Secular sex: God makes for a terrible threesome

Sex is for the most part, a very intimate experience. Whether you're exploring your own body alone or with someone else, sex should be on your own terms. In fact it absolutely must be. For sex to be a healthy and positive experience, consent is imperative.

But for many, there is a ghostly deity that lingers in the background. An uninvited phantom that watches your every move. Judging and maybe even critiquing your most vulnerable moments. Like Rodger Ebert, but with the perceived power to torture you for all eternity should you delve into activities he finds distasteful.

So what are the limits of this ghastly observer?

That all depends on the particular god you believe in. Maybe it is something as common as oral sex. Wearing lingerie, or the gender or genders you're attracted to. Could it be that simply having sex without a lifelong commitment and expensive party are cause for eternal damnation? Or figuring out how your own body functions and is pleasured?

God is the embodiment of all our sexual hang-ups and insecurities. He is the one that makes us doubt our feelings and desires. Makes us wonder if we should feel bad about feeling good. He is the one that hangs out without permission while we give into the urges that He supposedly equipped us with in the first place. 

And it is all by design. A holy set up. A deliberate catch 22 that is intended to keep us in line. Brilliant in its malignancy. A deviant manipulation. A way to exploit our physiology and humanity to gain control over our behavior.

But in all its foul magnificence, it fails most of the time. Suppressing and hiding our sexual desires doesn't eliminate them. Maybe for a little while, but eventually they break free of their mental confines and resurface in terrible ways. Manifesting as either guilt and shame, or harmful acts.

But this holy perverted ghost has oozed its way into secular sex lives as well. Many of God's goofy sex rules have permeated the lives for whom God wasn't a main player. Or even in the lives of people who never believed gods at all. Slut shaming, homophobia, and the hypersexualizing of nudity are godly constructs.

Sex makes more humans. Sex makes us more human as well. It allows us to feel pleasure. It releases chemicals that make us feel better physically, mentally and emotionally. It helps us know ourselves and our fellow humans. It is a part of life that should be enjoyed without guilt or shame imposed by a voyeuristic entity of our own imaginations.

The most important thing in any sex act is consent. God didn't ask to be in your bedroom. And you are not obligated to give him permission to be there. Like another imagined monster, the vampire, God cannot come in unless you invite Him.

You did not give consent to this ghostly ménage a trois; tell him to get lost.

*Originally published by Only Sky Media