Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (34 page)

Changing our childhood map can be difficult, but it can be liberating. Here is what two of our survey respondents wrote in response to the question, “How has your sex life changed since leaving religion?”

• (It is) more liberating; less guilt; less fear about supporting people of other sexual orientations; more loving relationships; more freedom of expression physically; I feel healthier physically and mentally
  .
  
• I now feel like I can explore sex more. There is no God that is judging me or overlooking what I do. I can do what I want, and feel good about it because I know that I'm doing it for both my partner's pleasure and my pleasure
  .
  

As part of our research, we have received hundreds of similar comments from people who decided to change their maps.
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Religion creates an unnecessary layer of complexity. It is difficult enough to make clear-headed decisions about your relationships without including a voyeuristic god in your bedroom.

Religion has a spotty record with respect to marriage. For centuries the church was mostly concerned with the marriages of the rich and powerful and showed little interest in the marriages of the peasant class. Local culture often dictated how and why a person got married. For a thousand years or more, church weddings were rare in Europe. The church issued no marriage licenses (neither did the state). Many people “married” by simply moving in together. The first time the church might officially know of a marriage was when two people appeared at the church to get their baby christened.
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With the Reformation, marriage became more important for both Protestant and Catholics, primarily because the respective churches wanted to have clear claim to the children. Marriage in the church ensured membership by the children as well. For the last two hundred years, marriage in the West has been a one-size-fits-all model based on the assumption that marriage is forever and divorce is not an option.

Considering the 50% that divorce and the 25% or more who remain in unhappy marriages for life, this model only works for about a quarter of marriages. Remove religion from the equation, and there are no compelling reasons to perpetuate this model.

Why do people get married? Love is a part of it, but if love is based on NRE, then we know it will end relatively soon. If a true partnership is the goal, then both parties need to look beyond NRE. They need to make decisions about children and their religious or non-religious training. Couples need to talk openly about how to negotiate future changes to the relationship, including thinking rationally about how the marriage might be dissolved, if that time comes. This is all very unromantic stuff, but when contemplating a long-term partnership, romance must take a back seat.

Relationship experts and activists have been exploring alternatives for years. From gay marriage to limited contract marriages, even governments are rethinking marriage. In 2011, Mexico City, noting that the city has a divorce rate of 50% and most marriages end in two years, introduced legislation for a two-year marriage contract. The contract could be renewed but would automatically end after two years. The Catholic church complained. “This reform is absurd. It contradicts the nature of marriage," said Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Mexican archdiocese. "It's another one of these electoral theatrics the assembly tends to do that are irresponsible and immoral.”
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The statement should have said,
“It contradicts the nature of Catholic marriage.”
The church has no right to define marriage except for those inside the church. The church made the same complaint when Mexico City legalized gay marriage in 2009.

Dr. Deborah Anapohl’s groundbreaking book
Love Without Limits
(1988)
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was one of the first books to explore alternative relationship models like polyamory. Since its publication, dozens of other books have looked at ways people can develop committed relationships outside of traditional religious models. Further, the non-profit organization Loving More was established in 1991 to promote awareness of polyamory, and the movement has grown immensely since then. It is interesting to note that the polyamory movement has far more women leaders than men, and many of the best-selling books on the subject are by women.

Susan Pease Gadoua, author and marriage therapist, has proposed that marriages be contractual for specific purposes and time periods.
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As part of the process, she asks, “Why do people want to get married?” The answer to the question helps determine the marriage contract. If people want to get married for financial security, without children, that would frame one approach to a marriage contract. If marriage is for purposes of raising children, that creates a different set of expectations and obligations. If the
marriage brings children from previous relationships, that is yet another important consideration. Gadoua advocates negotiations about marriage expectations and clear-headed contemplation of how to dissolve it, in a civilized and respectful manner.

Within the BDSM
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community, a form of relationship contract has been in use for decades – a framework for defining the limits and expectations of a relationship. While not legally binding, the contract facilitates genuine discussion about relationship expectations and forces people to clarify expectations, examine hidden assumptions and enter into agreements that are satisfactory to all parties. In addition, contracts are limited and subject to renegotiation every six months or so. It is a dynamic approach to relationships that recognizes nothing is static.

The purpose here is not to endorse any particular style or approach to relationships but to show that there are many options and creative ways to define relationships. There may be Catholic, Muslim, Baptist or Mormon marriage, but there is no universal right of religion to define marriage outside the walls of its church. On the other hand, we have the power to define relationships in ways that fit our needs and the needs of those we love.

167
See, for example,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024150/Warren-Jeffs-trial-Paedophile-gets-life-sentence-50-brides-photo-emerges.html
.

168
See
http://feedlot.blogspot.com/2006/09/omaha-billionaire-warren-buffett.html
.

169
A brief article on this is available at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2095967/Why-having-an-affair-could-save-your-marriage.html
.

170
Ray and Brown, “Sex and Secularism: What Happens When You Leave Religion.” See
IPCPress.com
for the full report.

171
Coontz provides a look at this in
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage
(2005).

172
“'Til 2013 do us part? Mexico mulls 2-year marriage,” available online at
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/29/us-mexico-marriage-idUSTRE78S6TX20110929
.

173
Recently updated as
Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy with Multiple Partners
(2010).

174
Gadoua has published two books on the topic:
Contemplating Divorce, A Step-by-Step Guide to Deciding Whether to Stay or Go
(2008), and
Stronger Day by Day: Reflections for Healing and Rebuilding After Divorce
(2010).

175
BDSM: Behavior-Discipline-Sado-Masochism. See this site for a comprehensive overview of contracts,
http://www.leathernroses.com/generalbdsm/generalbdsm.htm#contracts
.

Sexual jealousy is an emotion that originates in ideas about sex and ownership
.

“A jealous husband doesn’t doubt his wife, but himself.”

-Honore De Balzac

“Jealousy is nothing more than a fear of abandonment.”

-Arab Proverb

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.”

-Erica Jong

“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.”

-Robert A. Heinlein

“Jealousy is not so much the love of another as the love of ourselves.”

-Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. "

-Henry Ellis

The idea and expression of sexual jealousy varies widely from one culture to the next. Margaret Meade famously claimed it was nonexistent in Samoan culture, though some have disputed that.
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Further, Bronislaw Malinowski found minimal cause for sexual jealousy in the matrilineal Trobriand Islands,
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nor does it seem to be a problem among the matriarchal Na of China. Many human cultures seem to be relatively free of it.

Despite claims by evolutionary psychologists like Steven Pinker,
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the evidence for an evolutionary or genetic basis for jealousy is not convincing. Evolutionary psychologists tend to ignore cross-cultural and cross-species data, in favor of data that are affected by universal religions.
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Finally, they generally ignore the fact that sex is rarely procreative in humans but is used far more for recreation and bonding. The human tendency to jealousy appears to be largely cultural, but let’s examine the evidence.

Conflict over mates is characteristic of many species. Chimps and gorillas have major conflicts and rivalries over mates. One might say that a silverback gorilla guards his females jealously, putting on aggressive displays to discourage possible rivals. Chimps and gorillas treat sex like a precious commodity to be guarded and protected. On the other hand, jealousy seems to be largely missing among the female-led bonobos, for whom sex is not a precious commodity, so no need to defend mates or attack others. As we have seen in previous chapters, humans are very flexible in their sexuality and have the capacity to act like gorillas, chimps or bonobos. It is our culture that seems to push us one way or another.

With property ownership comes possessiveness. If women are property, they are guarded jealously. Once women break free of their property status and gain economic autonomy, male jealousy begins to look like what it truly is – the need to own and control females.

On the female side, jealousy is related to control of resources in the interest of the woman and her young. A woman may show jealousy toward another female who is draining off a male’s resources, thus depriving her and her young. If, as with the Na culture (discussed in
Chapter 11
), the father’s resources are not involved in raising the child, there is less reason for women to express jealousy of other women. If, as in the case of the Hadza culture, the child is raised as much by the clan as by the parents, there is also less need for female jealousy. The father’s resources are important, but not critical.

With feminine economic autonomy, the idea of owning or controlling women is diminished. Men are less able to guard their mates, so other ways of relating to women are necessary. Also, with female autonomy, a woman is less threatened by other women taking resources because she controls her resources. The notion of owning or controlling a man’s resources diminishes, so other ways of relating to men are necessary as well. For example, most cultures focus on the man’s social and economic status. Women were taught and even required to marry men who have the most resources and then jealously guard those resources for her children.

The model may have been functional in the past, but is it functional now? If a woman is financially independent and does not want children, the “marry a high-status male” model may be counterproductive in finding a compatible mate. Many women earn as much as or more than the men they might marry. If the only model is to marry high-status men, then the pool of candidates is vanishingly small for higher income women.

No one has found a jealousy gene, but many people believe we are born jealous or are genetically predisposed to jealousy. We certainly have a predisposition to protect things we need for survival and reproduction, as does any species. In many ways, our culture defines what is important and sets the criteria for becoming jealous. If the culture says, “Protecting and controlling your women is important,” then most men and women will play their parts in that scheme. If, on the other hand, the culture does not place great value on controlling women, then there will be less jealousy.

This can be illustrated with the following examples. In our culture, it is not normal to kill your wife when you learn that she is having an affair. In Saudi Arabia or areas of Pakistan and other Muslim countries, however,
killing one’s wife and her lover would be viewed as an honor killing. Even if it is against the law, few are prosecuted for doing it and families support the husband. This level of jealous behavior is learned and even encouraged by the culture. To an Arab man, the murderous rage he feels is a normal emotion – normal, in the sense that it is expected and understood by people in that culture. Even women may see this as justifiable homicide in a Muslim culture.
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In our own culture, English court cases in the 17th and 18th centuries show that judges and juries let men off with minimal punishment for the crime of wife beating and even killing if the wife was known to be unfaithful. The famous English jurist William Blackstone noted in 1783 that killings provoked by infidelity were “of the lowest degree of manslaughter … for there could not be a greater provocation.”
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