Sex

Fundy Sex Week Day 4: The Scarlet Letter

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Unless you’re lucky enough to be a managawd, his son, or one of his prize tithers, committing any sexual sin (save one we’ll discuss in a moment) is a certain path to the most severe punishments that fundyland has to offer. Forgiveness will inevitably be granted to those who merely steal, lie, cheat, and even kill their fellow man but if you’re a fifteen year old who gets caught trying to get to second base with the head deacon’s daughter you can expect a brief trial, quick sentencing and virtual banishment for both the perpetrators and their families.

It’s hard to say what causes this elevation of sexual sins above any other crime in fundamentalism. Is it merely a cultural artifact from a Puritan past? Or is there a darker motivation of men who demonize sex in public so they can exploit the innocent and repressed in private? Whatever the reason, fear, ignorance, control, and mind games are the order of the day.

With sex being the certain path to death and destruction, every good fundamentalist is constantly on the lookout for any hint of sexuality so that they might warn against it loudly and eradicate it if possible. Every book, every song, every article of clothing is scrutinized and analyzed for any hint of sensuality or tinge of lust. And woe be unto those who fail to realize the deadly seriousness of this enterprise and think it might not be a sign of a healthy person if they find sexual connotations everywhere.

The unhappy effect from this overactive fear of sex is that the strangest fetishes result. Without warning a tinge of lace, an errant brassiere strap, or an uncovered table leg may very well send a fundy male spiraling out of control into an animal frenzy of unbridled lust — and thus the dire warnings against sex become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For it stands to reason that if you’re conditioned to think that naked knees or open-toed shoes are a huge turn on then the world is going to become an awkward place to live in.

As I mentioned at the start, there is one exception to the constant vigilance against sexual sin and that is a watchfulness against rape and abuse. In the years of sitting through hundreds of sermons warning against pornography, fornication, adultery, and mixed bathing, I cannot remember a single sermon even mentioning rape as a sin unless it was in the context of suggesting that a woman who dresses provocatively is probably asking for it. It seems strange that fundamentalists can’t seem to find the time to decry the rapist because they’re too busy pinning scarlet letters on all but those who deserve them the most.
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Sex

Fundy Sex Week Day 3: We Don’t Need No Education

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It is a core belief of fundamentalism that it is the sole responsibility of a child’s parents to mumble through a red-faced and oblique explanation of the facts of life. This most awkward of conversations will then end with the parent rushing off to do something important that they just remembered needed doing in hopes of curtailing any awkward questions. If it weren’t for the encyclopedia and occasional National Geographic wildlife documentary, it’s unlikely that most fundamentalist children would really have a clue as to where babies come from — much less how much fun it is to make them.

The ban against explaining even the most rudimentary aspects of reproduction in a classroom setting would seem to be counter intuitive to a group of people who are obsessed with keeping teens from actually having sex. If your youth group is convinced that “adultery” means “acting like an adult” and that concupiscence is a kind of dessert then how exactly can one be expected to avoid the evil and cling to the good? It’s a case of what you don’t know being able to hurt you.

But the ignorance doesn’t stop there. Even married folk in fundyland often suffer from a deplorable amount of ignorance regarding exactly their bodies work and the amazing number interesting things there are to try when they’ve got some spare time. A few brave fundies will try out a book like the LaHaye’s The Act of Marriage or the Wheat’s Intended for Pleasure but even those are too much for some fundamentalists who think that talking about or describing sex at all is akin to “Larry Flynt pornography” and would likely faint dead away if someone dared to describe how to “Split the Bamboo.”

So what’s a fundy to do? Well, here’s a thought: if you were trying to learn how to speak German, make a soufflé or fly an airplane you probably would try to read books or watch videos or even (*gasp*) talk face to face with people who were knowledgeable and had some training and experience on those topics, regardless of whether they agreed with your position on eschatology. May I be so bold as to inquire what makes learning how to have great sex (or any sex for that matter!) all that different?

In this case, ignorance is not bliss nor is the awkward shame of false piety the same as godliness.[/spoiler]

Sex

Fundy Sex Week Day 2 Bonus: Flirting in Fundyland

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Girl meets boy.

Girl likes boy. Boy likes girl.

Girl realizes she’s sexually attracted to boy.

Girl dumps boy because anyone who provides such a temptation must be evil.

Girl writes boy a long, long letter stuffed with verses explaining how boy is obviously not God’s will for her life because he’s driving her to lust.

Girl gets lonely and depressed and writes a lot of bad poetry on the theme of Jesus being the only love she needs in her life even if He’s not in a huggable form right now.

Girl meets another boy and the fundy world goes ’round…

Sex

Fundy Sex Week Day 2: Being On Top

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As any politician who has been caught in flagrante delecto can tell you, sex is often primarily about power. In fact, it’s not any secret that (especially for men) sex is often more about power and ego as opposed to the healthier motivations of love, procreation, and mutual enjoyment. In fundyland, the exercise of sex-as-power gets even more complicated than the simple a urge to dominate, since even having sexual desires is seen as an inherent moral flaw.

A fundy man having taken unto himself a helpmeet is faced with a dilemma. On the one hand he is told that he is to be the absolute and final authority in his home and rule it with an iron hand. On the other, his wife can rob him of that power simply by refusing his amorous advances. The situation is even worse for an unmarried fundy man who is at the same time tremendously tempted by vague notion of sexual satisfaction while at the same time being repulsed by the idea of women in general as being the deep ditches and narrow pits that will lead him to his destruction.

In the end, it’s fundamentalist women who suffer most from this paradox. They are told both that they are vile temptresses whose bodies only exist to tempt men and that they are also responsible to perform their marital duties (note: if it’s a ‘duty’ you’re doing it wrong) as the only way to keep their man on the straight and narrow. In short the message is to be eternally afraid of her own sexuality but always ready at the drop of a hat to actually have sex.

Some men in fundyland, however, fare only marginally better. The most alpha males may simply take what they want without regard for anyone’s enjoyment but their own. But the more thoughtful and kindhearted fundy man (yes, they do exist) who has been taught a lifetime of fear of the eternal temptress that is womankind simply has no idea how to deal with his own conflicted feelings of guilt and desire — much less the confusion of his partner over the mixed messages he’s sending out. It’s the perfect recipe for a whole lot of loneliness.

Happy are the people who put the power plays of fundyland behind them and understand that love has no shame — and that it’s all a lot more fun when everyone gets a chance to be on top.
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A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.