Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality (24 page)

When I was in clinical practice, I worked with two priests who came to me for counseling. In both cases, their stories were those of perfectly normal 13-year-old boys. They masturbated a lot and loved to use pornography. They did not mention any pedophile tendencies, but years later one of them was arrested for just such behavior. In my few sessions with each of them, I could see nothing particularly wrong with their urges. What they were dealing with was an unnatural demand by their religion to forego a powerful drive and, as a result, they were suffering from guilt, angst and depression.

This experience helped me better understand the pedophile-priest phenomenon. If most priests are like the ones I worked with (as I have later come to learn is generally true), they are boys in men’s bodies. Many are attracted to boys because that is the age at which their own development was arrested. It is the time at which their sexual map was formed. This is no excuse for the horrendous abuse that has been perpetrated by priests, but it does explain why the problem is so common and pervasive. It also points to a solution – stop asking humans to act like eunuchs when they are not.

Priestly misconduct is an example of religion distorting sexuality. It is like tying a young tree with a strong cord that pulls it hard in one direction and keeps tightening as the tree grows. The result will be a tree with a crooked trunk. As the cord bends the tree, the tree struggles to grow toward the sun. In the end, the trunk is bent at a very odd angle and cannot possibly support the weight it might have otherwise.

Most priests (and nuns) are drawn into the ministry before their hormones kick in. They cannot possibly know how powerful their biology is. Their religious sexual map teaches them sex is a crime against their god, but their biological map drives them to want sex intensely. All they know is that they are damned for having normal feelings and wanting to act on them.

Their education often starts when they are 12 or 13. Many who become priests or nuns attend same-sex “seminaries” or schools. They have little or no exposure to the opposite sex, and the celibate priests or nuns who instruct them are just as ignorant. Even if the boys are not abused by their instructor priests, they will probably engage in normal sexual behavior within their student group. The hormones are raging – what is a 15-year-old boy going to do if he is terrorized about masturbation and knows that sex with girls is a mortal sin? He will do what any normal boy does, experiment with the
boys around him and then be torn with tremendous guilt. While other boys’ brains are imprinting on normal sexual targets – women’s faces, breasts, butts, voices, etc., the future priest’s brain is being bombarded with messages that create fear of sex. Any sex he has will generate huge amounts of guilt that then feeds back into the religious sexual map. It is a formula for a very twisted and immature understanding of one’s sexuality.

Combine this with the many other messages priests receive about being leaders of the church and moral models who give advice to those who are not as spiritually accomplished or advanced. The role they are given and the sexual feelings and drive they experience will almost inevitably lead to enormous internal conflict. Whether or not a given priest ever commits a crime against a child, the sexual map of such a person will be distorted simply because he is being forced into an unnatural sexuality. Celibacy is nothing if not abnormal. The human body and brain are not made for such programming. Whatever normal is, it does not include celibacy.

This same pattern can be seen in nuns as well. In my career, I had the opportunity to work in two institutions with nuns. I interacted with dozens of nuns and observed that their level of understanding about human sexuality was little better than that of a young girl. A few nuns were academically trained in sexual issues and were excellent listeners, but their adherence to Catholic sexual doctrine left them with few tools to understand or help people.

Black women are the most religious group in America. At the same time, they have among the highest number of unplanned pregnancies and receive 35% of all abortions, yet comprise only 13% of the population.
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Polls show that Blacks oppose abortion more fervently than any other group in the United States.
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Black Christianity is against homosexuality, masturbation, same-sex marriage, premarital sex, condom use, sex education and much more. It is among the most sexually conservative religions in America.

In an interview, the Black U.S. journalist and critic of religion, Jamila Bey, observed:

Despite such strict mores about appropriate sexual behavior, 73% of African-American children in the United States are born to unmarried parents. So clearly, there is some disconnect that allows such strong adherents to fail so obviously, yet somehow maintain that they are indeed truly faithful.
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The Black Protestant church has avoided scrutiny for decades. Just like the Catholic church, it holds itself above reproach, making it taboo to criticize it. Outsiders who criticize are accused of racism, and members of the Black community who oppose the church suffer ostracism and worse.
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Black atheists who call out the church are vilified.

In his excellent essay “The Invisibility of the Black Atheist,” Wrath White observes,

It can be argued that in most African American communities it is more acceptable to be a criminal who believes in God and goes to church on Sunday while selling drugs to kids all week than to be an atheist who has a good job, a good education, who contributes to society and supports his family. In these communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God. This, for me, is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embracement of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slavemasters and oppressors.
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The Black Protestant church holds itself out as the savior of the community and bastion of Black culture. However, the truth is something quite different. The Black church condemns all that is natural about sex and sexuality so effectively that it leaves church members with little or no useful information about their sexuality. The Black church creates an impossible sexual map, then condemns anyone who does not adhere to that map.

Black Christianity makes “women the sexual gatekeeper” even more strongly than white Christianity. It is women who are held responsible for remaining pure; it is women who are condemned and shamed when they fail. The shame and guilt effectively drive women back into the church so they can gain forgiveness. Seventy percent of Black church attendees are women. It is the guilt cycle writ large. According to Jamila Bey:

This is actually advantageous, and serves to further the religious tradition. When a young woman has a child out of wedlock, and that child is a girl, the mother can show her willingness to repent by more stringently enforcing the rules of sexual behavior on her daughter. Thus, to not permit a young girl easy opportunity to play at normal dating and sexual behaviors, a mother may show her piety more strongly by keeping her girl in church and drilling her to protect her chastity, even though her mother did not. This serves the church by keeping more women inside. The younger ones are pressured to not displease their mothers by rebelling.

Black women and men are given a religious sexual map that requires sexual fidelity, monogamy, marriage, heterosexuality, no sex before marriage, no masturbation and no abortion, but their biological map takes them in an entirely different direction. The conflict between church teachings and natural desires results in guilt, shame and anger.

In a 2008 article from the Guttmacher Institute, Susan Cohen notes that Black women have three times the number of unintended pregnancies as white women and five times the number of abortions. This remains true even when education and income are accounted for.
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She also notes that Black women are less likely to use birth control than white women, leaving them at risk for unintended pregnancies and needing abortion services. What Cohen does not say is that the likely reason for this difference is the sexual programming of the Black church.

The Black Protestant church’s map is so distorted that it undermines healthy sexual and interpersonal relationships before they even get started. The result is low marriage rates, more abortions, persecution of gays, higher number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), shame and ridicule over
masturbation and more. The Black church’s conservative message is similar to the white evangelical church’s, and the results are similar. White evangelical churches are seeing a decrease in male attendance and an increase in out-of-wedlock births, STIs and abortions. The highest number of abortions in the United States is in the most religious areas. These problems have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the distorted sexual messages these churches preach.

Religious guilt causes people to deny their behavior even as they engage in it. Guilt short-circuits rational examination of behavior in favor of supernatural notions like “evil” and “the temptation of Satan.” Replace the Black church’s teachings on sex with factual knowledge about sex and sexuality and many problems would be solved. Unplanned births would plummet, STIs would be eliminated, abortions would be dramatically reduced, homosexuality would be accepted, even celebrated, and stable relationships could be established based on effective communication. The Black church is the problem, not the solution. You can take religion out of sex, but you cannot take sex out of the Black church. Sexual condemnation and guilt are the cornerstones upon which it thrives.

You may wonder, “Why isn’t this the same for other churches, like the Catholics? Aren’t they notorious for sexual restrictions and guilt?” It is true of some Catholics, especially Hispanics in the United States, but many American-born Catholics have learned to ignore the church and its teachings. The drop in attendance and dramatic decrease in large families tell us that American-born Catholics are not buying the map that the Catholic church is selling. Unfortunately, the Black church’s sexual map is still selling well.

Baptist or Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostals, Nazarenes, Evangelical and Jehovah’s Witness are all shades of Christian fundamentalism. As such, their sexual views are universally restrictive. All are opposed to homosexuality, premarital sex, masturbation and many forms of sexual expression within marriage, such as anal and oral sex. While some of these churches are less vociferous than others, none is sex positive or offers a view of sexuality that resembles what human nature really is.

Austin Cline, in his Atheism newsletter, articulated the distorted logic that comes from many fundamental religions and the Catholic church:

Conservative evangelical objections to contraception, emergency contraception, and even abortion, can often be traced at least in part to their objections to ‘irresponsible’ sexual activity. Attempts to avoid pregnancy are thus attempts to avoid the consequences of one’s ‘irresponsible’ choices. Since avoiding the consequences of irresponsible choices is itself irresponsible as well as something which makes such choices easier, it follows that people should be forced to bear those consequences. When it comes to sexual activity, this includes women accepting pregnancy.
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By this convoluted logic, pregnancy is a punishment resulting from having sex outside of marriage. The goal is to get women to just say no to any sex that is not approved by their church and to judge them as immoral if they say yes and use birth control.

Groups like Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church use the same logic when they offer support to churches in Africa. They preach for abstinence-only and against condom use in areas with the highest number of AIDS victims. The result is a resurgence in AIDS in Central Africa, especially Uganda. Uganda had one of the most effective anti-AIDS programs in Africa and saw steady decline in the disease until Christian fundamentalists began preaching against condoms. It is a good example of the god virus and the AIDS virus working together to infect people.

The Evangelical anti-homosexuality message is incredibly destructive to people in Africa. Rick Warren and others encouraged anti-gay legislation in Uganda. The hatred and religious fervor the Evangelicals fostered may have been related to several attacks on homosexuals and the murder of David Kato, a gay rights leader.
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The sexual map of these churches leads to repression and subsequent acting out, not least among the clergy. Thus, all of these churches have problems controlling the clergy. Powerful, charismatic preachers can also be
very sexually attractive. This presents many opportunities for the successful preacher. To get a sample of this problem, visit the website
stopbaptistpredators.org
, an organization that has been documenting Baptist clergy sexual misconduct for years. Their investigations have shown cover-ups and behavior remarkably similar to those of the Catholic church. Other churches are equally culpable, but no one has yet publicly stepped up to investigate all of them.

The preachers who have been caught and those who helped cover up the crimes and misbehavior preach regularly about sexual sin. The guilt and shame they preach flow constantly from their literature, church services and Sunday Schools. Church-led sex education teaches only abstinence. Children are miseducated and deceived about their bodies and desires. At the same time, as mentioned earlier, the youth of these churches have the highest rate of teen pregnancies and STIs. Homosexual children in the churches are subjected to persecution by the church and terror by their own parents. It is not surprising that homosexual children raised in conservative communities also have the highest suicide rate.
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Fundamentalist sexual distortion that leads to suicide can only be characterized as the worst of all distortions. Were there better research on the subject, we would probably find that churches that program children to hate or fear sex push a significant number to behave in self-destructive ways, including suicide.