The title of this article is dishonest because a more accurate title would be that understanding of ancient benefits of religion is important to understanding all aspects sexual behavior. That is what I will explain as my opinion. Of course. one aspect under-all-aspects-of sex is causal sex which includes commercial sex. This is my subject in all my articles and my pending book. So I’ll continue.
I will be clear that I am aware I dare not say anything about organized religion with the exception of worshipping a deity, which can also be described as an imaginary spiritual power. Okay, like a lot of people I think the time to believe in that kind of whatever we chose to call – let’s say God – is over. But that has not passed for many other people, some of whom are s violent in their believes that I might be in danger. Let me be clear that in regard to what I know and think about the person of Jesus Christ I have great respect for what he is known to stand for. Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, and others who are worshiped by others, not so much.
My concern is with organized religion, not some of the charismatic and historic people along it cause. Clearly there have been charismatic leaders along the way who did not do honor to their specific organized religion given retrospective opinion. There have been a fair number of brutal demons throughout Christian religion examples: crusades, inquisitions, accusations of witchcraft, the pope’s rejection of condoms, etc.. The internet offered this: “Religion” is a complex modern Western concept. Obviously, Religion is not limited to the Western world.
If we look back at the prehistory of religion going back more than 50,000 years, including the relative recent years (with better written history) in the last 3,000 years, organized religion has provided useful and important benefits. Maybe this is just my opinion, but I will explain.
Hold your breath feminists.
So, what are the useful benefits of organized religion? My subject is sex and it is sexual rules set by organized religions, most if not all of them, which has made a big different in the history, if not the survival of humans. The rules of religion which I am talking about apply to sex. These rules also have a huge impact on the hegemony of men over women. For most of history men have an interest in whether children they can for are in fact the result of their own breeding. Rules applied by religion requiring monogamy apply to solve that question.
Also, the religious rule that there should never be sex before marriage is another way this is solved. Similar there are rules that men not be with men and women not be with women as sexual partners. This can be considered as a traditional way for men to be assured to have the pick of the available women. Harsh penalties, usually only against the women. enforce these rules. The importance of proof of virginity (only for the woman) follows this pattern.
At a time throughout history until (respectively) very recent history this made sense. Methods of contraception were either nonexistent or primitive. Abortion was virtually unheard of because, if conception was accomplished, the chances of successful birth lasting into adult life was very risky.
There is more that can be said but this is enough for now. But it is clear that adhering to these rules, often completely established by organized religions, had positive benefit for the people of an earlier day. That day continues until recently.
A solid foundation of male dominance under these rules, stiped in tradition and enforced by spiritual mentality, controlled women. Women have had thousands of years to learn to accept these roles as they own and to the dominance of men.
This writer was born in 1947, after World War II. When I entered in high school in 1961, I recall being aware of condoms made of rubber (not goat’s intestines). I do not know if any were made of silicon then, but that is the preferred now. The famous “pill”, oral contraceptive, was introduced in the United States in 1960. Now there is a pill or pills for emergency contraception taken the day after unprotected sex. Let’s not forget STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) . Both syphilis and gonorrhoeic were serious diseases prior to the introduction of penicillin in 1943.
Both of these, but especially syphilis, have had a major impact on warfare from the 1400s until the Vietnam War. Both diseases used to be a deadly but now are both curable before major damage takes place. That latest sexual plague is HIV/AIDs, new in the late 1950s. HIV/AIDs like resulted from Polio vaccine research which allowed Chimpanzee virus (SIV) to mix with humans (HIV). NO actual vaccination exists yet for HIV/AID like there is for polo and covid 19 but huge progress has been made. There two different courses of medicines to protect people who are at risk and medicines for people with HIV virus to keep their HIV virus level low so it does not progress to AIDs which kills.
These last few paragraphs quickly covered some amazing history.
First, organized religion, in a natural process, created rules which saved men and all humans from most of these sexually related issues. Who are in families, and which women are connected to which men. In the process women fell under many, many thousands of years of second class states to men. So would say there was a genetic reason to this. I say maybe, but it could also be because a long, long tradition of control through assumed wish of power of spiritual being in the clouds watching us all.
I am an American (USA) and I am concerned that the USA seems to be the most religiously influenced major country in the world. The USA has conducted an attack on sex work based on the premise women must be rescued from violence and children protected. The USA had a huge influence on the reduction of HIV/AIDs by supplying the cash to do the research. But that cash came at a price.
A country that wanted some US cash to research or train people to not get HIV/AIDs had to promise to join the attack on recreational sex in their country.
That was called the PEPFAR Pledge.
This writer makes it his hobby to disclose exaggerated and dishonest information about sex work and sex trafficking. Those are from the old days. a defensive measure common when people rarely succumb easily to any change.
This writer also makes the case that the traditional rules of organized religion going back many thousands of years setting rules over sex and over women,
no longer apply as they once did. There will be social change in these areas. Women will grow though a natural process into equality with men. Sex as a recreational pleasure will be common. Life-long monogamy will die.
More musings and religious torment in my latest book Lonely Sex Tourist
