The Danger and Sadness of Sexual Shame

I've referenced before a book a friend gave to the husband and me as a wedding gift titled "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies" that traces the prevalence and acceptance of homosexuality in societies around the globe until the arrival of Christian missionaries.  Thereafter, sexual neurosis and shame of things sexual became the norm in most instances after the missionaries had planted their poison.  While, things are changing, for far too many people, the shame and neurosis continues.  Especially among the evangelical crowd that has the highest incidence of porn use even as its members going around feigning piety and robing themselves in religiosity.  As Salon reports, a new documentary of evangelicals addicted to porn shows the damage done by the shame that is part and parcel of far right Christian sexual mores.  Here are highlights:

[T]he documentary “Heart of the Matter,” which shows, in its own words, “what it is like to be Christian and addicted to pornography and sex.” Well, here’s the top-line summary: shame. Deep, cavernous, as in Grand Canyon-size, sexual shame.

The entire film takes place on a barren white stage with interview subjects seated on stools, ready for their confessions. One man says of his porn-watching, “I’d feel some relief and then immediately thereafter a deeper level of shame, a deeper level of guilt, a deeper level of self-loathing.” Says a younger man who appears in the documentary with his mom, who caught him looking at porn: “You just start feeling like a pervert. You start feeling like an alien inside your own house.” Well, yeah, I probably would have felt like a pervert too if my parents had gone nuclear when discovering my adolescent porn-browsing history.

The documentary frequently speaks about porn in the language of addiction. Wives talk of husbands “relapsing,” one man even says of himself, “I slipped into relapse seeing a pornographic movie.” Dan Gray, co-founder of Lifestar Network, a ministry devoted to healing “compulsive sexual behavior,” says, “Much like a young person who turns to alcohol or marijuana to manage their stress or their anger or some of their loneliness, they will turn to sexual behavior in order to create the same kinds of dependency on the internal drugs.”

The documentary frequently speaks about porn in the language of addiction. Wives talk of husbands “relapsing,” one man even says of himself, “I slipped into relapse seeing a pornographic movie.” Dan Gray, co-founder of Lifestar Network, a ministry devoted to healing “compulsive sexual behavior,” says, “Much like a young person who turns to alcohol or marijuana to manage their stress or their anger or some of their loneliness, they will turn to sexual behavior in order to create the same kinds of dependency on the internal drugs.” 

My heathen’s takeaway from the film was that, yes, people can have very unhealthy relationships to both pornography and sex. But there’s one thing that’s more toxic than even that, and that’s sexual shame.

Personally, my analysis is that these folks resort to porn because they are in bad marriages and stuck with sexually frigid spouses - think Betty Bowers, America's best Christian, or The Family Foundation's Victoria Cobb.  The result?  No sexual outlets and/or remaining trapped in dead end marriages even as religious brainwashing continues to keep them conflicted in shame sex which is a normal part of humanity.

The Shame of Being on the Wrong Side of History.

There are those who proudly fought desegregation in the last century but today, outside of white supremacist circles, history does not view them very highly.  And I suspect that some of their descendants find them somewhat of an embarrassment.  With the way support for gay equality and gay marriage is changing, many of today's loudest homophobes may find themselves similarly viewed by history and their descendants.   It may be nice to not be forgotten by history, but if one is remembered for hate and bigotry, then perhaps it would be better to be forgotten and fade away in the mist of time.  A piece I bookmarked some time ago in the Washington Post looks at the likely legacy of today's homophobes and hate merchants.  Here are some highlights:

In 1964 Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act. He was labeled a racist and much worse for his position. Goldwater, a dedicated libertarian, voted on the constitutionality of the issue and not on the issue itself. I knew him well, and he was no racist. He had integrated the Arizona National Guard, had hired African Americans in his family company and was an early member of the NAACP.

Years later he would say publicly that he regretted his vote. As a close friend of my parents, he once told me that he ended up actually being ashamed of his vote.

Shame. That’s a strong word. But toward the end of his life (he died at 89) he had changed a lot. Goldwater was a strong pro-choice advocate — his wife was one of the original founders of Planned Parenthood in Arizona. He was also pro-gay rights long before it really became a public issue. His grandson was gay. Still, he was ashamed of that one thing in his life.

Today, there are many potential Goldwaters out there on the gay marriage issue, which has recently been argued in two cases before the Supreme Court: reviews of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage. There are decent people with good values who are against gay marriage. One day, in the not-so-distant future, these people will be ashamed of their position. If any of the Supreme Court justices vote against it, they will eventually be ashamed as well. Not only that but their children, their grandchildren and their heirs will be ashamed of them.

To see how quickly the public has come around on this issue is to recognize how soon it will be totally accepted in our country.

However, the people who will have the toughest time with their anti-gay positions are the religious. .  .  .  .  In their hearts, they cannot square their teachings that God made man in his own image, that we are all children of God, with the fact that they discriminate against people simply because of those they love.

I have had a few religious leaders confide in me that they were not personally against gay marriage but could not take that position publicly for fear of losing their congregations. Think of the conflict and, yes, shame they must be feeling now and how it will only worsen with time. One day, they will have to come around or they really will lose their congregations.

Suddenly a majority of senators support same-sex marriage. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) stunned his colleagues when he came out in support several weeks ago, explaining that he had a son who was gay.  .   .   .   .  Of the members who are in opposition, most are facing reelection and are afraid. In fact, it is fear and religion that keep most people from “coming out” in support. What is increasing the momentum is that so many are now in favor that the scales are tipping and that those against will appear to be “left behind,” as we say in the jargon of the apocalypse.

They should turn to their Bibles, to Ephesians 5, for guidance:  “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light — for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 

Christ did not utter a single word against same sex love if the Gospels are to be believed.  But he did heal the Roman centurion's male lover. And he constantly condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who congratulated themselves on their own piety even as the missed the message of love of one's neighbor.   The anti-gay factions are the Pharisees reincarnate and history will not view them kindly.