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Aelred_Minor
Guest
Sexual sins by their very nature make us think in terms of carnal abomination, and so the analogy of dirt comes quite naturally.
J
JerryZ
Guest
I guess that it comes down to misusing and debasing one of the greatest gifts given by the Creator to us.
The power to give life.
Yes if used improperly can lead to all kind of problems and also sin.
It is just that we do not want to hear it.
The power to give life.
Yes if used improperly can lead to all kind of problems and also sin.
It is just that we do not want to hear it.
T
Tarpeian_Rock
Guest
And yet we all have the power to TAKE life (i.e., murder), but doing so isn’t regarded as “dirty.” I think the OP poses an interesting question, one that I have pondered also. Back in my Catholic high school days, it was clear that beating another boy bloody in a fight was a “clean” sin, as opposed to the language used to frame discussions of things like looking at Playboy.
M
Miss_Felicity
Guest
I really like that article. It began to touch on but somewhat went pass another interesting point I read in a Christian Women’s Blog. A woman who married in her mid 30’s was very honest and candid about how she had remained pure and chaste until marriage and was very active in her church and “did everything by the book” but she had been fed so much about sex being dirty and everything that comes along with that rhetoric that when she finally married she had a lot of trouble having sex with her spouse. She said that all the years of how dirty sex is wasn’t erased by the moment she said I DO to her husband. She knew it was “okay” but mentally she had a tough time making the switch in her brain. Although this woman isn’t Catholic she touched on some very interesting points. She said he marriage has suffered because in addition to the issues with sex that need working through she really had no experience with men emotionally and mentally so now living with and making a life with one is confusing and frustrating.
Saying all of that to say I’m not condoning sexual immorality far from it but I don’t think we do anybody any justice by acting like its a dirty sin filled act that is best to stay away from.
Saying all of that to say I’m not condoning sexual immorality far from it but I don’t think we do anybody any justice by acting like its a dirty sin filled act that is best to stay away from.
J
jilly4ski
Guest
This is not true in my experience. Just go read the comments under any local news story about murders. People call them disgusting, animals, call for the death penalty, or just have them taken out back and shot.
T
Tarpeian_Rock
Guest
Well, more specifically I was referring to how the clergy and religious at my school framed such discussions, not the media. And actually, to your point, reflect on how the media report on crimes of violence vs. sexual matters: I would submit that whenever a sexual issue is reported, there is always an aura of sleaze and degeneracy attached to the accused. Murders and robberies just don’t seem to have that same “odor.”This is not true in my experience. Just go read the comments under any local news story about murders. People call them disgusting, animals, call for the death penalty, or just have them taken out back and shot.
D
Della
Guest
The whole sex is dirty notion came about through heresy–the one that says that all things material are inherently evil and only the spiritual is good. Since sex is one of the most powerful driving forces of human life–physical as well as mental, emotional, and spiritual, it easily gets labeled as “dirty” when it is misused/abused.
Of course, sex is not dirty–it was created by God so life could procreate while giving us boundaries in which it may be used.
The sex is dirty notion is especially true of our white anglo-saxon Protestant culture. Even after so many think they have “thrown off the shackles” of their lukewarm religous practice, it still haunts our society. It’s why we, as a culture, allow sexual sins to go unabated, but are shocked, shocked! when sexual sins become criminal or abusive.
Of course, sex is not dirty–it was created by God so life could procreate while giving us boundaries in which it may be used.
The sex is dirty notion is especially true of our white anglo-saxon Protestant culture. Even after so many think they have “thrown off the shackles” of their lukewarm religous practice, it still haunts our society. It’s why we, as a culture, allow sexual sins to go unabated, but are shocked, shocked! when sexual sins become criminal or abusive.
L
lifeisbeautiful
Guest
See, but the Church is very clear in teaching that sex is beautiful, not dirty. It is even sacramental, a renewal of the covenant of marriage, and it is the vehicle through which God has allowed us to participate in Creation! That is pretty darn cool.
Lack of experience with other men was not part of her issue; sex was designed to take place between one man and one woman, within marriage, not to be something that you use for fun and end up going around creating bonds with many different people. The problem is viewing sex as a whole as something dirty, when the perversion of sex, the misuse of sex is the problem… not sex itself. It is also an effect of the misuse of sex out there, it makes it harder for some people to see that sex is good and what is not good is misusing it. (ETA… I didn’t read the article, I am just responding to the quote above)
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holyrood
Guest
This is what I don’t understand: growing up Catholic, I NEVER got the idea that sex was ‘dirty’ or ‘shameful,’ but that it had an appropriate time and place.
I get frustrated with the current to-do over Elizabeth Smart’s statements that her abstinence education made her feel dirty after being raped. She seems like a beautiful person, but I feel in this instance, either she took the wrong message or the individual who taught her spoke poorly, if she came to the conclusion that rape is in any way equivalent to premarital sex, or that being raped reflects on her chastity.
I suppose some denominations do present sex as dirty or shameful. I guess I’m grateful I never got that from my Catholic upbringing.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
I think she’s mixing some apples and oranges. For instance, when she writes, "* I fervently hope that my children grow up with a healthy, proportionate sense of shame that helps them remain in a state of grace without driving them into scrupulosity.
“But that’s not what Elizabeth Smart felt after her rape. That’s not what many women feel, even in otherwise healthy and happy marriages. That’s not what I have struggled with for many years*.”
If any of you have ever had your home robbed, you know the sense that the place itself has been violated. A home that has been robbed recently or that has been the scene of some awful crime, even if perpetrated against someone you don’t even know, somehow carries the stench of the violation of the crime itself and the criminal’s brazen disregard for right. But there is another sort of “stain of sin,” so to speak, that you can feel with regards to your home, which is if you live in a home, as an example, that you feel is too palatial or that you do not deserve to have–I mean to imagine a home that you both enjoy and yet feel violates some reading of Christian virtue that you suspect may be binding upon you. If you aren’t fully satisfied that your home is both enjoyable and yet also free of the “stench of sin”, you can’t enjoy it properly as the sanctuary that it ought to be. That you know your home ought to be a sanctuary heightens this uneasy feeling.
I think that these issues having to do with sex are like that, only more so, because instead of the sanctuary of the home we are talking about the sanctuary of our own bodies. This shows up in Scriptures when St. Paul writes “Avoid (sexual) immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor. 6:18-20
Is he “putting something on” our sexuality? No, he is not. He is recognizing something about the nature of the sexual faculty, something not put there by the opinions of clergy but put there by the nature of being physical creatures made into the particular dwelling places of God. We feel it, even if we are not told about it. I don’t think we can imagine a woman from a primitive tribe being the victim of rape and not feeling the violation in a very deep way. I don’t think we can imagine a culture in which sexual infidelity is not also felt in a very deep way; that is, as a violation of that which ought to have been an intimate sanctuary.
So while I agree that there is a toxic shame that must be avoided, the kind of prohibition against sin that tries to make the mark of certain transgressions indelible even against the cleansing waters of absolution and or which tries to make victims into transgressors. Still, I think it is foolish to try to reduce every sin to a transgression with identical temporal results. It is foolish because although it is meant well, it is a well-meaning effort that harms because it obscures the truth and denies what sin really does.
I think her closing paragraph is very telling: “You might not know what that better way looks like. I don’t either. But that’s no excuse for continuing on with the status quo and turning a blind eye to the damage that results.” I think we do know a better way, and that is to talk about this enough to be truthful about what is and is not a sexual transgression, as well as what sexual transgressions do and don’t mean, both about the victim and the transgressor. Just as there is not a cultural milieu that is going to eradicate the psychological phenomenon of survivor’s guilt, the misplaced feeling that one did not deserve to escape a terrible fate that someone else suffered, just so we have to realize that we are not going to eradicate misplaced shame or misplaced pride about sex. We also have to realize that because sex itself is deeply felt, these misplaced feelings will of course be deeply felt.
What we need to do instead is to realize that these misplaced feelings are going to arise, and resolve to recognize them and attend to them when they do. Otherwise, we’re just going to be punishing people for having the “wrong” feelings, instead of helping them to cope with the feelings that are going to occasionally come upon us, even when unbidden or undeserved, no matter what anyone says or does. I think that is a more practical way to handle this issue, rather than trying to deny that these feelings will inevitably arise.
“But that’s not what Elizabeth Smart felt after her rape. That’s not what many women feel, even in otherwise healthy and happy marriages. That’s not what I have struggled with for many years*.”
If any of you have ever had your home robbed, you know the sense that the place itself has been violated. A home that has been robbed recently or that has been the scene of some awful crime, even if perpetrated against someone you don’t even know, somehow carries the stench of the violation of the crime itself and the criminal’s brazen disregard for right. But there is another sort of “stain of sin,” so to speak, that you can feel with regards to your home, which is if you live in a home, as an example, that you feel is too palatial or that you do not deserve to have–I mean to imagine a home that you both enjoy and yet feel violates some reading of Christian virtue that you suspect may be binding upon you. If you aren’t fully satisfied that your home is both enjoyable and yet also free of the “stench of sin”, you can’t enjoy it properly as the sanctuary that it ought to be. That you know your home ought to be a sanctuary heightens this uneasy feeling.
I think that these issues having to do with sex are like that, only more so, because instead of the sanctuary of the home we are talking about the sanctuary of our own bodies. This shows up in Scriptures when St. Paul writes “Avoid (sexual) immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor. 6:18-20
Is he “putting something on” our sexuality? No, he is not. He is recognizing something about the nature of the sexual faculty, something not put there by the opinions of clergy but put there by the nature of being physical creatures made into the particular dwelling places of God. We feel it, even if we are not told about it. I don’t think we can imagine a woman from a primitive tribe being the victim of rape and not feeling the violation in a very deep way. I don’t think we can imagine a culture in which sexual infidelity is not also felt in a very deep way; that is, as a violation of that which ought to have been an intimate sanctuary.
So while I agree that there is a toxic shame that must be avoided, the kind of prohibition against sin that tries to make the mark of certain transgressions indelible even against the cleansing waters of absolution and or which tries to make victims into transgressors. Still, I think it is foolish to try to reduce every sin to a transgression with identical temporal results. It is foolish because although it is meant well, it is a well-meaning effort that harms because it obscures the truth and denies what sin really does.
I think her closing paragraph is very telling: “You might not know what that better way looks like. I don’t either. But that’s no excuse for continuing on with the status quo and turning a blind eye to the damage that results.” I think we do know a better way, and that is to talk about this enough to be truthful about what is and is not a sexual transgression, as well as what sexual transgressions do and don’t mean, both about the victim and the transgressor. Just as there is not a cultural milieu that is going to eradicate the psychological phenomenon of survivor’s guilt, the misplaced feeling that one did not deserve to escape a terrible fate that someone else suffered, just so we have to realize that we are not going to eradicate misplaced shame or misplaced pride about sex. We also have to realize that because sex itself is deeply felt, these misplaced feelings will of course be deeply felt.
What we need to do instead is to realize that these misplaced feelings are going to arise, and resolve to recognize them and attend to them when they do. Otherwise, we’re just going to be punishing people for having the “wrong” feelings, instead of helping them to cope with the feelings that are going to occasionally come upon us, even when unbidden or undeserved, no matter what anyone says or does. I think that is a more practical way to handle this issue, rather than trying to deny that these feelings will inevitably arise.
M
manualman
Guest
The bottom line is that it is always better to comprehend principles than to memorize rules. It is patently absurd to argue that a set of principles should be discarded because certain people preferred over-simplified rules to doing the work of comprehending and internalizing the principles in question.
It’s fundamentally a straw man criticism.
It’s fundamentally a straw man criticism.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
I don’t think the premise had to do with changing the moral law or over-simplifying moral law. For instance, I don’t think she struggled with the feelings she struggled with as a married woman because she was being unfaithful.
I think the issue she’s trying to figure out has to do with the misplaced feelings that can surround sex and sexual mores. She believes that the misplaced feelings–that is that a rape victim or someone whose sexual life is legitimate and good has feelings of sex being “dirty”–come out of misplaced language chosen; I think it is the other way around. I think the language comes out of the feelings, which can sometimes be misplaced. You can have feelings of shame that don’t apply, no matter how you talk about ethics…just like you can suffer from survivor’s guilt no matter how you talk about death and surviving mortal threats.
Of course it is bad to talk about something as wrong that is not wrong, no matter what metaphors are chosen, but other than that I don’t think changing the language that surrounds sex will change what she is talking about. I don’t think that even “changing” the sexual mores that we teach each other will entirely change that, either, because the sexual mores are not arbitrary. How much fabric it takes to be considered modest can change, but what it does to your soul to have had sexual partners other than your husband or to have sex when your husband isn’t vowed to you as a husband yet, I don’t think those feelings are going to change by changing attitudes. It isn’t “the group” that is the ultimate source of sexual ethics, but rather the fundamental way our hearts and bodies and minds interact.
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