Christian Fundamentalists have a tendency to label normal human sex drive evil. I think this idea was originally made up by individuals seeing no possibility of ever getting sex themselves. These individuals also lacked any idea of the limits of the humanly possible. Cursing their own unsatisfied sex drive these started blaming others for having it as well. In reality, people can’t choose what to feel since this is a spontaneous reaction. But that is another story.
At some point between Black Death and the lifetime of Jehan Cauvin someone came up with the idea of equalling “fun” with “sinful”. This idea got established because those with power over others earned from it. Later on, some particularly one-tracked person got the idea of equalling “sinful” with “fun”. Then someone applied this faulty thinking to condemnation of all sex other than unprotected vaginal sex within marriage. This gave rise to the idea of such sex being the only kind people could not enjoy. I find such an idea outright weird.
Even weirder are those preaching this myth in the US today. I never believed them not to have sex themselves. At worst I imagined them doing it much less frequently than they would want to. They would then have felt guilty for even enjoying it. Now it seems more likely they are demanding from everyone else what they don’t even try to do themselves. At least there is a long row of anti-lust preachers which got caught buying sex from prostitutes. This means they have exploited others for a purpose they have been condemning for years. What makes them expect getting away with it?
Anti-lust preachers argue as if the mental processes involved in different types of sex were completely different from each other. Why would:
1. Anal sex be essentially different from vaginal sex?
2. Homosexual sex be essentially different from heterosexual sex?
3. Oral sex be essentially different from vaginal sex?
4. Sex outside marriage be essentially different from sex within marriage?
5. Sex using contraceptives be essentially different from sex without any such?
If two people have unprotected vaginal sex with each other before and after their wedding, would they experience it entirely differently? Or if a woman is on the pill without telling her husband would he be able to tell by enjoying vaginal sex with her? These are just some of the absurdities one gets if applying the superstitions of a 16th century European monk to the modern world.
I don’t think any of those factors actually matter for people enjoying sex or not. Instead, what matter is if someone wants to have sex with that specific person, in that specific way, at that specific time. If those three conditions are met people can’t avoid enjoying sex. Moreover, sex without enjoyment is only perceived as degradation. Which in turn causes needless mental suffering.
Human sex drive has the purpose of motivating us to have sex often enough to actually reproduce. Contrary to popular belief you can’t have unprotected vaginal sex once and expect someone to get pregnant. While it is possible to get pregnant from only doing it once the chance of it happening is very low. Men produces sperm constantly. However, women can only get pregnant for a couple of days every 3 – 5 weeks. (It varies depending on the length of her cycle.) Still, if she has unprotected vaginal sex at the specific time, she is far from guaranteed to get pregnant. I think even a 25-year-old woman have only one chance in three to get pregnant in such cases. So we need motivation to have sex on a regular basis in order to uphold our numbers.
One could ask why human reproduction is so inefficient. I think sex in humans fills functions other than reproduction. Such as increasing the likelihood of couples staying together so they can cooperate to raise their children. As far as I can tell this is a subject of active research. We still don’t know the purpose of homosexual behaviour. But we know most people simply don’t want to have sex with someone of the same gender. However, threats of punishment in afterlife can never replace such inner motivations. There are so many things people do despite being threatened with punishment in afterlife. Many of those condemned things are simply inevitable.
Uploaded on the 18th of September 2023.
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