Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (35 page)

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, all male juries in England and the United Staes might find the murderous husband “not guilty by reason of temporary insanity” or call it manslaughter rather than murder. That level of jealous behavior was understood as justifiable by the male-dominated culture of the time.
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While Paul says in Corinthians 13:4 that “love is not jealous,” the idea and practice of jealousy is deeply rooted in religion. Deuteronomy and Leviticus spell this out starkly.

Deuteronomy 22:20-21, NAB,
But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

Leviticus 21:9, NAB,
A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death.

You might ask, are these verses dealing with jealousy? It is wife guarding. With the threat of death, the assumption is that she will remain faithful. If a wife is not faithful, then her children may not be yours and your property may go to someone else’s progeny. The logic is based on cultural ideas about property rights, but it looks like jealous behavior. Most important for our discussion, this behavior, whether you call it jealousy or something else, is learned; it is not genetic. As a result, it can be unlearned or modified as we can see by the change in our culture over the last few centuries.

Today, there is no excuse for spousal murder based on jealousy or property rights. Many men and women who, in times past, might have gone into a jealous rage today control their emotions, talk through the issues, go to a marriage counselor or file for divorce. We have seen a remarkable decrease in the type of behavior in the last 150 years, far too fast for an inborn or genetic trait to change.

What has caused this change? It was precipitated by general and emotional education that opened up options. With few options, emotional frustration takes over and becomes behavior we identify as jealous. Non-religious professionals and organizations are ready to educate and intervene when emotions get out of control. Mental health services are available and general education is better. We also have resources that work in favor of learning self-control. Police can be called quickly, and investigative tools make it easier to find the culprit. Finally, increased economic independence makes women less controllable. If a man wants a mate, jealous, controlling behavior isn’t an effective way of getting and keeping her.

As mentioned, if jealousy is learned, it can be unlearned. Our entire culture has unlearned some of the jealous habit over the last two centuries, but we still have a way to go. Unfortunately, jealousy is still actively taught and encouraged in our culture, often with the collusion or support of religion.

Girls and boys are taught from very young that they “should” be jealous of anyone who might take their boyfriend or girlfriend. The list of teenage love songs that include mention of jealousy is enormous. Unfortunately, teens learn a knee-jerk response to sexual tension or conflict rather than a reasoned and rational response to relationship building.

Listen to any number of songs, and the words “my girl,” “my guy,” “my love,” “mine forever” and “yours forever” are everywhere. In novels, plays, self-help books and poems, the focus on owning someone is the main theme. It is a lot simpler to claim ownership than to build a relationship.

Possessiveness and jealousy begin when two adolescents first experience the power of NRE. The opiates produced in their brains are literally addictive. The problem comes when NRE gets mixed in with ideas of “love is forever” or “sex means commitment” or dependency issues like “I need you” or “I can’t live without you.” These messages seem harmless, except that people actually believe them when in the throes of NRE, especially if they have never been taught otherwise.

At the same time, our culture, and religion particularly, pushes the idea that love is forever and sex means commitment. What is an adolescent to do when the hormones are raging, first love has hit hard and all these feelings are psychologically paired with irrational messages that promote unrealistic expectations and dependency?

Without proper emotional and conceptual tools, adolescents are at the mercy of pop songs and religious teachings. Much of the chaos of adolescence in the United States could be tempered with sound sex and relationship education. Sound sex education doesn’t just talk about sex, it discusses and provides opportunities to practice responses to emotionally charged situations that most people face sooner or later. It teaches about the full range of options available and how to set priorities in life. As with most other things in life, people who are educated make better decisions and achieve their goals more often than those who are not. Sex is no different.

Unfortunately, most religions are against such honest and up-front education. From teen pregnancies and STIs to teen suicide, the root causes of these problems often arise in religious training and resistance to healthy sex and relationship education.

How does this relate to jealousy? The crazy ideas that teens imbibe carry forward into marriage and parenthood. When someone believes, “I can’t live without you” or “You are mine forever, no matter what,” they often do things that drive their spouse away. These kinds of beliefs lead to possessiveness and dependency, not mature adult behavior. They certainly don’t promote good communication skills.

Jealousy says a lot about a person’s sexual map. A jealous person is making a statement about his or her ownership or control of another person. It’s a dangerous idea, one that belongs in the dustbin of history.

People who believe they have a right to judge, evaluate and control others’ sex lives are often emotionally uneducated and have a sexual map based on religious notions of sexual purity and women’s roles in society. The belief that a man or a woman has a right to judge and control others leads to parental and spousal behavior that is emotionally and physically damaging. Not only are women subject to abuse and control, so are husbands and children. If the child’s sexual orientation or sexual interests conflict with the religious ideas of the parents, abuse is likely. Whether we call this jealousy or not, the behavior of a man guarding his “wayward” wife or daughter looks a lot like it. If a woman believes she owns her husband, her jealously controlling behavior can be stifling.

Ideas and beliefs cause the behavior we label jealousy. Ideas that lead to jealous behavior are irrational. For example, a jealous woman might have the belief that “I must control my husband or he may stray to someone else just like my father did.” Her belief does not come from her husband’s behavior but from her insecurities and childhood experience. This is the most common reason for jealous behavior: the jealous person is insecure and has an excessive fear of loss or abandonment. Jealousy is not a single emotion but the coming together of many emotions based on certain beliefs. To understand jealousy, we must unpack it.

Jealousy that comes from fear of loss or abandonment is a relationship killer. These self-defeating ideas need to be systematically discarded and replaced by ideas based on reality, not on emotions experienced in childhood. Only then can a person begin to learn the important skills of relationship building and effective communication.

If a person has hidden beliefs that “All men cheat” or “All women are gold diggers,” it will influence his or her behavior, maybe into a form we might identify as jealousy. Most people will not admit these beliefs. They will deny they are jealous but behave in ways that appear controlling and jealous. Here is how it works:

Identifying hidden beliefs allows us to see the fallacies in thinking that lead to self-defeating behavior. Identifying and changing these can make a huge positive difference in the development of a relationship. There is far more to learn about dealing with this kind of irrational thinking than we can discuss here. If you would like to learn more about self-defeating thinking, consult some of the resources in the bibliography. For now, I want to deal with some specific irrational ideas that are bound up with religion.

Our culture has a good deal of influence over what we value. If something is deemed important enough we may even be willing to die for it. Some people will die for their country. Others will die for their religion. Both of these are culturally defined.

Religion says that following the sexual laws of Jesus or Mohammed is so critical that you could die and burn in eternal hell for violating them. This is a great excuse to get into other people’s sexual lives. “If you are gay, I am going to save you from hell.” “If you want to have premarital sex, I am going to help you understand what eternal suffering is like.” In any case, the logic is air tight – by abusing or controlling you in this life, the religious person is saving you from hell in the next. The same logic was used by the Spanish Inquisition.

These religious ideas define what people can and cannot do with regard to sex. First, religion defines sex as precious and limited. You can only have sex with one person per lifetime and that sex must conform to specific guidelines – or you will burn! When something so essential is severely limited, that really raises its value. If sex is a precious commodity, you must protect it at all costs. If you violate it, the price to restore yourself to sanctity will be high. Women, protect your virginity. Men, jealously guard your wives and daughters to keep them from falling into Satan’s sexual trap. Never masturbate and practice abstinence only.

Jealousy is only functional if you believe that sex is a limited commodity to be guarded like gold. If sex is not a limited commodity, then religion has lost its most effective tool for infection.

The idea of defending your mate against sexual competition is rampant throughout our culture and is deeply rooted in the major religions. If you believe that sex is primarily for reproduction, men must control women to ensure the progeny are theirs. If you believe that sex is primarily for bonding, the reasons for jealousy are less compelling. That is not to say your lover or spouse is not important. If you have a good relationship, it is reasonable and rational to do things that will keep your partner interested and attracted to you. But maintaining and enjoying a relationship is not the same as jealously guarding it. Jealousy is the opposite of maintaining and growing in a relationship. Jealousy includes elements of fear, anger, suspicion and control that have no place in a mature relationship.

A person who is hungry will do desperate, need-based things to get food. By the same token, a person who defines his love as necessary for life will behave in equally need-based ways. The desire for someone is a want, not a need, but our brains easily confuse the ideas. A boy in love may act as though he cannot live without his girl. The behavior is based in our biology and the opiates in our brains, manufactured when we are in the throes of New Relationship Energy – in love. The effect lovers have on one another is similar to a chemical addiction. Fortunately, teaching people about this aspect of our biology can help them anticipate and govern their behavior more rationally when the time comes. It is emotional education, and it works to help children, youth, and even adults negotiate their social world more effectively.
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Using these kinds of tools, we help people change their need-based sexual map to a want-based map. Want-based thinking is not prone to jealous behavior. It explores options for mutual satisfaction. It sees the wants and desires of the other as equal. Want-based thinking does not see sex as a
precious commodity to be hoarded and protected, but as something to be shared, learned and enjoyed.

When you unpack jealousy, there isn’t much there except some crazy ideas on a very flawed map. It is a map that is strongly reinforced by religion’s ideas about fidelity, monogamy, eternal love and things like committing your marriage to god.

If you were raised in American culture, you are surrounded by the religious idea that sex is a limited commodity. It influences the way you date, who you date, how you relate to the opposite sex, even how you have sex. At every phase of the dating and sexual relationship process, this idea injects itself and often causes jealousy. The entire culture holds this belief. Millions of people go without sex because religions say it is limited.

You probably have visions of a million-person orgy right now. That wouldn’t be what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that notions of fidelity, ownership and jealousy all interfere with people enjoying one another. Think back to the cultures we examined where there were no religious restrictions. The Na do not believe sex is a limited commodity. The Mangaians don’t get jealous. No one owns the sexuality of a woman in the Hadza culture. We impose these cultural concepts on ourselves. If you are non-religious, you can discard these ideas and write your own rules (which we will explore in the next chapter).