Category Archives: sex

What is it about religion and sex

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Malcolm Muggeridge used to say that sex is the mysticism of materialism; and I think he was right. Sex is probably the closest the material can get to the numinous. That is probably why mainline churches are so obsessed with sex: having lost their faith, it is all that is left.

None of this explains why a celibate monk would choose to write a book about sex, though:

A Polish priest has raised eyebrows with the publication of sex manual that advises couples to have a ‘saucy and fantasy packed’ love life.

In Sex as you don’t know it: For married couples who love God, which has been described in Poland as a “Catholic Kama Sutra”, Father Ksawery Knotz goes against the traditional attitudes of the church towards sex.

“I compare sex to a football match,” he said. “There are rules, for example you can’t foul or kick the ball out. However, what goes on on the pitch may involve matches of different standards, different leagues. There can be fantastic matches as well as boring ones.”

While some Poles have questioned the competency of a celibate monk who lives in monastery to write about sex, Father Knotz remains unfazed.
He said that his experience comes from listening to married couples talk about sex, and he has run a website giving sexual advice in both Polish and English for almost a year.

Is this the equivalent of a vegetarian waxing eloquent on specific cuts of meat or a teetotaller dwelling on the joys of wine tasting; well, yes, probably. The ineptitude due to inexperience give-away is the comparison to a football match.

The Anglican Church of Canada’s direction on same-sex marriage

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Yes, the headline is same-sex marriage.

Just in case anyone has any doubt, the direction was elucidated at the Council of General Synod meeting held May 8-9:

Continuing from yesterday’s evening session, COGS members continued to discern what steps to take from the General Synod 2007’s assignments to the church around the issue of sexuality. Members had been asked to read FWMC’s Rothesay Report, which addressed one of these assignments: developing a theological rationale for same-sex marriage.

Note that we have moved from the stage of whether same-sex blessings are consistent with a Christian understanding of God’s purpose for sex, to coming up with a theological justification – excuse, really – for same sex marriage.

Since “same-sex blessings” has somehow, without warning, spontaneously morphed into “same-sex marriage”, some of the COGS attendees became restless:

Again, COGS members offered varied responses. Many were reluctant to bring forward a proposal about the revision of the marriage canon, and others commented that the church should concentrate on the issue of “blessing same-sex unions” as this was the concept considered earlier.

Fear not, a task force has been appointed to continue the – I can’t bring myself to say “conversation”, I really can’t – fuelling of the rampaging steamroller:

Ms. Marshall suggested that a small group of COGS members consider the next step for the conversations. The Primate, Archbishop Hiltz, further suggested that Bishop Colin Johnson, Lela Zimmer, and the Rev. John Steele form this group. The Primate reminded COGS that it was their responsibility to chart the path for discussions on human sexuality up to General Synod 2010.

Further:

“COGS considered the work that has been done in fulfilment of the resolutions of General Synod 2007 regarding sexuality and reached consensus that this is not the time to ask General Synod to amend the marriage canon to allow for the marriage of same-sex couples.”

The implication is that although “this is not the time”, the direction is set and the time is coming.

Difficulties With Girls

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It was quite a few years back that I read Kingsley Amis’s Difficulties With Girls. The hero, Patrick is preoccupied with sex and is an incurable philanderer. In fact, all the men in the book are preoccupied with sex: Patrick’s  boss Simon announces he’s unable to sexually satisfy his wife; Patrick gets through boring meetings at the office by thinking about women, and hides dirty magazines in his briefcase. The novel, in spite of having a resonance of truth, is fundamentally misogynistic: Amis claims that, at root, all woman are mad – a notion I would have subscribed to at one point in my life but eschew now.

Progress marches ever on: even the luridly fertile imagination of Kingsley Amis would not have come up with this:

Two women told Moscow police they bet Tuganov $US4300 that he wouldn’t be able to satisfy them during a non-stop half day sex marathon.

The mechanic died of a heart attack minutes after winning the wager, Moscow police said.

“We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do,” said one of the female participants who identified herself only as Alina.

Medics said he most likely died from the quantity of Viagra he had ingested.

There are 30 pills in an average 100mg bottle of Viagra.

In spite of that, reality has a little way to go to match Anthony Powell’s Pamela in his brilliant A Dance to the Music of Time; she killed herself in order to simultaneously take revenge on the husband she hated and satisfy her necrophiliac lover. I’m still waiting for these headlines.

Destroying sex by being obsessed with it

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In his youth, Leo Tolstoy was consumed with sex; it eventually resulted in his refusing to sleep in the same bed as his wife. Malcolm Muggeridge, an irrepressible roué in his youth, later in life wrote the essay, Down with Sex.

Today we have pills to uplift flagging appendages, pornography in every format to stimulate waning interest, children dressed as hookers, matrons undressed on calendars, alleged counsellors to advise on sexual positions, postures and predicaments, a sexual prophet embalmed in the wrinkled carcass of Hugh Hefner, sex toys, creams, licentious libido lotions, rubbers, diaphragms, morning after and before pills, gay sex education for five year-olds and – this:

Let’s talk about my sexless marriage

Four years into Diane’s marriage, her husband became “bothered” by the prospect of sleeping with her and moved into a room vacated by her grown daughter.

Fourteen years later, the Pennsylvania artist has still not had sex with her “emotionally closed off” husband, who has taken to masturbating to pornography in a separate building on their property.

“I can’t remember the last time I got a hug. It’s probably been a couple of years since I’ve even gotten any kind of a kiss,” says Diane, who did not want her full name used.

Marion Goertz, a registered sex therapist in Toronto, says that although 30 per cent of her female patients complain about low sexual desire and many of her male patients suffer from erectile dysfunction, “couples avoid being sexually intimate for reasons beyond the physical.

When people turn away from God in favour of transitory satisfaction, he eventually gives them what they want, usually in an unsatisfying form. It is a demonstration of William Blake’s Fearful Symmetry: a divine gift that has been humanly framed, sterilised and robbed of its intended purpose becomes empty, spent and finally withers away.