Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (31 page)

An example comes from a former minister’s wife, married to a minister for over 20 years. “The hardest part of being a minister’s wife was denying who I am,” she told me. She could never show her dominant side, never take the lead sexually with her husband. He was a kind, gentle, soft-spoken, caring person who was sexually submissive, even passive. Their relationship was essentially sexless for the last 10 years of their marriage, a miserable existence for her. She resolved the conflict between her sexual desire and the restrictive religious map by leaving her husband and religion. She is now a successful businesswoman who doesn’t seem to have a submissive bone in her body.

In the meantime, the minister had no idea how unhappy his wife was. “We focused on church and children for most of the marriage; sex was not a serious consideration,” he told me. He didn’t need a lot of sex, and as the years went by, he didn’t seem to miss it. He fit neatly into a sexually restrictive SSO and had a very non-dominant personality. It was comfortable for him, and he assumed it was comfortable for her. In their religious paradigm, there was no way for her to communicate her needs.

Let’s go back with this woman to a time before she got married. Imagine educating her in the concepts we are discussing here. We might ask:

• How dominant are you in your daily interactions?
  
• How much enjoyment do you receive from directing things?
  
• How much variety do you need in your sex life?
  
• How much do you enjoy being the sexual initiator?
  

Armed with answers to these questions, it is possible that she would not have married a non-dominant, sexually restricted minister. Similarly, educating her husband in the same concepts might have helped him understand
the needs of a prospective mate and recognize how his restrictive SSO and non-dominant personality might conflict with her style.

Psychological concepts like SSO and dominance/non-dominance undermine religion’s one-size-fits-all idea about sex roles. It is unlikely these concepts will be integrated into the premarital counseling sessions of priests or ministers. Couples will continue to get poor premarital advice, and ministers will continue to see their well-intentioned efforts come to naught, as they and their parishioners divorce as much or more than the less religious.

Redirecting sexual energy is often a good thing. We do it all the time. You may have a sexual thought about someone, but you don’t act on it. You may want to make love with your partner but a work deadline looms, so you redirect your thoughts and energy into getting finished and then have a good romp in the hay. You may enjoy various fantasies that are impractical, so you don’t act on them. Normal people redirect their sexual energy all the time, but religion takes that skill and hijacks it. Religion says, “No, you cannot do that, that is sinful. Direct that energy toward god.”

Sexual desire does not disappear with increased religiosity and activity. Instead, it gets redirected but the thoughts and incoming stimulation continue. The result is constant distortion of the thought process. A person whose sexuality has been confined to a religious box will soon come to see people who are not restricted as immoral or evil. It is easy for the religious person to label others as sexual deviants, promiscuous, as somebody who cannot resist temptation or has no self-control. In its worst form, redirected sexual energy can lead to literal witch-hunts, persecution of gays and others whose practices are not in strict conformity to religious teachings.

We have seen how the religious sexual map hurts leaders’ and ministers’ wives. What about the followers?

As we discussed in previous chapters

• Baptists and Evangelicals in the United States have among the highest divorce rates.
  
• The best predictor of child abuse, after drugs or alcohol, is parents’ religiosity.
  
• Sexual dysfunction is often related to religious guilt from childhood training.
  
• Teenage pregnancy is highest among the most religious.
  

Most religious people would deny that religion contributes to all these problems – that religion actually causes or contributes to the behavior it most abhors. Failure to identify religion as a cause allows it to stay hidden.

An elder was caught soliciting gay sex in a public park. Another elder’s wife was caught in the baptistery having sex with the associate minister. The youth pastor and his wife were seen at a swingers’ club. The chairman of the board was caught at a porn shop in another city. A deacon’s teenage daughter is pregnant. No, this isn’t a setup for a soap opera, these are real-life examples from a single church.

In the churches with which I was associated, there was always some kind of sexual scandal going on. Evidence of sex is everywhere in a church if you look or listen. Many church rumors may not be true, but what would members talk about if not other people’s sexual sin? And it is sexual sin that gets the most attention. It seems to be a badge of honor among most religions to violate our very fundamental drives and then damn people and talk behind their backs when they can’t conform to unrealistic sexual standards.

Many religions teach deprivation as a path to cleanliness and godliness. Fasting for Lent or Ramadan purifies your soul; sexual abstinence before marriage keeps you pure for your husband or wife; not having sex during menstruation keeps men from impurity. For thousands of years saints and leaders have taught deprivation as the path to god. From St. Benedict to Mahatma Gandhi, religious leaders have taught that deprivation is among the most direct paths to the deity. The trick is to convince people that their natural desires are unnatural and against some god’s plan. Once this is achieved, people can be brought to believe that depriving themselves of things like sex and certain foods is a noble and godly thing to do. It is an incredible distortion that convinces people to redirect their energy and life toward the religion. People give up some of the most important parts of life in service of the god.

Deprivation or overstimulation, combined with fear and peer pressure, are the conversion tools of many religions. A loud Pentecostal service, an Evangelical revival, a fear-mongering sermon by an imam or a dark campfire
service during a week of church camp are all designed to overwhelm the senses, confuse the mind and alter perceptions of reality.

The British psychiatrist William Sargant, in his book
Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing
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¹⁶¹
was among the first to document how humans can be convinced to believe religious or political dogma. Studying the torture techniques of Korea and China in the 1950s, Sargant demonstrated the power of these techniques to alter beliefs and behavior. But it does not take extreme conditions to transform someone. Sargant’s analysis found that the religious revival methods of Charles Wesley (founder of Methodism) and other religious leaders bore strong similarities to Korean and Chinese methods.

Deprivation, overstimulation, denial and fear are ancient tools of religion, but how does sex play into this formula? Giving up or resisting a natural desire in the name of a god shows commitment to the god. Nuns and priests give up sex to be most like their god. Years of sexual deprivation goes against the biological map, and emotional and psychological distortion is often the result. Add to this repetitive rituals, readings, kneeling, praying and fasting, and the brain is under constant pressure to modify perceptions of reality in favor of an invisible deity that abhors sex.

Many religions create fear and disgust around sex for the followers. At best, sex is suspect and can keep you away from Jesus. These ideas can lead to trauma, even phobia of sex or certain aspects of sex. Infected persons may see avoidance of sex as critical to their salvation and attainment of eternal life and, therefore, engage in abstinence, celibacy or restricted sexual activity in the name of the deity.

How can a religion convince a person to give up so much? Many kinds of deprivation bring on altered states of consciousness. When denied nutrients, held in social isolation, denied sex, engaged in repetitive rituals, etc. our brains are affected, which can lead to confusion and disorientation. That is, the brain is put into disequilibrium or unbalance. In this state the brain is very susceptible to suggestion and reinterpretation of common experiences.

Some states of deprivation or overstimulation lend themselves to altered states of consciousness – hallucinations, dreams, feelings of being in touch with a deity can all be evoked in these situations. You may have noticed in times of hunger, your mind tends to drift to food. If you love ice cream but are prohibited from eating it by your diet, you may dream of a chocolate-covered vanilla parfait.

Religion can use this same pathway to infect someone with a sense of the holy. It only takes two steps:

1. Create sufficient deprivation, overstimulation or fear in the name of a god, leading to changes in brain chemistry. The brain begins thinking, dreaming and searching in an effort to understand and regain balance.
   
2. Offer the brain a supernatural explanation for the feelings evoked by these chemical changes. For examples,
   
   • The uncontrolled sobs you experienced means Jesus has forgiven you.
     
   • When you spoke in tongues that proves the Holy Spirit lives in you.
     
   • The vision you had shows that god talked to you.
     

Once a supernatural answer to these altered states is accepted, religious devotion drives even deeper, and the person comes back for more – having an answer for the feelings, even a supernatural one, is better than continuing to experience horrible guilt or fear. The resulting sense of relief can be immense and life changing. It often leads people to engage in behavior that serves the religion well, even if it destroys or harms them. In the meantime, the victims do not realize the manipulation. They don’t see that the religion created the fear and deprivation in the first place.

Sexual deprivation follows the same pattern. Whether giving up sex for Lent or becoming a celibate priest, the function of the religious act is to eliminate sex as a competing activity in favor of greater religious infection. Distorted thinking comes out of deprivation as people begin to think of sex and sexuality as their “enemy.” Sexual expression and behavior are seen as incompatible with devotion to a god. If somebody said, “I abstain from sex to please the ghost in my house,” they would seem delusional, but to say, “I abstain from sex to please Jesus, (or Mary, or Allah or to follow the path of the Buddha)” is seen as admirable.

Sexual deprivation does not cleanse the soul, improve the mind or bring one close to Nirvana, Jesus or Allah. It is true that it focuses the mind on deeper religious infection, but at the same time it leads to a thought pattern that demonizes sex.

What is the consequence of this behavior? It probably reduces sexual pleasure and frequency between couples, while it increases guilt around one’s sexuality. It generally distorts sex and sexual drive into an evil enemy that is designed to tempt you away from the god. You become alienated from your own body. How is it healthy to think of your natural drive and desire as an enemy?

Here is how one person summed up the sexual distortions that she experienced:

While I was told that sexuality was a beautiful thing in the context of marriage, that was downplayed considerably in comparison to the evil of sexuality, fear of its power and the sin of lust outside of marriage. I also had the strong impression growing up that women were never supposed to have sexual desires. I've had sexual desire since I was a young teen, so by the time I was married, I had such a long history of feeling horrible about sexuality that I often can't be comfortable enjoying conventional sex with my husband
.

This woman experienced sexual deprivation until she got married. No masturbation, and no sex outside of marriage. Damming up such powerful urges combined with the religious messages continue to impact her sexual enjoyment and development.

The guilt cycle leads religious people to have higher teen pregnancies and disease compared to youth who receive good, science-based sex education.
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How do you negotiate condom use when you know you are not supposed to be having sex in the first place? The very act of negotiating or talking about birth control or condoms means you are intentionally planning to sin. With forethought and planning, you intend to violate god’s law even as he
watches you. Better to simply ignore the reality of the situation and pretend that it was impulsive or accidental than admit you are a worthless sinner. If you get pregnant or catch a disease, it is not a big leap to believe it is god’s punishment for your sinfulness. You deserved it. A baby conceived in such a situation is off to a poor start. Guilt and damnation will be associated with the pregnancy and child the rest of its life. Here is what one respondent from our on-line survey wrote:

There was a large space of time between me becoming sexually active and becoming non-religious. During that time, I put myself at unnecessary risk of disease and pregnancy. While I was religious, guilt kept me from taking basic precautions like birth control or condom use. To me, using any sort of contraceptive was tantamount to admitting that I was planning for and, indeed, desirous of sexual activities. Deciding not to use contraception allowed me to convince myself that my pleasure was a side effect of fulfilling my boyfriend's desire for sexual activity
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We heard similar stories from hundreds of people in our research; stories of religious guilt leading people to take unnecessary risks while denying their sexual feelings and desires.

In my own family, the effects of religious distortion go back at least 80 years when my grandmother got pregnant under questionable circumstances, then divorced. She remarried a short time later. Her religious shame and guilt prevented her from admitting and dealing openly with the situation. She cut off contact with the father of her child and pretended she was never divorced. She was a harsh judge of anyone who divorced. No one else condemned her, but she condemned herself. She made many poor choices over her lifetime in the name of religion.