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 Peg's
Polemic
Every
month, philosopher Peg Tittle casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned
column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
Number
17. Religion
and Sex
What
do Madonna, Prince, and Leonard Cohen have in common - with evangelists,
ministers, and priests? They all feed on the proximity of religion
and sex.
But,
but, you stutter, don't religions mostly prohibit sex, considering
pretty much anything to do with the body to be distasteful and unclean
or just plain immoral? Well, yes. Could be hypocrisy. Could be denial.
But
on more than one occasion, doesn't God in The Bible require the
sacrifice of a virgin? There you have it, religion and sex. And
look at St. Theresa's face - it's orgasmic. Again, religion and
sex.
So
what can religion and sex possibly have in common? Well, they both
promise transcendence, ecstasy. (They both fail to deliver, but
that's another point.)
What
else? Well, religion is like infatuation (which is fuelled by sexual
desire): both involve adoration, worship, of the object of one's
desire. Add a little confusion and pretty soon one deifies the object
of one's desire or desires the object of one's deification.
And
both religion and sex involve salvation: one looks to God like one
does to a lover, for salvation in the other's arms. And sex involves
a release, a purging if you like - rather like fasting, or confessing
and then doing penance.
Again,
one gets confused with the other, and pretty soon sex is thought
to purify. I'm sure that's what all those priests thought when they
had sex with those boys. Sort of like the sacrifice of a virgin.
The extremes of sadomasochism and bondage and discipline highlight
the similarities between sexual fanatics and religious fanatics.
More
than one saint has submitted to flagellation, by self or by others.
Isn't every monk given a hairshirt and every nun her own little
whip?
(It's
no coincidence that 'rape' and 'rapture' come from the same root.)
.
Peg's
Polemic will next be updated late-May 2002
Previous
polemics
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