QOTD

[autographedcat]

"Human beings took our animal need for palatable food … and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species … and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took our capacity to make and use tools … and turned it into the Apollo moon landing. We took our uniquely precise ability to communicate through language … and turned it into King Lear.

None of these things are necessary for survival and reproduction. That is exactly what makes them so splendid. When we take our basic evolutionary wiring and transform it into something far beyond any prosaic matters of survival and reproduction … that’s when humanity is at its best. That’s when we show ourselves to be capable of creating meaning and joy, for ourselves and for one another. That’s when we’re most uniquely human.

And the same is true for sex. Human beings have a deep, hard-wired urge to replicate our DNA, instilled in us by millions of years of evolution. And we’ve turned it into an intense and delightful form of communication, intimacy, creativity, community, personal expression, transcendence, joy, pleasure, and love. Regardless of whether any DNA gets replicated in the process.

Why should we see this as sinful? What makes this any different from chocolate souffles and King Lear?"
--Greta Christina

(via Sex Is Not The Enemy)

Comments

Had much the same reaction

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I was thinking about the same thing. A bit of musing.

Jews need to remember that Christians think of sex as inherently sinful. In fact, it is the original sin. That is rather different from Judaism, which regards sex as being in the same category as other forms of human activity -- to be enjoyed, but expressly bound and directed.

The author of the expressed thought appears to be reacting to the idea that sex is inherently sinful. I might argue that just as we need more in our diet than chocolate souffles, and indulging too often in chocolate souffles causes some significant medical problems, the same is true for sex. There are lots of times and places where it is -- if not sinful -- damaging and harmful. Rape being the obvious example, but there are other less severe examples of where sex is as potentially dangerous as a chocolate souffles to a diabetic or as inappropriate as a chocolate souffle for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Re: Had much the same reaction

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I had been trying to come up with something similar.

As I see it (and various better writers have aid it as well), humans are capable of taking anything 'necessary' and turning it into both great good and great evil (often taking the good to excess, the difference between the gourmet and the gourmand is one of degree). We can use our social skills to achieve projects, or to raise a lynch mob. We can send men to the moon, or missiles to blow others to bits. We can use sex for joy, or as a weapon (not just rape, I'm thinking of the "keep them barefoot and pregnant" enslaving of women). We are capable of being both "better than the angels" and "worse than the demons" (and as one of the Pratchett/Gaiman supernatural characters points out in "Good Omens", often at the same time).

The difference, in the predominant Christian interpretation, seems to be that there sex is regarded as purely evil (at best a "necessary evil"). In many denominations it is still preached as something to be endured (as a duty to propagate) rather than enjoyed (and anyone who does enjoy it and says so openly is regarded as a slut). So yes, I think that the quotation which started this is a reaction to a peculiarly Christian attitude.

Re: Had much the same reaction

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

In my experience "sex is to be endured, not enjoyed, and if you admit to enjoying it you are a slut" is a message enforced far more on women than on men.

Not that I disagree with you on the rest of it, or even on that--I just wanted to point out the double standard is alive and well.

Re: Had much the same reaction

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I agree that the term 'slut' is applied generally to women (indeed, I just went looking for a male equivalent and couldn't find one, although I do know several people who apply it regardless of gender), and I apologise. I also agree that there is a double-standard, but IME it's not quite in the same place as you say.

IME, the "anyone who (openly) enjoys sex is considered promiscuous" (and therefore bad) idea applies equally to men and women. However, for men being seen as 'bad' is often (perhaps generally) regarded as a positive thing (by other men), and this I think is the double-standard. By the lights of the churches which disapprove of sex the men are also being 'wicked', but women are punished harder for unacceptable behaviour (probably because their priests are also male).

Re: Had much the same reaction

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i've seen the catholic view summed up as "sex is dirty! sex is evil!! save it for someone you love!!!"

Re: Had much the same reaction

[annonynous.livejournal.com]

"Christians think of sex as inherently sinful. In fact, it is the original sin."

I'm surprised no one else has picked up on this, so maybe I have it wrong. It has been some decades since I lapsed from Catholicism, but my remembrance is that the original sin was *disobedience*, of God's command not to taste the fruit of what I think was called the Tree of Knowledge.

I'm open to correction.
Ann O.

Re: Had much the same reaction

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Depends which version of Christianity. Any statement such as "X think..." is almost certainly false for some value of X (and I know some Christians who certainly don't think that sex per se is a sin, only that it is a sin outside marriage).

But I have certainly met quite a few who seem to ignore the earlier disobedience, or even who conflate the two and think that the "Tree of Knowledge" was in fact the knowledge of sex specifically.