Christian Fundamentalism, Sex and Me: Part One - Formative Influences

     In my introductory post, I conveyed something of the devastating experiences I had encountered after purchasing a top shelf magazine and described something of the psychological trauma I endured, prior to this incident and a few years later, when embarking on romantic relationships. In that section I relate being diagnosed by my first therapist as having a fear of sex – a determination which has not always been upheld by subsequent counsellors. After commiting much consideration to this point over the years, I don't really feel that I am or ever have been intrinsically afraid of sex but I cannot deny that that part of my life has been fraught with problems as a consequence of my fundamentalist upbringing, problems with which I have had to really persevere to overcome. 

 

      If I've discovered one thing about recovering from the effects of Christian fundamentalism it is that understanding issues requires one to be aware that there is seldom a straight forward, clear cut line of cause and effect leading up to the difficulties encountered. Instead, issues tend to be multifaceted presenting themselves as tangled threads to be unravelled. We are complex beings and when the natural harmony of that complexity breaks down things often become even more convoluted.

      Clearly, the effects I experienced after viewing pornography and attempting to begin  meaningful relationships are far from normal. It's easy to see how the initial diagnosis was arrived at but the subsequent years have taught me a great deal about myself which has better enabled me to begin to understand the root causes of this particular dilemma.

      Sex is pivotal to who we are as individuals. Our sexuality provides us with our essential identity, yet Christian fundamentalism can have a particularly prejudicial effect on this vital part of our make-up. Understanding the circumstances which have brought about my own peculiar difficulties here has meant looking closely at what influences I had been exposed to during my pre-adolescent and adolescent years and learning to appreciate how those influences worked to shape and form the phobias I began to experience in my later teenage and early adult years.

      My parents were very pro-active evangelical believers. Both had been through Bible
college prior to me being born - my father had attended an Holiness college! Each were looking to expand their witness where we lived and gave regular weekly support to the
AoG Pentecostal Church in our
local town. I remember being first taken to Sunday school at the very young age of two years. In addition, I quite clearly recall at a similar age certainly hearing and sometimes seeing the exuberance of the waiting meetings which my parents held in our home for their friends as I lay in my bed at night or chanced to see through an open doorway below as I peered inquisitively from the landing above. As a pre-school youngster my mother would tell me Bible stories about Jesus' death and at four years of age she gently persuaded me to ask Jesus into my heart and to forgive me for my sins. Religion was not a nominal thing in my family. My parents were fully committed and part of that commitment involved ensuring that their children were raised as fundamentalists. Where faith was concerned, 'individual choice' was not a concept with which they seemed to be familiar.

      The intensity of religious belief and of the expectation for me to conform never really diminished as I grew up. I became a little fundie at school, encouraged to witness whenever an occasion arose. Once, during a debate in junior school about origins (I'd be about 10 years old), I got out of my seat, picked up a Bible from the stock room and presented the Christian creation story to the class in contrast to the evolutionary context of the teacher led discussion. My teacher must have been impressed by my stance, at least, as he followed up the debate the next week by asking the local vicar to attend!

      By adolescence I was very well versed in the Bible. I'd completed a huge chunk of the YSL (Young Sowers League) Bible study course for children, had attended Sunday school just about every week throughout my childhood and had also begun to attend other services with my parents. By the mid 1970s I was at church five evenings a week; becoming involved with helping out at Sunday school (or Junior Church as it became known for the older children) and, of course, was a regular at the Sunday Communion service – in truth, I hardly ever missed!

      The environment in which I was raised was intense and carefully enforced. There was no alternative available to me. I knew no better and by the time that I did become more exposed to other perspectives it was too late. The indoctrination was virtually complete.

      It is the nature of children to want to please their parents and to learn from trusted adults. Of course, children absorb things like sponges. Analytical skills are not fully acquired until later in one's development so, more often than not, a child trustingly believes what it is told. In this way my parent's world view and that of my church became my world view. What they considered good and wholesome I considered to be good and wholesome. Needless to say, what they abhored I, too, learnt to abhor.

      The 1960s and 70s was a time of increasing openness about sex and sexuality in
society in general. 1969 saw the beginning
of what has been termed 'the Golden Age

of Porn' with the release of Andy Warhol's film 'Blue Movie'. This heralded the start of a 15 year period where sexually explicit films were to receive greater attention from cinemas, critics and the general public alike. 1965 saw the introduction of the 'Penthouse' and 'Mayfair' magazines and the 1970s witnessed a broad increase in the availability of such magazines through more regular outlets. That this Golden Age of Porn was gathering pace about the same time as I began to enter puberty is one thing. That I happened also to have been raised in an environment so drenched by Christain fundamentalism has proved to be near diastrous for me!
 

      The church I attended at this time was a town centre church situated only a few hundred metres from one of the town's largest cinemas. Regularly on Sunday nights as I proceeded to church I would observe the lengthy queues of cinema goers, three to four people deep, sometimes snaking around the block for hundreds of feet as they waited for the doors to open to the latest block buster newly arrived in town. Once I arrived at church I would arm myself with a friend and a bunch of tracts and set out to try to convince as many of these people as possible to come to the Gospel service that night instead of watching the film! Needless to say none obliged. The image of the meandering stream of people entering the cinema was never wasted by those in the pulpit of my church who, time after time, sought to make capital out of what they saw to be a prime example of the lost wending towards hell.

      In fact, cinemas, in particular, were portrayed very negatively to me as I grew up.

They were forbidden places. Bastions of worldliness into which I must never enter – my parents had made that abundantly clear well before my adolescence. On one occasion, when I was only a very young child staying with my grand parents, I distinctly recall creating a real fuss when my grandfather suggested taking me to the cinema one day to see a bible based film. I simply knew that on no account must I attend such a place! This, of itself, speaks volumes as to the level of seriousness by which I was raised.

     Despite being taught to shun the cinema as a key
potential threat to my spiritual wellbeing, I was not unaware of the kinds of films that were being screened. Films like The Exoricist, for example, (released in March 1974 and which created huge controversey in its day) only served to firmly cement in my mind the correctness of the advice I had been given. Although I had no interest whatsoever in this particular genre – believing as I did that such films were the inspiration of satanic influences, I can't deny that the explosion of 'X' rated movies in the 1970s did attract my excited attention, not that I would ever let on that fact. The bright lights promoting the inescapable physical presence of the cinemas in my town and the films they were showing were unavoidable. A sneeky peek as I passed by at the advertising around

the cinema entrances for whatever erotic film was currently being shown
or was about to come to town was all to easy, however much I may then quickly
avert my gaze with learned impressions of 
disapproval. Naturally, I was attracted to the images of
scantily clad ladies, designed to lure me in to see the film (had I been old enough to do so) and to some extent I was willing (tempted) to run the gauntlet with my conscience looking for only as long as I dare before I felt that my eyes had peered for long enough. (The same pattern played out when passing many of the late night newsagents in my town on eyeing through their broad, brightly lit windows the latest editions of Playboy or Men Only on discreet display).

      Like all young lads at this period in their development, I was obviously becoming aware of sex! I was maturing towards manhood – as, of course, was nature's intent for me! It was a perfectly normal thing to experience! However, thanks to the already powerful influence of CF in my life, laid down mainly surreptitiously but also quite directly throughout my childhood, for me the underlying process taking place here was anything but natural.

      Of most significance in all this is that my earliest awarenesses of sex; my initial experiences of sexual arousal; my instinctive attraction to the sight of female nudity had become associated with an institution and with publications which I had been taught, in no uncertain terms, to identify ultimately as being of the Devil!

      In 1972 Doreen Ervine's book 'From Witchcraft to Christ' was published. I've never
read this book – I think I was cautioned not to at the time which only added to its gravity - but there were comments enough about it from those around me in my church to formulate in my mind a link between sex and witchcraft. This link was not exclusive to Doreen Irvine's book. Popular fiction at the time included a number of titles which appeared to link sex with the occult. I would never dare pick up any of them to read. Opening the covers of a Dennis Wheatley book, for example, would be to tangle with fire but the illustrated covers of such books on open display in shop windows were enough to reinforce the mistaken notion that sex was bad. I heard it said, on one occasion, that my pastor at that time believed it possible for one to become demon possessed through having sex with a prostitute!

      In the year prior to Doreen Irvine's book hitting the shelves, Ken Russell's film 'The Devils', starring Oliver Reed, had been released in the UK to strong opposition from a number of churches, including mine. Perceived to be extremely blasphemous for its depiction of Christ and sex, my church petitioned to get the film banned in our town. Though I was only 10 years old at the time I was told enough to know why it was a wicked film and encouraged to take up an active stance against it! I seriously doubt that anyone in my church had actually seen the film to judge for themselves its merits or demerits.

      During the mid 1970s, and this time much nearer to home, a situation arose involving a close family member whom my parents, apparently, exorcised when he came to them for help after getting himself into a lot of bother and feeling suicidal following a very messy and turbulent extramartial affair. I was within audible distance of the supposed exorcism as it actually took place and very much believed it to be the real thing. Of course, I now know much better but, again, to my adolescent mind, the link between sex and evil was there!  

      I think that I have made my point here. It is not so much about the inappropriate nature of the images on display in the cinema or between the covers of a glossy magazine (and I would accept that some of the images portrayed at the time were most unsuitable for a young teenage lad), nor is it essentially about discovering something of the sexual indulgences of others. Rather, it is this, that the constant message about sex during my early, formative years - whether direct or indirect - was that is was wrong and quite potentially evil. There was no alternative understanding provided to establish balance and perspective. 

      Such had been the church's manipulation over the years of my interpretation of the world around me that when puberty dawned, my automatic reaction was to subvert my own natural and perfectly innocent awakening curiosity about sex by determining it to be bad, wrong, sinful, even evil. My supposed betters didn't need a third party to patrol my conscience when they had done such a good job in inculcating me to police my own.

     Clearly, a paradox of sorts had been established. On the one hand I was a sexual being who should have had every right to grow up to learn to enjoy and to accept what it meant
for me to be sexual whilst on the other

hand the pernicious preoccupations on the subject of my fundamentalist up-bringing had seen to it that, in my case at least, such an experience was to be tormented by so many unnecessary and inappropriate painful feelings.

 

     Not only were the cinema and girlie magazines emphatically out of bounds (and perhaps rightly so to a point) but pop music and television were considered to be highly suspect, too. 'Sweep out the filth' was the bold campaign slogan within some churches in the 60s and 70s of those exhorting Christians to discard their TV sets. My parents did allow a TV into our house, eventually, when I was about eleven years old but its use was carefully controlled for fear primarily that nudity and bad language may unintentionally be admitted into the home. 'Turn it off!' would be their command should anything remotely sexual appear on screen. No doubt this arose from their own immediate embarrassment but was undoubtedly fuelled, in the main, by their doctrinal obsessions. All the same, such was my parents' instant dismissal over those years of anything to do with sex or nudity that the likely subliminal impact of their tenacious instructions is obvious. 
 

      Pop music and culture were seen to be the very definition of 'worldliness'; far too liberal and morally subversive for me to ever be allowed to experience them as my peers may have done as part of a normal adolescent development. Creating and enjoying fantasies for what they were; learning to distinguish them from reality and through that process to mature and to discover more about myself as I grew into adulthood was, at best a distorted process, if a process at all. Yes, I had my favourite songs and some female artistes appealed to me more than others but these had to be very 'safe' options. Looking back it all feels to have been very stifled.

      Instead of the natural free flow of normal teenage exploration of self with all its highs, hopes - and angst - this part of my development from child to adult occurred under the heavy fist of fundamentalism's dictat; the 'Thou shalt not' dictat which curbed, denied and controlled.
 

      I can see now that Christian fundamentalism is afraid of sex and that it sought to pass on that fear to me. Sex belongs to that realm of human experience over which the church has repeated failed to exert its full control. Sex is regarded as being the domain of the flesh. It is perceived to be man at his most carnal nature. It has the propensity to corrupt and defile. Ultimately, it is regarded to be in direct contrast to the spirit. 
      The church's notion of sex and its association
with evil is nothing new and is certainly not born out of the Golden Age of Porn. No, the connection is found to be right there in the Genesis creation myth – nudity and sexual awareness resulting from the devil's beguiling and the fall of paradise.

      In her book 'The Gospel According to Woman', Karen Armstrong shows most ably how the church, generally, throughout it's history has had a very uneasy relationship with sex. In seeking to gain mastery over sex, the church has tried various ways to, at least, contain it (as with its rules about marriage and monogamy) and often to suppress it (by forbidding certain forms of sexuality). Darrel Ray, in his book 'Sex and God', demonstrates how much the church has failed in its efforts here by explaining that our sexual needs (and behaviours) do not naturally diminish in proportion to any supposed development of our spirituality. He points out that religious repression of sex can have the undesired consequence of distorting sexuality!

      Such were the pervasive fundamentalist influences in my early years that by the time I was sexually aware, sex had already become something to be seriously guarded against. One must not fall into temptation! Perfectly normal urges were felt to be anything but and should my mind, or eyes, by chance, perceive the wrong kind of images then – in the main - an immediate recourse to prayer quickly followed. 'Lord, keep my mind pure and clean' had become my mantra. Of course, I ran the gauntlet many a time and the endeavour to remain 'pure and clean' failed repeatedly prompting deep feelings of guilt and the fear of hell which, in turn, invoked determined and tearful repentance. By my early teens I had become accustomed to having a sense of being 'saved' – which I lost whenever I thought that I had transgressed sexually. Supposed sexual misdeeds (by this I mean only viewing erotic images, masturbating or entertaining erotic thoughts. Having foreplay or intercourse with anyone was never on the agenda) had come to hold a sterner gravity about them than other transgressions (for example; greed, selfishness, dishonesty, unkindness, etc.). Only through earnest repentance could that feeling of being 'saved' be restored. This undulating pattern of feeling 'saved' and then 'unsaved', 'clean' and then 'unclean' continued for a number of years creating such misery and unhappiness for me. Many a time I was apprehensive about taking communion in case I was 'unclean' and thereby 'eating and drinking damnation unto myself' and so developed a variety of fretful rituals seeking divine reassurance that I was forgiven for having failed to resist, however much I may have tried, the burgeoning force of my hormones the night before.

      Eventually, after enduring this torment for long enough, I did pluck up the courage to speak to someone about it. It was such a relief to learn that I was OK and had been doing nothing wrong but by that time the subliminal damage had been done and, even then, masturbation was thought best to be contained and not to be indulged in too often! 'Better to let it come away in your sleep', was one piece of useless advice I received. How much unnecessary torment I could have avoided if my parents and my church had adopted a much more open and healthy approach to sex and sex education!

      Along side all the doom and gloom about sex, conveyed insidiously and overtly, against the assumed backdrop of depravity and godlessness in the world at large was the ever present call to purity before God. The upright man of God strove to be untainted by the world in which he lived. He put on the whole armour of God to defend himself against the deceptions of the Devil. The image of resisting temptation, especially where sex is concerned, is prominent with some of the Early Church Fathers (take a look at Saint Anthony and Saint Augustine, for example) and reverberates throughout Christian history. The antagonism with sex is epitomised in the belief that Jesus came to being through a sexless conception and lived a sexless life (so far as the Gospels tell us anything)! Indeed, the 'Virgin' Mary is highly honoured in certain Christian traditions for not only being the mother of Christ, but for being a virgin, too.

      This notion of purity, encouraged from pulpit and home alike, as being the preferred alternative to the liberal sexuality of the world provided a convenient lure by which to direct the young Christian away from the natural freedom to explore his or her sexuality without fear or shame. In so doing, however, it erected a stark contrast in the mind of a young man grappling with his supposed sexual failings, thus giving the paradox another twist in that it presented an ideal to attain to which, in reality, none of us, let alone a lad in his early teens, can ever hope to do so by virtue of our very nature.

       Throughout those years of early adolescence and beyond, I was caught between my natural, healthy sexual arousal and the fear of evil with which it had become inextricably entwined. My experience of my own sexuality had become subjected to so much 
suppression, having had imposed
upon it such totally unnecessary

negative associations. When I 'fell' I dreaded sensing that I was not right with God and thereby not 'safe' from evil. Perhaps this was the thing of which I had come to be most afraid, finding myself at risk of being tainted by real evil - existing apart from God with the possibility of a lost eternity looming large should anything untoward occur before I had adequately repented. If I'm honest, I've yet to be certain on this but one thing seems sure and that is that both my church and my parents, however unintentionally, did a damn good job in instilling a great deal of fear around sex and in so doing denying me my natural right to grow up to enjoy and express my sexuality with happiness and positivity.