Afraid of ourselves

It is a basic truth of fundamental Christianity.


Our minds are cesspits, wretched wastelands that are devoid of any decent thought. Selfish, blind, immoral, corrupt... unable to do anything that pleases God. Like an animal instinct that hates order, despises justice and rejects goodness.


Over and over... In the bible we are "given over" to our carnal desires. Left to our own devices we will do unspeakable things. All war, pain, sadness are evidence of our nature. Anger is murder in principle. Sexual thoughts are rape or sex outside of marriage. The thought is the action. Because if left to our own course, the worst of us would come out.


Disorder... a short sad life... then judgment.


We are the wicked. Unable to do anything right.


And God is everything we are not... Holy, pure, perfect, without blemish.
The darkest avenue a Christian can go down is the wide freeway in his/her mind of sexual sin. There are so many layers to this, it is so hard to unravel. But basically, everything in church and in our world has to be based around keeping our disgusting minds pure.
If the church doesn't do something... if they don't dictate from the pulpit and the youth leaders... People... might... have... sex!!!!
Or worse, people might masturbate or even worse than all of that: watch pornography!!!
If you are/were from a member of a progressive church or have never experienced this, you might be thinking, "But aren't teens and adults going to do that anyways? You can't dictate what people think!"
To which you can hear every priest and pastor say "Hold my Communion wine. We gonna do this."
Despite every different body type, personality, sexual preference or even lack thereof, the church has a cookie cutter answer to the sex problem.
Women: Ok, your job is to look modest, no skin showing, nothing tight, nothing too flashy, nothing too feminine but it better be feminine enough! We don't want you looking like men! Also, feminine but not fashionable. We want 100% mystery on wedding nights! Are there octopus tentacles under there? Shark teeth? Who knows! Also... you have no sexual identity until your husband helps you find it. Got it?
Men: Ok, your job is to look like men... And don't think about sex or porn or think about touching yourself until you are married and then, I promise every night will be a dream! (seriously used to hear married older guys talk about what a "blessed union" they had.)
We hear it all the time in church. Pornography, masturbation ruin marriages. They ruin our relationship with Christ. They make us sin with ourselves, our partners (or future partners.) No one belongs with you in the bedroom! (except your pastor...)
This is all from the same archaic cloth as all the other moral rules that have vague basis in Bronze/iron age morals and puritanical American evangelicalism. On this same cloth are the edicts about dinosaur bones being placed by Satan, evolution being a giant scientific conspiracy and Noah's flood causing all of our rock layers.
We've come too far too go backwards on the issue of sex.
People should have control of their own bodies and how they feel about sex. No one is hurt by masturbation. No one is hurt by you exploring yourself. No one is hurt by you being attracted to other people.
If you aren't in a relationship, no one is effected at all by pornography if that's what you choose. If you are in a relationship, its worth the discussion but most open couples do not see this as infidelity and many watch it together.
Being afraid of our sexual selves is equivalent to all the other ridiculous bullshit like humans with dinosaurs and unicorns missing the ark.
Our sexual desires are the most personal part of us and it takes time and safety to work those things out. How many lives have been ruined by people pounding on this subject in youth group or in the pulpit or by passing along fundamentalist books?
Even worse, it creates an atmosphere that normalizes abuse and rape. Let me explain that. Our natural desires are seen as disgusting sin when outside of the context of marriage. All sins separate us from God and any one sin can send us to hell. So the sin of masturbation is equal to the sin of rape, to the sin of incest to the sin of pederasty. It creates an atmosphere where we feel sick about our desires and instead of working them out, we are afraid of them! Remember, we can't help it! We are disgusting, filthy sinners and without God, we would do every terrible thing under the sun...
And the bottling up of expression and exploration can cause serious harm to who we are as people.


This is a personal post because I think it is so deeply important. The amount of guilt and shame I carried for 20 years because of any sexual desires was immense. I hate myself for lack of control and I hated living a life where I felt so helpless. Already battling depression, I felt awful because I couldn't discipline myself enough to clear my conscience and be a better Christian. When I went to pray, it was there. When I served, it was there. When I went to have sex, the guilt was there too.


Please let me know if this resonates with you.