And Now, a Word from Sister Mary

Good day, I am Sister Mary Malcontent, a member of the Merciless Order of the Riding Crop and headmistress at the Marquis de Sade Academy of Secondary Learning. As some of you may already know, I have had a hand (wielding a hickory switch at the time, as it happens) in helping Deacon Blue to draft some of his official discussions on matters sexual (see the Porn Again Threat Assessment and Whips and Chains and Gags…Oh My).

It has come to my attention, particularly as the porn again threat assessment system (patent pending) gains broader appeal, that there may not only be types of pornography that you are concerned about but, indeed, methods of sexual intercourse itself that you may worry blur the line between acceptable and forbidden. And, while I am quite…liberal…in my views on what is acceptable, it is certainly true that there must be social and sexual order, and my sisters and I are here to enforce that. Rigidly.

The good deacon is a bit…tied up at the moment…not that I had anything to do with arranging that…and I thought I might take time during his enforced absence to apply some of the ratings of the porn threat assessment table to some areas of sex that might cause you concern with regard to just how immoral they may be. So, without further ado…what the hell?

(Sound of a chain crashing to the floor and the squeak of door hinges.)

Halt, senator! On your knees, you craven dog. Now, now, johnny-boy…We are not finished with your session. That’s right, worm, slip that cuff back on your ankle and return to kissing the toes of your running mate. Get that smug grin off your lips, sarah-girl. I’ll be signing my name in red across your ass with my malacca cane in a few minutes.

Where was I?

Oh, yes, questionable sexual acts and their level of threat to society and to your possible standing as a human being. Well, such as you are, anyway. You’ll never be as fully realized in your humanity as I am, no matter how much I purify you with hot wax and floggings. Note that I will only be covering questionable areas. Pasttimes that involve children and animals are completely outside the realm of decency, as is permanent scarring or overt assault, unless those latter two are performed against certain of my rivals, whose names I can provide to you upon request.

Biblioerotica: I am hereby coining this term, and if you should hear anyone else use it, notify me so that I may extract royalty payments in the form of cash or physical pain. While I am highly educated and know that this term should probably apply to sexually charged writings and/or sex with books, I will instead use it to refer to “naughty librarian sex.” As my research thalls have noted that sexy librarian outfits are sold out at all the costume company web sites they visited—and given that the current Republican vice presidential nominee presently nuzzling my thigh has been said to cultivate the “naughty librarian” look—I suspect that many people between now and Halloween will be getting sweaty with thoughts of musty bookshelves on their minds. I shudder to think what kinds of stains will be found in the reference sections as a result of little sarah-girl. In any case, this is an annoying but harmless area, and I can rate it no worse than threat level Goldenrod.

Puppet Sex: I was alerted to this by certain of my clientele and student bodies who have attended the Broadway show Avenue Q. Aside from this show, I am aware of no other notable puppet sex activities outside of some parody-oriented YouTube videos on sock puppet sex. While no one that I know of is seriously considering any of this as porn or as a true sexual diversion, I know how perverted the public really is and I realize that is probably only a matter of time before people are leaving bodily fluids all over puppets in  pay-per-view, webcam or specialty fetish videos. You are a sick collection out there, and you all deserve a severe beating, from someone less important than me. While this isn’t truly an area of sexual endevaor yet, I am forced to give it a rating of Scarlet for infringing too closely to childhood-related areas. If you participate in “fuzzy sex,” which really is a fetish area and involves people dressing up in cartoon-character-style or cartoonish animal costumes and going at it like, well, cartoon bunnies, I must likewise classify you as Scarlet with possible Tan tendencies. Even I have respect for the children’s cartoon and children’s television community.

Cake Farting: Ever since the Deacon mentioned this activity in a post after seeing a post about it at Ephphatha, I have, frankly, been horrified—at the inane nature of such a fetish, the waste of perfectly good desserts and the idea that anyone would be capable of achieving erection while enshrouded by a cloud of flatulence (or even imaging in in their mind). This activity does no harm to society but because I am judgmental and proud of being so, I classify all practitioners of it as threat level Red.

(Sound of breaking glass.)

Hmmmm…that sounded like it came from Deacon Blue’s cell. He must have slipped his knots. johnny-boy and the Deacon in the same day? I smell treachery on the part of one of my thralls. Oh, well, good slaves are so hard to find these days. Pardon me, as I must release the hounds and return to my regular duties.

Advertisement

The F-Word, Part 2

So, having gotten things started with The F-Word Prologue and The F-Word, Part 1, where are we now? Oh, yeah.

What can you do? What should you do? Why does God give a crap?

Let’s start with that last one.

I can’t speak for God, obviously, but here’s the thing: Sex—and I’m talking full-on sweaty penetration-oriented penis/vagina sex, preferably with lots of fun foreplay beforehand—is serious. Yeah, it’s fun. It’s pleasurable. But it’s also serious.

This is, first and foremost, an act that has the capability of creating someone who can potentially become a child of God; the ability to create a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, spirit-filled human. But aside from that, it is an act that can connect two people like nothing else can.

I can only speak from my own experience, but when I have sex with my wife, I don’t just have fun and get to blast off at some point. I become one being with my wife. At a certain point, there is no beginning or end to us; just a circle of being. There are lots of kinds of sexual contact we engage in, some of which I actually enjoy more from a physical gratification standpoint, but it is traditional sexual intercourse—where I enter my wife and she surrounds me (and not just physically)—that is a spiritual event. We stay together mostly because we connect intellectually, verbally, emotionally and in other non-sexual ways. But when we start drifting apart, nothing heals the growing rift like sex does. It jumpstarts us. It glues us back together.

Now, if Mrs. Blue kills me for sharing that, so be it. But it is important for me to say because it underscores to me that sexual intercourse is not simply physical, not even physical/emotional—but spiritual as well. I think God considers it a waste and an insult to perform that act with someone to whom you are not absolutely and completely committed. You might as well be pouring diamonds down a sewer or champagne down a pig’s throat.

Now, I say this from a position of experience. Mrs. Blue is the only woman I’ve really ever had sex with (there was only one other woman before her with whom I tried to have sex, and the less said about that encounter, the better for my self-esteem), and obviously, I married her. True, I fornicated with her for a while before that point. And that was, truly, sinful behavior. The fact I married her doesn’t erase the fact that I fornicated with her first, and used full-on sex for gratification and not spiritual connection as well. That said, there was certainly a point at which in our relationship I was not longer simply fornicating but connecting with the woman I was already married to in spirit. But that was a small portion—and a late portion—in our premarital period.

Truth be told, I kind of regret not having waited longer to have sex with Mrs. Blue. I feel like I squandered something for nearly two years and that I let God and myself down.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have had sexual contact before going down the aisle and heading for our honeymoon. To be honest, in a day and age when marriages are no longer arranged for us, I think it is impractical and even dangerous to know nothing about how to please your partner. I just don’t think you should go all the way, at least not for a good long time. And I realize that to suggest that is silly, because 95% of people or more will have sex before marriage and the few that don’t probably weren’t inclined to do so anyway, even before I opened my big mouth about this.

So what am I saying is “acceptable,” or at least what seems to me to be acceptable for premarital nookie? Well, some of you may recall my Covering the Bases posts in May (click here for part 1 and click here for part 2). I suspect my thoughts there will give you a good idea of where I’m going with this. The closer you become and the closer you get to being engaged, the farther I think you should go.

In my ideal worldview, here is what you should do when you’re dating: Try to stay on “first base” as long as you can hold out. Which, frankly, probably won’t be very long. From there, move on to “second base” for a while and try to hold out as long as you can there. I mean, folks, if you’re serious about someone and not just screwing around, the more time you spend getting to know that person and stoking the fires, the better. Most of us are weak, but I would like to think that we can be stronger; I just wish I had been. When second base can no longer hold you over, move on to “third base.” Folks, there is an awful lot of fun to be had on third base. Seriously. We should be content to sit our asses there for a while in relationships.

About the time the two of you are seriously considering that you are a match for marriage, you ought to get engaged. Once you’re engaged, as far as I’m concerned, it’s probably time to stop worrying about whether it’s a sin to go to home plate. Yeah, if you can hold out until the honeymoon, great, but at this point in the game, if you’re truly serious and truly committed and truly in prayer about it all, you might as well make sure y’all know what you’re doing before you exchange rings.

Again, just my humble opinion. God may very well disagree with me on this. But the way society works these days and the way relationships go, it probably isn’t a great idea to surprise each other on the wedding night, because some surprises aren’t pleasant.

The F-Word, Part 1

Well, I got things rolling with The F-Word Prologue; now let’s get down to brass balls….er, brass tacks.

Because fornication is a popular sport worldwide, and curious minds want to know where I stand (or lie, as the case may be, preferably on silk sheets) on the issue of getting naked and sweaty with someone to whom you aren’t married.

Before I really get into fornication in depth (and who doesn’t like to go deep when it comes to fornication?), we need to establish what it is at its most basic.

I would assume people know, but just in case:

for·ni·ca·tion | Pronunciation: fȯr-nə-ˈkā-shən | Function: noun | Date: 14th century | Definition: consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other

OK, so that fornication thing that the Bible is so down about is sex without benefit of being in wedded bliss. It is distinguished from adultery, which is sex with someone you’re not married to, but when one or both of you are married to someone else. So, you know, if you’re single you can go for the double play and have sex with someone who’s married and wallow in a couple sins.

Uh, oh. We already have a problem. Because now I have to start by addressing just what the hell constitutes marriage these days—and yes, we do have to frame this according to the modern day because things are far more complex socially than in the really old days from centuries or millennia ago. Hell, they’re way more complicated than they were in the 1950s.

Because, if we don’t have a handle on what marriage is, we’re already in trouble. And it isn’t as easy as saying, “If you had a wedding, you’re married.” That’s legal. That’s a social contract. That’s of the world. Marriage in the spirit is what we’re talking about, and that’s what’s important, because God works in the world of the spiritual. Sin is committed through physical acts usually, but the damage in spiritual. So it’s the souls of the people having sex we have to worry about, and whether they are connected through marriage.

Miz Pink, in some of her earliest posting around here, spent a couple days talking about divorce (Splitsville and Splitsville 2)—I highly recommend you read those first then come back.

OK. Done? Great.

Her “Splitsville 2” post is especially telling. And I agree with her 100% that she didn’t really have a marriage with her first “husband.” It doesn’t matter than they said some words and traded some rings. The reasons for the union were faulty and unsound. There was no foundation there and, frankly, no real commitment to try to build one and move their metaphorical house onto it. They were married according to the law, but really, they weren’t connected and, in my humble opinion, still committing fornication.

Now, to be honest, I am a big believer in getting up and saying some vows before people and before God. Why? Well, let me quote the theory of the “gold standard” here. In most professions, there are gold standards. For example, in the world of medical care, a certain diagonstic test, medicine, treatment plan or surgery may be the best for a certain problem. It is the gold standard because it gets the most positive impact for the most number of people most of the time.

But let’s remember the word most. Not all. Most.

We should aim for the gold standard of a church marriage where you bring God, family and friends together for the wedding.

But it would arrogant of me to say that it’s the only way or that it’s the right way for all people.

There are people who live together for years and function in every way as a married couple, but for whatever reason don’t want to be locked into the legalities or do things a certain way just to please the parents or the pastor or the meddling friends. Hell, this is typically what committed gay couples are forced to do.

Simply saying some vows before an altar doesn’t make it a true connection. People marry for lots of reasons: to be contrary, to be spiteful, because they’re confused, because they’re pregnant, because they’re infatuated, because they’re high as a kite or drunk as a skunk, and so on.

How many times in your life have you told someone you loved them, either because of an orgasm, sexual afterglow or just a romantic moment by candlelight or something? And then you realize—minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years or decades later—that not only don’t you love this person now, but you quite likely never did.

The capacity for humans to lie to themselves is tremendous.

Of course, so to is the capacity for self-serving justifications. A person could say, well, I’m married in my heart to this person so we should be having sex, and it’s not fornication at all. You could, and maybe you’re even right, but how often have you told yourself that same thing before, and how many times will you do it again?

OK, enough of that for now. I haven’t definitively answered what marriage is, and frankly there is no really clear and ironclad way to do it. Marriage is a connection of mind and spirit between two people. It is a sharing of yourself. It is, in fact, the giving up of a large portion of yourself to the other person (and that other person better be doing the same). It is commitment and rebirth, it is reward and sacrifice, it is freedom and surrender.

You might not have to wear a tux or a gown to make it happen, but be honest with yourself. Are you really married, whether you have a ring on your finger or not?

If you aren’t, sex with that other person is fornication.

(Next time, we’ll get more into why God might care and some of the other nitty-gritty of what is or isn’t fornication.)

The F-Word, Prologue

One of my semi-regular commenters around here, Chris, brought up the rather good point in the comment section for yesterday’s post that I should probably discuss the “F-word.”

Yes, that F-word, though I generally use fornication instead of fucking. Even with my potty mouth, the dirtier version just seems too vulgar most of the time, unless I’m pretty pissed about something.

Anyway, this is what Chris posted, in part:

Yes… the f word. I’d love to hear you chase that rabbit for a post or two…Is the issue, from God’s viewpoint,the lack of ceremony? level of commitment? perspective of the heart? what about remarriage? I, too am sexually active, and not married according to the laws of my land. according to some denominations, every piece of ass I get from now on will be adultery… that doesn’t exactly motivate me to run down the aisle. And would you speculate on consequences? Is a lifelong monogamous relationship without a license or certificate sin, in God’s eyes?

Before I actually post on the topic in depth sometime in the next day or two or three, I thought I might start off by noting why I care who’s fornicating with whom and why.

Well…you see…uhhh…

I don’t.

Seriously, I don’t. As long as it involves truly consenting human adults, and no weak-willed willing person is being uduly harmed by a strong-willed person with no scruples, and if I don’t have to watch what you’re doing (unless of course it’s sexy and interesting, and I want to and you’re making it available for public viewing).

Really. Vanilla sex. Menage a trois sex. Group sex. Gay sex. Lesbian sex. S&M sex. Spouse-swapping sex. Sex on top of bags of flour in the back of the pizza joint. Sex in gorilla suits. Sex in a Jell-O pit. Sex upside down while suspended from a tree. Whatever. I don’t care. (Well, OK, there may be one or two things in there I do care about because they “interest” me, but that’s another topic entirely.)

God cares a bit. I couldn’t say exactly why, though I’ll have some thoughts. I don’t even claim to have all the answers on when you’re fornicating and when you’re not and what constitutes being “married.” But again, I’ll have my thoughts. I don’t know how many people it will help, but then again, I’m not sure if anything I do here really helps anyone, and I quite likely never will know.

Stay tuned. At least one more, and perhaps two, F-Word posts to come this week and/or next…

Stepping out

I swear I’m not on a sex kick to drive traffic to this blog. Really. Well, mostly really. But it is true that my motives for today’s post are innocent…as innocent as is possible when talking about sex to begin with, at least. Truth is, I’m in the middle of a lot of project work right now and don’t have much time, so I need a topic I can clear up quickly and easily.

So, here it is: Is it ever OK to step out on your spouse for a little intimate sport?

I don’t think it will be much of a surprise to anyone whose reads this blog that I’m not cool with adultery. Hell, I don’t advocate premartial sex, despite the fact almost everyone does it and I pretty much expect everyone, even the born-again Christians, will continue to do it in large numbers.

“But,” you ask, “what if my spouse says it’s OK?”

Sorry, Charlie, still won’t work. I know there are many spouses of both genders who are open-minded enough to actually be down with the idea of letting their significant other have a night (or morning, or lunchbreak) off with someone who can provide them with that new sex smell. And with permission in place, and the “marriage bed” being undefiled as long as both spouses are in agreement, you’d think this might be safe territory. You can’t cheat if you have permission, right?

But you forget about the other part of the equation: fornication (insert dramatic, semi-spooky music here). You would be having sex with someone whom you aren’t married to, thus doing nothing more than gratifying your lust instead of using sex in a loving and bonding manner. You would be fornicating and you would be encouraging that person to fornicate, and that still puts you in sin territory. Deliberate sin. Not the best idea. We’re supposed to shun sin, not look for new, more interesting ways to commit it and somehow slip in (or slip into someone) on a technicality.

I’m sorry to tell y’all that, especially the guys who were really looking for a loophole. Lord knows, I’m weak-willed enough that I certainly hope to find loopholes in the Bible, too, a lot of the time. But this falls into the same category of why I mention in my Between the Sheets post that threesomes and bigger groupings are still wrong, no matter how you try to slice it. Sex just isn’t meant to be a sporting activity; it’s meant to be something much deeper and much more intimate than that.

Between the sheets

 I know, I know…here I call myself Deacon Blue, mention how I’ll be hitting touchy topics, and so far I’ll I’ve done mostly is call people out for narrow-mindedness.

Ooooo, how racy.

Well, I never said I’d be a non-stop, one-stop-shopping place for juicy, racy, raw stuff, but here we come, finally, to some sex. About damn time, too.

Before I start opening myself up to threats of violence and flame wars for specific stuff like homosexuality, abortion and more, let’s start general. I’m probably already taking enough of a chance with the photo I’m using today. The Christian Coalition could be on my doorstep any second now to haul me away.

So, let’s ask the question: Does God really give a shit what we do in the bedroom? Or, for that matter, on the kitchen counter, in the back of the SUV, in the bushes at the back of the public park, or in a large vat full of cherry Jell-O?

Well, yes. And, no.

How’s that for commitment? But seriously, there is an answer. Let’s start with sex itself. Did God create sex simply for procreation? Um, a big “no” on that one. Folks, God is not in the game of making things enjoyable and tantalizing simply for the sake of trying to get us to fuck ourselves up. It’s true that many sinful things are tantalizing, but sex itself is not made to be a trap for us. God made sex to be enjoyed. He made it so that it could be a deep bonding (or even bondage) experience for couples. He also made it for making babies.

If he only wanted us to be fruitful and multiply, God would have either given us mating seasons like the animals have or He would have made it a sin not to have kids or something like that (and I defy anyone to show me a Bible passage that says you have to have kids). If you want some evidence that the Bible supports the enjoyment of sex, here are some tidbits:

Proverbs chapter 5, verses 18-19

Let thy well-spring be blessed, and get thy joy from the wife of thy youth. A loving hind! a graceful doe! Let her bosom content thee at all times and in her love mayst thou stray evermore.

OK, a little flowery, and I used one of the older translations, but damn, that’s pretty sexy in a Hallmark card/Harlequin romance kinda way.

First Corinthians chapter 7, verses 3-5

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time…

In other words, once we marry, we are supposed to both give and take when it comes to the enjoyment of our bodies. Yes, we have the right to say “no” but overall, we are supposed to relish in the chance to bond with each other sexually.

And here’s the capper, as far as I’m concerned, and will make those of you with more…um, exotic…tastes feel better:

Hebrews 13:4

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

I prefer the King James Bible version on this one that I use above, mostly because with more modern translations, people tend to skew it more fully toward the meaning that sex is OK among married people, while glossing over the “undefiled bed” part of things. Yes, part of the undefiled bed business is that you remain faithful to your spouse. But the other part is that pretty much whatever two consenting adult married folks do to each other is OK. Consenting, remember? Neither husband nor wife can force an act on the other person with justification. For more on that consent issue and the Bible’s view on the wrongness of abuse, see Ephesians chapter 5, verses 28 and 29 (“So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.”) This talks about men, but as with so many things in the Bible, it really applies to both genders.

But within the bounds of consent—let ‘er rip! You want to wear black leather boots and a red latex bustier and bring the vibrator along for the ride? Go for it! You like a little riding crop across the ass? More power to ya! You think having a French silk pie mashed between your privates sounds cool? Go for it, but please put some plastic on top of your bed so you don’t ruin those sheets. Think a sheep sounds cool…

Whoa! OK, we have to draw a line there on that last one. Last time I checked, animals were living creatures that lack the ability to give consent. Also, the Bible is really, really clear that men aren’t supposed to lie down with animals, particularly in one passage. In fact, it’s so clear that a couple lines later, the same passage also notes that women also aren’t supposed to “do the do” with beasts. What’s funny is in that same passage of scripture, men are admonished not to have sex with other men yet that no-same-sex sentiment isn’t repeated for the women (one of those confusing bits in the Bible), but we’ll talk about gay/lesbian/bi/transgender stuff in more detail some other day.

Also, get that ménage à trois, foursome and moresome stuff out of your head. Not that I don’t appreciate the entertainment potential for such bedplay, but that involves issues like fornication and adultery (even if the two married folks want to claim Biblical immunity, they’d be encouraging the third person (and fourth, and so on…) to commit two sins, and that ain’t cool).

Now, I’ve been hitting the married couple thing heavily here, and there’s a reason: Sex outside of marriage isn’t biblically defended. That said, premarital sex (a.k.a fornication) is one of those sins, much like lying, coveting and not honoring our parents (to name just a few) that the vast majority seem pretty much doomed to commit. It ain’t right to do it, but it ain’t the only sin we go bonkers over. And I can guarantee that at least 3 out of every 4 preachers who lambast people for fornication have had premarital sex themselves, even if it was only with the women they eventually married. And the other 1 out of 4 probably dreamed and jacked off about the idea of it so much that they might as well have just gone and done it.

(Photo from www.anvari.org)