Christian Fundamentalism, Sex and Me: Part Two - Defence Strategies & Further Complexity

      Much happens on a sub-conscious level for all of us, particularly when we are young

as our minds are more vulnerable to suggestion and experience. Looking back, I strongly suspect that my later issues with physical perfection when considering who or who not to date have their root in this conflict between sex, evil and purity, as discussed in Part One.

It's impossible for any of us to deny that we are sexual creatures and yet the process I was

subjected to powerfully

influenced me to see that identity as something of which to be very wary; to be suppressed; to be divorced from, even, in preference for an unattainable ideal. The steady grind of this notion; my repeated failure to adhere to those loftier ideals and the fear and dread experienced most likely engendered a veritable crucible wherein, lurking more powerfully beneath the radar of my consciousness, deeper influences and concerns would eventually spawn something more sinister that was to become the full blown phobia which I was destined to experience! 

    There's an old adage which says that 'the stranger looking in sees the truth'. When one is brought up in Christian fundamentalism and knows nothing else it can be very arduous for that person to properly appreciate the enormity of the injury which can be inflicted by that circumstance. Even when one has extricated oneself from such an environment it is not always easy to readily see the whole picture as others may. It is easier to take oneself out of CF than it is to take CF out of the individual. The damage done to adherants can remain largely unfelt by them on the surface, even after leaving CF, but deeper within the effects of CF do register and

                                                                               can have potentially disastrous 

implications for the sub-conscious mind.

      It is well established in psychology that

when the human psyche is faced with trauma, it has the propensity to develop defensive mechanisms by which it seeks to protect itself. Considering my own unfortunate circumstances with CF and sex, I think it not unlikely that in attempting to process the constant perplexity I encountered my sub-conscious would have developed some kind of protection strategy.
     The dynamic evolutionary force which is sex could never be expunged from my make up and yet my twisted upbringing had truly denied me any proper appreciation of its place in my life. Instead of sex being understood as a positive part of me it had, on a deeper level of cognisance, become something severely undermined by dark perspectives. Given this, it would seem likely then that if any equilibrium were to exist between the reality of my sexuality and the aspiration towards a life of godliness as instilled by CF, somehow the consequent polarity had to be defused and the impending sense of evil associated with sex guarded against. Could it be that my way of doing this was to put that dynamic evolutionary force effectively out of reach, to dilute its potency by spiritualising sex?

     What do I mean by spiritualising sex? Well, it seems plausible to me to consider that one method my sub-conscious may have adopted to resolve the dilemma would perhaps be to denude sex of its base potency. This could be achieved by placing sex on a pedestal where it may take on the semblance of something essentially sacred, most virtuous, even holy. Stripped of its more base elements; its lust, its carnal, sensual, visceral, pleasurable,

primal identity – crucially its imagined inherent connection with evil - sex can be regarded to take on an higher dimension. In this guise sex becomes linked with a type of perfectionism which projects it beyond the reality of itself thus transforming it in to something which it is not and which, in so doing, emasculates it.
     Such a notion of sex enters the realms of fantasy where it is endowed with the spiritual in order to defuse its potency. In otherwords, sex is made 'safe'. This understanding goes quite some way to explain the root cause of my delusional imperative for physical perfection in anyone whom I may have chosen to ask on a date. I knew that such perfection doesn't exist and yet, despite the clear logic here, I persisted with a keen insistence to the contrary! That the notion of purity had also become an integral part of the mix only served to intensify the contortion.   
   Considering the dreadfulful reactions I endured when using pornography or when attempting to embark on amorous relationships – as described in the main post - 
something about my makeup had certainly

becomed programmed to avoid sex by my late teens. The evolution of this type of reaction was not a conscious process but one worked out in the hidden reaches of the mind. It was something that I suddenly discovered about myself without having made any deliberate contribution. My sub-conscious mind appears to have conjured up a strategy designed to protect me from sex because it had come to associate sex with a menacing notion of evil. Although in my conscious mind I thought I had no issues with sex and looked forward to enjoying it with whomsoever would one day  become my wife, in reality I was harbouring a self defeating aversion which set the bar so high that no one I would ever meet would be physically perfect enough to satisfy it. An avoidance strategy had emerged which served to protect me from ever really fully engaging sexually by preventing me from ever really entering into the kind of relationship where this would become a probability. By the time I was in my very late teens this aversion had developed unchecked into a most irrational and overwhelmingly disproportionate fear of evil. Little wonder, then, that I interpreted the nightmare I experienced after enjoying the Men Only magazine as me having become demon possessed! I was haunted with this as being the only explanation of my plight.

                                                                                                 I thought that somehow I had

given myself over to evil. That in some way I had become contaminated through the pages of the magazine – and that notion of sex as a contaminant has been a regular theme since over the years as I've tried to make sense of my life after CF. (I have also wondered to what extent the remark I once heard about my pastor's belief about sex with prostitutes may have planted a seed which had germinated in this respect!).

      As I understand the workings of the sub-conscious mind, phobias develop beneath the radar of our conscious awareness and have a habit of taking on an irrational nature which can become wildly disproportional to their cause. We see this in all kinds of manifestations where at some point one has learnt to fear something and then suppressed that anxiety, sometimes to the point of forgetfulness, only for it to emerge in the form of an incommensurate response to anything which reminds the sub-conscious of the origins of that fear.

      I mentioned in Part One that

understanding matters of these kinds can be complex and interminably slow to unravel. There are other concerns here for me which interweave. One such issue is that of intimacy. It is not uncommon for people subjected through childhood to Christian fundamentalism's potential to stunt emotional growth and to limit the healthy development of proper self awareness to discover difficulties, later in life, connecting with others on emotionally meaningful levels. Over the years, I've become aware on renewed occasions of this as being something with which I have had to grapple.

      Overlapping with the point about intimacy, and an area of relevance in its own right, is that of being the victim of corporal punishment. I was smacked and sometimes beaten by my parents fairly regularly through my childhood. My father, in the main, would administer the 'correction' sometimes by hand or with a slipper and at other times using a
 strap or a stick. My parents sincerely believed that this was the lovingly responsible thing

to do and that if they spared the rod then they would somehow be spoiling the child. I would direct my readers, however, to Philip Greven's book, 'Spare the Child', to see how that can play out for the poor victims of such a mistaken notion. (The part on 'Consequences', which includes a section on sadomasochism, is particularly illuminating).

     Individuals subjected to the kinds of religious teachings which impede healthy personal development and promote physical punishment can later in life encounter problems with low self esteem. This can be an huge area for attention and therapy – and a broad subject in itself for another post at some time, perhaps. I consider myself to be a fairly self-confident person and have achieved much in life as a result but this differs significantly from self-esteem and here I often find great impediment thanks to issues like the one being discussed in this post and by the way in which the real 'me' was put down so consistently as I was growing

up. (An helpful distinction between self-confidence and self-esteem can be found at https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/201510/self-confidence-versus-self-esteem ). 

      Inextricably tied in with all this, for 
me, has also been the unwanted consequences of my mother's interfering opinion on who was and who was not suitable for me to date – often before I'd even had a chance myself to make an informed decision. Any potential girl friend had to be 'saved', of course, but looking back, I can discern a distinct pattern of maternal disapproval of anyone who may have been remotely considered to have had 'sex appeal'. It seems to have always been the tall, slim attractive ones who dressed with a little flair and would have turned a few male heads who met with my mother's fairly instant dismissal. Was she afraid that such girls may present a sexual threat to her son? I think she believed herself to know instinctively what was best for me and taught me that if I prayed about it 'God would provide just the right partner for me at just the right time in my life.' How bad that advice turned out to be! Time spent on my knees following such erroneous 'guidance' would have been much better spent getting to know myself, my likes and dislikes, my needs and my desires by enjoying some freedom in my teenage years to explore these things. Being on my knees placed me apart from myself – and yes, I am very annoyed about the loss incurred and the damage done here! I don't recall there ever being an healthy attempt on my mother's part to understand her son and how he may have felt; to discover what I may have seen in someone special and how I might perhaps find myself connecting with that person. I think it quite probable that my mother, who had endeavoured so hard to mould me into what she thought was right before God throughout 

my pre-pubescent years, found it difficult to accept the reality of things when puberty dawned. She seems to have wanted to tame that sexuality, to bring it to heel, to contain it and in so doing, no doubt unintentionally, to stifle and deny me its beauty and fulfilment.

      There were other fears influencing my mother's control over me at that time. Neither she nor my father enjoyed continued good health. My mum's relations with her own family were not good. As a result, I suspect that she really did come to see me as being her rock, her security for the future, especially when I began increasingly to fulfil my father's responsibilities about the house and home as his abilities waned in the face of steadily encroaching and debilitating illness. Fear of losing me to another woman, I believe, prompted all kinds of apprehension which in turn rendered a definite controlling behaviour from my mum. My father, on the other hand, particularly after my mother had died, seemed unconcerned about my difficulties in finding a partner. 'I don't know what's wrong with you. There's so and so and so and so', he once said to me, referring to two or three most undesirable young women in my church at the time. Probably, he too didn't want to lose his security in my remaining single, particularly now his wife had passed away. Like I said, these things are complex – very complex at times.