Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (37 page)

It is important to develop an ethical approach to issues of sexuality, one that respects the needs of both parties and allows for reexamination or renegotiation. What if one or both partners want to stay married but is no longer stimulated in the marriage? How could that be handled? How can a couple explore these issues without feeling inadequate or blamed?

We know that humans like variety, are extremely sexual and that ignoring an urge doesn’t make it go away. Because one partner wants new stimulation, it does not mean the other is inadequate or somehow at fault. These are old notions based on shoulds, oughts and musts from religious training.

If we live our relationships on shoulds, oughts and musts, we are missing wonderful opportunities to share and learn from the most important people in our lives. We don’t have to live by guilt and shame-inducing rules. We can step outside of the conceptual prison and learn to be adults who treat our mates as full partners and make mutual decisions that enhance and enrich life. We can remain together for as long as we like, even a lifetime, while ensuring that both are emotionally and sexually fulfilled.

Here are three things I call Big Ideas that, I believe, can enhance the opportunity for happiness in relationships and reduce the need for divorce. Test them for yourself.

The first Big Idea is the most revolutionary. Recognize and celebrate your natural human tendencies and work out a way to satisfy your desires without blaming each other or getting divorced. This means examining the hidden assumptions baked into every relationship, especially marriage. Ideas like the following:

• He/she should be attracted to me no matter what.
  
• Marriage is forever, with or without sex.
  
• The children come first.
  
• We can be married only if we are sexually monogamous.
  
• To want sex with someone else means he/she doesn’t love me.
  
• I should be happy with one sex partner for the rest of my life.
  

These are irrational assumptions that strongly influence thinking and behavior. They often remain unspoken and unexamined. Let’s take a brief look and understand why they are irrational.

He/she should be attracted to me no matter what.
One can easily imagine situations where attraction would die. She gains 200 lbs. He becomes physically abusive. She starts a crack cocaine addiction. He stops bathing. Most people would quickly find these unattractive even if the person was Mr. or Ms. America when they married. The question then becomes, “What are the boundaries of attraction?” “What responsibility do you have to remain attractive as a marriage partner?”

Marriage is forever, with or without sex.
Sex was probably an important part of the initial attraction. To expect that your partner’s sex drive will stop just because yours has is probably delusional. Marriage lasts as long as the two of you decide it does. There is no way to force someone to remain married. If you don’t want sex but she does, you had better reexamine your assumptions if you want to stay married.

The children come first.
The marriage came first; if you don’t take care of the marriage, the children suffer. A loving marriage provides a safe place for children to thrive. Parents who don’t have time for each other while they are raising the kids are often on the fast track for divorce.

We can be married only if we are sexually monogamous.
This idea causes more divorces than all others combined. There are millions of people throughout the world who have happy, thriving marriages while enjoying lovers outside the marriage. The French have made an art form of it for centuries. This is not to say it is always a good idea, but it is an option that would save a lot of otherwise good marriages.

To want sex with someone else means he/she doesn’t love me.
We love multiple people all the time. Why is it when sex gets involved, people suddenly think they own the other person’s sexuality? (See the
Chapter 24
on jealousy.)

I should be happy with one sex partner for the rest of my life.
Sexual monogamy is an unrealistic expectation for 50-70% of the population. Indeed, sexual monogamy is among the rarest of sexual preferences in nature. Sex is a strong human appetite. Accepting this fact allows for more rational ways to handle marriage.

The second Big idea is to learn how to be honest with yourself so that you can be honest with your partner. When someone is dissatisfied, they generally blame their spouse or partner. The cold hard truth is that the dissatisfaction is inside
you
. If you are dissatisfied, admit it and talk with your spouse openly and honestly. This is frightening, even terrifying, for most people and for good reason. Talking about the ideas listed above can be extremely threatening. Panic, anger, blame and upset come quickly. Honesty requires courage, but it also requires love, tact and an understanding of the other person.

While long-term sexual monogamy is not natural to humans, modern society thrives on social monogamy. Families benefit greatly from long-term stable marriages. Individuals benefit emotionally, financially and psychologically. I am very much in favor of social monogamy.

In their excellent book
The Myth of Monogamy
, David Barash, Ph.D., and Judith Lipton, M.D., explore how common it is among many species to be socially mated to one “spouse” but to have sex with others. For example, the myth that swans are monogamous was disproved when DNA testing found that 17-20% of the eggs belonged to a different father. Swans also “divorce” far more often than once thought.
¹⁹¹
They are not sexually monogamous but they are socially monogamous – mated for long periods of time.

In the West, we practice social monogamy but not necessarily sexual monogamy. Cheating is a non-monogamous choice made without the partner’s knowledge or permission. When we believe all the religious ideas about marriage, we cannot see a way to live a sexually non-monogamous life without destroying our socially monogamous lives. But non-monogamy is a radical proposal. So let’s look at the options when one or both partners are dissatisfied:

1. Remain together in misery with the ever-present possibility of cheating.
   
2. Divorce and seriously disrupt the family and social network.
   
3. Explore ways to rejuvenate the marriage from within.
   
4. Practice sexual non-monogamy and social monogamy.
   

Option one: Remain together in misery with the ever-present possibility of cheating.
This is very common. A significant number of marriages that never end up in divorce choose this option. Maybe as much as 25-30% of marriages become more like brother and sister living together. If both can turn off their sex drives, this option may be a permanent solution; if not, it can be miserable. If one or the other feels trapped and helpless, the celibacy can lead to depression and other medical problems. Unhappy people do not take care of themselves physically or emotionally. They gain weight, don’t exercise, self-medicate with alcohol or prescription drugs and fundamentally fail to recognize the source of their problems – a marriage that is not satisfying their emotional and sexual needs.

Option two: Divorce, and seriously disrupt the family and social network.
Divorce is emotionally devastating to everyone involved, but it is made worse by the false assumptions people have about marriage. Ideas like “Til death do us part” or “We will get the kids raised, then we will be happier.” When the break does happen, people often blame and vilify their spouses rather than admitting their fundamental assumptions were wrong in the first place.

Blame and recrimination create more emotional turmoil. In most cases, a marriage was in trouble for years before the divorce. The couple assumed that by ignoring problems they could keep the marriage going on automatic pilot. When a spouse’s genetic leash yanks her back to her biological roots, she feels a strong urge to break out of the monogamy trap. Years of ignoring sexual or relationship needs often takes one or both of partners by surprise. Clients have said, “I thought we had a good marriage, then I got the divorce papers,” or “I thought we were happy until I discovered she was having an affair.”

Option three: Explore ways to rejuvenate the marriage from within.
Rejuvenation is difficult, but not impossible. Couples do find ways to revitalize their relationships and live happily for decades. The task is daunting because it requires a fundamental reassessment of the marriage. In some ways, it is like creating a new marriage. For some, the process feels like walking a tight rope between two tall buildings. The tension, questioning, rethinking and trying of new ideas and new behavior can be exhausting. You can fall off the tight rope. But couples who have successfully made it to the new marriage say it was worth the risk and effort. Some even say they are as happy in their rejuvenated marriage as they were the first few years of marriage.

Option four: Practice sexual non-monogamy and social monogamy.

The option of sexual non-monogamy and social monogamy respects our biology but is furthest from religious ideas about marriage. This area is far too large for us to discuss here. I would recommend reading some of the great resources available on this topic in the bibliography.

Many people have successfully integrated sexual non-monogamy (polyamory)
¹⁹²
into their socially monogamous marriages. I recently attended a conference with about 300 secular college students. A speaker asked, “How many people are ‘poly friendly’?” Ninety percent of the hands went up. Most religious college students don’t know what the word means, let alone feel open to the possibility. It is an idea that secularists can explore but it is unavailable to religionists. Whether this is a good option or not, only you and your partner can decide. It may be a good option if it allows a couple to stay married and finish raising children. It may be a bad option if issues of security and jealousy cannot be managed.

Regardless of the options you choose, the most important thing is to choose consciously. Don’t let ancient religious programming dictate your emotional and intellectual responses. You are a biological and social creature living in a biological and social world. Recognizing this gives you the power to make more rational decisions about how you want to enjoy the only life you have.

The realm of “normal” in human sexuality is vast. If you want to masturbate several times a day – that is normal. If you want to have sex with your partner several times a day – that is normal. If you want to be spanked before you have sex – that is normal. If you want to have oral sex frequently – that is normal. If you want to have a threesome – that is normal. If you like to dress up in the clothes of the opposite sex – that is normal. If you get off by watching naked men popping balloons – that is normal. If you want a husband and a lover on the side – that is normal.

There is nothing wrong with you if you have normal ideas, urges and drives. If your sexual behavior is consensual among adults and hurts no one else, it is fine. In the BDSM world, it’s called “safe, sane and consensual,” a
good way to sum it up. No church has the right to get into your bedroom and tell you what is normal.

What is abnormal are priests, nuns and popes, an uptight Baptist minister’s wife, a fire-breathing misogynistic imam. These are all far from the mainstream of human sexuality. They have a perfect right to be and believe what they like; unfortunately, they have political and social power to make life miserable for millions of people with their guilt and shame-based sexualities.

These three Big Ideas will help you identify hidden assumptions and religious programming. They will also help you redraw your map of what sex and relationships mean to you and your partner.

The ultimate goal is for you to learn to live happily with your sexuality and develop long-term, productive relationships based on realistic expectations.

188
Ellis, A. (1975).
A New Guide to Rational Living
.

189
“To Trust or Not to Trust: Ask Oxytocin,” by Mauricio Delgado in
Scientific American
. Available online at
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=to-trust-or-not-to-trust
.

190
Hein, H. (2001)
Sexual Detours: The Startling Truth Behind Love, Lust, and Infidelity
.

191
Barash, D. P., & Lipton, J. (2001).
The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People
.

192
Polyamory: based on the Latin for many loves. The practice, desire or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Religion is evolving to survive but is losing the battle in many regions, largely because of the Internet. Sexual information is far more available now, which interferes with religion’s ability to use sexual guilt to perpetuate
.

As I explored in
The God Virus
,
¹⁹³
religions mutate and evolve, just like any organism. Churches are adjusting and changing their sexual ideas but are always a few steps behind the culture. Here is the evidence:

• The Catholic church is giving annulments at unprecedented rates in the United States to prevent a hemorrhaging of members. You can’t excommunicate all the Catholics who are divorcing, or few members will be left to contribute to the church.
  
• Virtually all Catholics in the Western world use birth control and many have had abortions. The church continues to condemn both. It has tried (but with little success) to excommunicate Catholic politicians who supported birth control and abortion.
  
• Baptists and non-denominationals are experiencing among the highest divorce rates in the United States. Divorced people used to be shunned and forced out of the church. You cannot eliminate all divorced people or half the church will soon be gone. As a result, these churches are trying to support divorced people even as they soft-pedal the message that divorce is immoral.
  
• Despite the teachings of conservative churches, the rates of premarital sex are equally common between the religious and non-religious. Churches turn a blind eye to those who live together or are in non-marital sexual relationships.
  
• Some Evangelical churches that condemned masturbation just a few years ago are now soft-pedaling their barbaric approaches to it. Kids can read on the Internet that masturbation is perfectly normal. It makes it much more difficult to infect them with guilt messages when it is clear that the religious teachers and preachers don’t know what they are talking about.
  
• Some churches are coming to terms with homosexuality and openly welcoming gays. By marginalizing gays, they alienated the parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles of gays. You may be able to kick the gays out, but you can’t afford to kick their relatives out as well.
  
• People born into a world using the Internet will be much more difficult to infect with crazy ideas about sex. The churches are trying desperately to adjust to this reality.