselves, used the fear of death and damnation as a tool for controlling the masses.  Not everyone steals, not everyone murders, but everyone, betrayed by our own biology, is quite familiar with sex.  Maybe in part due to its compromising nature it is, by itself, already an awkward subject.  Teach someone to be suspicious of and to fear that awkwardness, and you have an easy sin to pin on someone to remind them that they need God's forgiveness, and by extension the sacrament of reconciliation, and by extension priests and the church, and by extension to give alms to the church so that it can build churches and finance aristocrats. (It is important to mention here, that these people were acting outside of their proclaimed beliefs. They were using the name of God as a means to their own end. They were breaking the second commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of the lord in vain".)

I found it easy initially to jump straight to "sex is all good," or ""sex is all bad", content with that cowardly/simple/absolute/concrete solution. I jumped from one rock to the other in my life, but neither satisfied me. I am more cautious now, I don't like to sit on either rock, they are too narrow. My concepts of "good" or "bad" are themselves limited. I don't think that sex is either "good" or "bad" any more than our foot is "good" or "bad".  Sex can be described as a natural function like eating, drinking, or sleeping, but it has also been easy to let sex sit in that bundle, be defined by its general rules, and left in that corner with its facets unexplored.  Sex is not technically eating, drinking, or sleeping, So I can't adequately explain it through those terms or related definitions alone any more than I can adequately describe a tiger to you by defining "mammal".  

Maybe a learned distrust and suspicion of sex is part of what forms a distrust, suspicion, or fear of those whose sexual identity seems strange and different from our own?  With new things comes suspicion, and if you are taught to recite from textbooks or, paralyzed by fear, to not think about it at all, everything about sex can be new and suspicious.  Not thinking about it has proven to me to be a poor solution.  No matter how thick my walls are ideas come crashing through, welcomed or not. When that happens I have no clue how to deal with them because I hadn't thought about it before.

Not comfortable with anger I resigned to indifference when it came to the topic of sexual orientation. I sighed in relief that I was straight so that I wouldn't be forced to think too hard about it (although for a period of time I lived in fear of turning out one day to be gay, which proved to be very telling of my fear, that is, I was aware of it from a young age). So, not thinking about it was the leaky, miserable raft I desperately clung too for a good long while. When I got to the university I found that people were more candid about their orientations. After all of what concern was it to them that they were making me feel uncomfortable in my make-shift raft? I had friends who were of various orientations and all the while my unresolved fear was there poking me in the back of the head, making me feel uncomfortable like I had a rock in my shoe, sapping enjoyment out my experience of friendship. I thought I did a good job of removing my fear during that time but I realized later that all I had done was plug up the holes in my raft, make it more comfortable to suffer in; I planted flowers on my plateau. My fear had receded deeper in me to where I almost didn't need to ignore it anymore, it avoided my gaze, or rather, I had put it in a secret hiding spot. I had given it a new name, put a nicer looking mask over it, but a mask nonetheless. It didn't want to let go of me, or I didn't want to let go of it. Either way we worked something out so that I could not think about it with greater ease.

As well as it was hidden it cropped up again under the constant whirlwind of thoughts and experiences that bombarded the potted plants on my plateau and shook my leaky raft (I guess it's called "life"). My masks, my names for my fears, my limited definitions turned out to be incomplete. I needed to let go of them. As the parable goes we can either run from fear or face it head on.  Sometimes, in order to run from fear I've turned to indifference to do so ("If I pretend the onslaught of new ideas that seek to take me away even momentarily from my own, do not exist, maybe they will just go away").  Sometimes I went on the offensive with anger ("how dare you try to shake my foundations!" I shout while swinging my sword at the comically indifferent monsoon of life).  Blaming my upbringing or other people was not a solution either.  Sure, someone else taught me to hold onto fear like a life raft, but people teach us lots of things, it is for us to decide what to do with those things. It is for us to either watch them float away from us, or to try to sit on them and float. (Sorry for all of the colorful metaphors; I'm an artist, not a writer)

To bring my story of sex and fear up to date, there became for me one instance in which I could no longer hide my fear away, and it routinely got dug up from wherever I buried it during this time, popping up as strange and different things which frightened me with their newness. My fears were affecting my relationship with my significant other. To not want to have sex with someone is one thing and that's fine, but to blame a religion for a personal decision a different animal altogether. When he asked me the question "why not?" I had my easy answer. I should have said "I haven't figured it out and I'm not comfortable with having sex with you at this time" but instead I hid behind my religion, expecting that to shield me from further questions, expecting that it would make it so that I wouldn't have to think any more about it. "My religion says I cannot have sex until I'm married, and so that's why. You should respect my beliefs and never ask that question again," but then there was the next question, "I don't understand. What kind of religion would encourage someone to follow dogma so blindly that they would say "my religion says so" and leave it at that? Does your religion just suck, or is their something I'm missing?" I proceeded to do the work of militant haters of Christianity better than they ever could possibly hope with my many excuses, and by the time I was done he had stopped his onslaught of questions, and was also thoroughly indoctrinated against my faith. I had gained my wall, for what price? I put a bad taste in his mouth about Catholicism. I then had the audacity to insist that he come to my church, come to believe what I believed, so that he might understand me, understand my fear, learn it as well. I could have just said "don't you want to come into the same fear? The same suffering?" I wanted him, basically, to share in my suffering so that mine might be alleviated with the companionship; or, maybe subconsciously I was hoping that the combo of both him and I could accomplish something I never could, figure out this sex thing. (We are still together, so that says a lot about him )

I haven't been able to find a concrete "answer" to sex, at least not one that I found that has been able to quell my fears, get rid of my suspicions, or satisfy my curiosity.  (and believe me, I looked everywhere for one. That was another way I avoided the actually thinking part) The more I dive into it, the less it looks like a single thing.  It seems to be many things, many very different things, present in many different subjects, and taking on many different forms.  Sometimes I find sex buried in a topic totally unrelated to the physical act, or seemingly unrelated topics buried in the physical act.  And when turning my microscope towards it, I find abstract applications and ideas within it with far reaching potentials, applying themselves to other topics in ways I would've never thought possible, and probably might have never found otherwise? My fears have not left me entirely, but the only way for me to see them off is to look at them straight in the face. Look at them, and see what they are; not try to put a mask on it, name it something else, or squint at it. I believe that when you look straight at irrational fear you see that it is irrational, and since we naturally do away with irrational thoughts, it leaves us, or we leave it (whatever)...and then (in my experience) the next fear steps up to be dealt with...and then when you think you're done you realize you have a whole queue of things waiting for their turn to show you their fart ugly faces (which, in strange plot twists, turn out later to be nothing but ugly masks I had fashioned myself to covering up something that frightened me with it's newness, but was actually something beautiful; or, vice versa). 

I think it is tempting to turn my beliefs into a safe haven.  When we identify with a religion we know our beliefs because, rightly or wrongly, we name them. But I think the lure of the safe haven is the danger of beliefs in general, named or unnamed, whatever those beliefs are, whether or not they are part of a religious dogma or not.  The safe haven of belief is kind of like the safe haven of praise. I've noticed that when I get praise on my art, I want to stay there. I want to hold onto the praise and let it stay with me. On the other hand, when I get criticism I want it done away with as soon as possible, and so that criticism spurs me to alter my ways, or to sink my heals in. Either way, I tend be persuaded to look at what I have, and either change my ideas by reinforcing them more than they were before, tweaking them, or tossing them out entirely. I attribute the artist I am today to both criticism and praise. Praise helps me to work harder, to do better, but not to change. It helped me as I was acquiring rendering skills, an attainable feat that can be achieved by an unwavering method and through perseverance on that straight and narrow way. Criticism helped me to let go of things I had to let go of in order to find the next rung on my ladder, and not get stuck on a plateau along the way. (ironically, one of my plateaus in art happened after attaining rendering skills. I had to let go of the idea that rendering skills defined my work.)

Sitting on the plateau feels nice for a while -its feels stable, not as tiresome as climbing - until I realize I'm not going anywhere. The plateau is limited, I can see its' edges and the pit it tumbles off into. I have never found a plateau that I felt comfortable with, no matter how many potted plants I put there to make it nicer. I've never liked sitting on precipices, able to look over the edge at will. I look around and shake my head and say "there must be something more", and then I remember that there is still the ladder, ready and waiting patiently to be taken up again.

I don't like making things complicated, but I had written this next bit beforehand and I can't bring myself to omit it entirely, (artist, remember?) so it remains, the same thing as above in a different way (albeit, more complex way, for me at least. I tend to simplify my ideas after conceiving them in complex ways.) If I don't routinely stand back from those things which I hold onto might I never discover if those things where worth holding on to begin with?  In my experience I've noticed a trend that stepping back from beliefs doesn't make them vanish, rather, it makes the unhelpful ones vanish and the useful ones come back to the surface stronger and more full of life.  With unstable foundations comes insecurity.  I would even go so far as to say that due to our human condition, we might never be able to find a stable foundation.  Due to the limitations in our biology, the multiple and complex lenses through which we rationalize the world around us, it might be easier to suggest that we detach ourselves as best as we are able from all of our beliefs/ideas/foundations/plateaus, stand back, and analyze them constantly.  By "detach" I don't mean to stop thinking (which is what I originally thought detachment was about, in my initial exposure to the idea), I mean to be like the "observer". I conceptualize it best as viewing our stream of consciousness as a river, us a fish, and our thoughts as fishing boats casting line as they pass by above us; watching our thoughts (the boats) as they come in, and then watching them as they leave, without seeking to grab hold of them forever (to get caught on the hooks).  Which isn't to say that we might never have constant or recurring ideas or "beliefs", but that those things might start to take on new forms, come at you from different angles, lead to other useful thoughts. Basically, it frees our gospels and our beliefs to be constructive to us, not destructive while being constrained to the limits of our minds.

I don't think we can remove fear entirely. It has its ancient task of keeping our bodies alert to danger. It is said that God that can be loved and feared equally. Nature is beautiful but deadly (beautiful, even in it's deadliness. think of the "sublime" as in art. When you look at a glacier, it is beautiful, but you would be a robot to think for an instant that a block of it wouldn't fall off and crush you to a pulp). It seems to come with the human package. It seems to only be able to gain power over me when I hide it (pretending a tornado wont kill you is likely to get you killed). To be free, I have to look.

I read the book Let Go Of Fear by Carlos G Valles over vacation a couple weeks ago, and it is that book which inspired me to write this article.  I wish I owned the book because I would have liked to include specific things from it, but as I don't have it yet it I'm stuck with basically paraphrasing those ideas which stuck with me. Maybe it's for the best. Now you have my personal account, whatever that's worth. If you are culturally Catholic or Christian and are interested in the topic of sexuality and fear, or fear in general, I think you might find it interesting (that was the lens through which I found it useful to me).  It's written from a Christian perspective, but I don't doubt that those of different persuasions will enjoy it as well.

Here's some other things I like from another book I'm currently reading (The Song Of The Bird by Anthony De Mello):

True Spirituality

The master was asked,  "What is spirituality?"

He said "spirituality is that which succeeds in bringing one to inner transformation"

"But if I applied the traditional methods handed down by the masters, is that not spirituality?"

"It is not spirituality if it does not perform its function for you.  A blanket is no longer a blanket if it does not keep you warm."

"So spirituality does change?"

"People change and needs change.  So what was spirituality once is spirituality no more.  What generally goes under the name of spirituality is merely the record of past methods."

Don't cut the person to fit the coat



Eat your own fruit

A disciple once complained,
"you tell us stories, but you never reveal their meaning to us."

Said the master,
"how would you like it if someone offered you fruit and masticated it before giving it to you?"

No one can find your meaning for you.
Not even the master



After writing this article I decided to add this song by J Cole because I feel like it fits? For me it fits. I hope I have succeeded in leaving you thoroughly confused lol if not, then maybe you should try harder  
"Work out"

I wanna see you work out for me, work out for me

Hey, we got a good thing
Don't know if I'm a see you again
But is that a good thing?
Cause girl I can't be your man, no ma'am
I know what's on your brain
You're probably hopin' never would end
Like is it the real thing
Or is it just a one night stand

Let me see you get high and go low
Now girl won't you drop that thing down to the floor
I'm here for one night, how far will you go?
I wanna see you work out for me, work out for me

High and go low
Now girl won't you drop that thing down to the floor
I'm here for one night, how far will you go?
I wanna see you work out for me, work out for me

[Verse 1:]
She like them boys with the big ol' chains
Ride around town in the big ol' Range
I knew her when I rock big ol' chains
Now the little nigga doing big ol' things
Would you look at that, I came back for it
Just to give it to ya, like you asked for it
Man that thing in them jeans too fat for it
It rebounds so I caught off the backboard
I told her, baby girl come here
Know I run the town even when I ain't from there
And I brag hardly but just to show up at this party I made
What your nigga make in one year, that's unfair but
So is life, take a chance roll a dice
Money can't buy you love cause it's over priced
Don't overthink just hope it's right
I'm only here for the night

Hey, we got a good thing
Don't know if I'm a see you again, see you again
But is that a good thing?
Cause girl I can't be your man, no ma'am
I know what's on your brain
You probably hope it never would end
Like is it the real thing
Or is it just a one night stand
Well then

Let me see you get high and go low
Now girl won't you drop that thing down to the floor
I'm here for one night, how far will you go?
I wanna see you work out for me, work out for me
High and go low
Now girl won't you drop that thing down to the floor
I'm here for one night, how far will you go?
I wanna see you work out for me, work out for me

[Verse 2:]
Carolina blue kicks, fresh on the scene
Hottest nigga on the block, damn girl you mean
They be starting shit, but it's your world
On my Martin shit, you go girl
She bad and she know it, some niggas save Hoes
I'm not that heroic
Could you be my escort
Cause just like them two door Fords
Damn, they don't make 'em like you no more
Cole World, real Cole World
Them boys cool, me I'm on fire
Know what's on my mind, tryna see what's on yours tonight
Tonight, tonight
Move slow, cause you wanna live fast
Up late so you'll probably skip class
Life is a test so before the night pass get right
Get right

Hey, we got a good thing
Don't know if I'm a see you again, see you again
But is that a good thing?
Cause girl I can't be your man, no ma'am
I know what's on your brain
You probably hope it never would end
Like is it the real thing or is just a one night stand
Well then

(Cole World)

Straight up, now tell me do you really wanna love me forever
Oh, oh, oh
Or is it just a hit and run

(Well, hey)

Straight up I tell ya I just really wanna cut when we together
Oh, oh, oh
Come here girl, let's get it on

(Work out for me, work out for me)

Straight up now tell me do you really wanna love me forever?
Oh, oh, oh
Or is it just a hit and run

Well, Straight up I tell ya I just really wanna cut when were together
Oh, oh, oh
Come here girl let's get it on

(Work out for me, work out for me)