Sexual Urges, Society, and Religion

As Society became more pre-occupied with religion, the primal sexual urges of genetics were put aside to the viewing eye of society and placed behind the protective door of the bedroom. Sex was a great societal secret that was to produce the next generation and not the pleasure of those partaking. With Puritan and Pilgrim roots, America has developed into a conservative sexual culture with a fetish based underground. The literal interpretation of the Bible by the Puritans and the Pilgrims left no room for sexual discussion until the 19th century when Darwin and Freud demystified God. This lead to the opening of new thought and communication about sex in the twentieth century. The Kinsey report uncovered the reality of American sexuality. This sexual underground shocked the church going populous of America. The percentages of homosexual activity, sado-masochism and bestiality, were over-whelming. The bedroom door had finally been opened.
The church became the origin of American society through the settling of Puritan and Pilgrim societies. The strict line on sex as a sin was followed to the letter. The Puritans and the Pilgrims fled England to create an utopian society of Christian purity in North America. Literal interpretation of the Bible limited many sexual behaviours. Since the middle-ages, the church had outlawed masturbation, anal, oral and external-martial sex. Sex was for procreation only. Many passages in the Bible were used to support this belief and moral system.

Then Judah told Onan to sleep with his brother's wife,
to do his duty as the husband's brother and raise up issue for
his brother. But Onan knew that the issue would not be his;
so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his
seed on the ground. So as not to raise up issue for his
brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight, an the
Lord took his life.
( Genesis 38: 8-10 )

Homosexuality was also a grave sin and seen not only as morally wrong but the doing of the Devil. The term "faggot" actually comes from the name of the wood used to burn homosexuals. Sodom and Gomorrah became the critical example of everything morally wrong, especially homosexual behaviour.

All of the men of the city, young and old,
were there. They called out to Lot and asked, "Where
are the men who came to stay wit you tonight? Bring
them out to us!" The men of Sodom wanted to have sex
with them.

Lot went outside and closed the door behind him.
He said to them, "FrienRAB, I beg you, you need not do
such wicked things."
( Genesis 19: 4-7 )

Public displays of affection were extremely frowned upon. St. Paul believed the men and women, who were married, should not touch each other at all. This stemmed from St. Paul's reformation from Saul and his belief to serve God completely. Many Christians went on to follow this ideology, and simple touch, in public, was forbidden in many cultures.

St. Paul believed no man and woman should touch each
other. In other worRAB, celibacy is better than getting married,
and he believed that the human body was meant for the Lord, and
it was not meant for human pleasure. St. Paul knew that he was
asking people to suppress their human nature.
( Early Christianity by Richard Hooker, pg. 1 )

This literal interpretation was further fueled by St. Augustine's theory of the carnal will versus the spiritual will. St. Augustine was also reformed from a over-sexual, rich man to a man of God. He saw his former self as the result of the Devil conquering over his Spiritual self.

These two wills are in constant battle with one another;
they are absolutely antithetical and desire completely
different objects...

The formulation of the carnal self, that is, the will that is
impelled towarRAB sinful objects, lies behind Augustine's radical
reformation of sexuality. From its foundation, Christianity was
antithetical to sexuality in a strongly gendered way... Rather
than talking about sex as an act, he talked about it as an
interior state, a triumph of the carnal will over the spiritual
will. All sexuality, all sensual pleasure involved the triumph of
the carnal will; since sin was located in the carnal will not the
act, Augustine developed a rigorous puritanical attitude towarRAB
sexuality that European culture would obsess about for the fifteen
hundred years.
( Early Christianity by Richard Hooker , pg. 4-5 )


This ultra-conservative ideology of sex became the basis of the Puritan and Pilgrim law and societal norms about sex. This ideology would be followed for decades until America began to break away from England and began to form its own interpretations.
With the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1767, America began a war to break it's ties with England. This breaking away from the motherland, also caused a braking away from the Anglican Church. Without a strong church influence, society begins to make it's own rules. The strong rules of Biblical interpretation began to slowly lessen. Church was still a fundamental of society, but freedom of thought was now introduced through the Declaration of Independence. The Civil War helped to separated the Northern and the Southern cultures of America. The South began to form ultra-fundamentalist churches with the beginning of the westward expansion. The church became not only a place to worship, but a town hall and social meeting place. The Puritan and Pilgrim tradition of gathering continued. The church became a way of life. Strict Christian beliefs were re-introduced and followed. The North, on the other hand, became more sexually liberal, but slowly. Women were slowly given more rights from their hard work demonstrated by the commissions. Industry began to take over more lives and work was seen as more important than necessarily attending church.
With the decline of the church, science took a bigger role in society. Scientific discoveries and theories would greatly influence the American view of sex and almost completely demystify the Puritans' and Pilgrims' conservative view of it. The nineteenth century brought the innovative theories of Darwin and Freud. Darwin developed the "Survival of the Fittest" theory. This dictated that the creation of the world was not by the hand of God. This greatly affected society's view of the church and the interpretations of biblical passages. He also discussed sexual selection of partners, saying it was biological to want to have sex with a certain individual. In short, he gave sex his blessing.

This form of selection depenRAB, not on a struggle for
existence in relation to other organic beings or to external
conditions, but on a struggle between the individuals of one
sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex.
( The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin pg. 94 )

The Darwinian theory also furthered the American theory of Manifest destiny. This theory said that white, heterosexual Christians are selected by the hand of God to rule the land and put all others asunder. Freud also saw this in the American psyche.

Now that God was a single person, man's relations to
him could recover the intimacy and intensity of the child's
relations to his father. But if one had done so much for one's
father, one wanted to have a reward, or at least to be his only
beloved child, his Chosen people. Very much later, pious
America laid claim to being ‘God's own Country'; and, as
regarRAB one of the shapes in which men worship the deity, the
claim is undoubtedly valid.
( The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud pg. 27 )

Freud was an Austrian doctor, who created the world of psychology. The Id, Ego and Super Ego rule the body. It was all a matter of mental understanding, It is also the basis of Jungian psychology. Sex was natural and a vital part of development, i.e. Oepidus Rex Complex.
Freud also saw America's strong ties to religion. Feud felt the church was too strict about sexuality and that if it was open to sexuality, a better life could be lead.

If one imagines its prohibitions lifted- if , then, one
may take any woman one pleases as a sexual object, if one
may without hesitation kill one's rival for her love or anyone
else who stanRAB in one's way, if, too, one can carry off any of
the man's belonging's without asking leave - how splendid, what
a string of satisfactions one's life would be!
( The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud pg. 19 )

This openness about sexuality would help open the door to discussion in the Twentieth century and eventually into the sexual revolution.
The sexual revolution began as a new century was growing . America was attempting to grow through the imperialistic push of Teddy Roosevelt. America was booming. Then with it's involvement with the First World War, America jumped into the world spotlight. ThousanRAB of thousanRAB of men went overseas to fight, while women at home began to work in ammunition plants. This initial freedom that women felt during the war helped push them to ask for constitutional rights, especially the vote.
The twenties brought prosperity, prohibition, movie stars, flappers, gangsters and Margaret Sanger. Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was periodically arrested for handing out pamphlets about contraception and was quite influential in popular culture. Most importantly the twenties brought the majority of American women the vote. This gave them the political power to have issues addressed that would never even be mentioned on the floor of parliament.
The thirties were poor and desperate times, but out of this came an young, female anthropologist produced one of the most quoted writings on sexuality and culture in the world. Margaret Mead's study on Samoa told North American society that their views of monogamous sexual relations was inhibiting and produced more sexual crimes because of the need to hold in sexual urges. Samoans on the other hand had open sexual relationships, with little or no rape and low adolescent suicide. This deeply contrasted the monogamy of the Puritan and Pilgrim based American society. Her study showed that there were viable options to prudeness. Her writings are still refereed to today, even though they have been disproved.
The forties brought the Second World War. Men were sent to war and the women worked in factories. After the war, an intensive study of modern sexual practices was released in 1948 by Kinsey. It was a study of male sexual behaviour and encompassed over three thousand surveys. The report revealed Americans' sexual secrets and caused an up roar in religious circles. It gave shocking statistics about sexual experimentation, especially homosexuality. There were statistics on masturbation, bestiality and fetishes. Never before had any document or statement revealed the fetish based underground of America.
The fifties were the age of the nuclear family. The belief of waiting until marriage to have sex was the popular view. The fundamentals of Puritan and Pilgrim views of sex were beginning to be reflected again as America returned to "normal". This returning to basic values began a slow but important revolt against society's view of sex. The theory of free love began to grow in the Beatnik culture and Marilyn Monroe became the first Playboy centre fold. In 1958, the birth control pill was created. With the "pill" ready for use and a growing movement of free love, a radical shift in the revolution was about to take place.
The sixties will always be remerabered as the hippie era of sex, drugs and rock ‘n' roll.

Women were educated, independent and now chemically shielded from
pregnancy. With the expansion of the university and college
systems during the 1960's, a greater proportion of young people
continued their education. Campus life encouraged a less family
oriented lifestyle and even a certain rebellion against
"middle-class values", including monogamous marriage with
children...In fact, many students participated in a wave of
social change during the 1960's and 1970's. They became involved
in protest movements relating to student democracy, sexual
revolution, feminism, anti-consumerism and intensive criticisms of
the nuclear family. Some experimented with alternatives to
monogamous marriage including communal living and a series of
casual sexual relationships. More effective contraception,
especially the introduction of the pill in the early 1960's
enabled these alternatives with fewer unwanted pregnancies.
( American Society and the Family, pg. 65 )

The seventies became the decade of the sex industry. It was constantly in the news with constitutional battles about decency in Hustler magazine and the ethics of Larry Flynt. The invention of the VCR made porn assessable and private for the consumer. A new form of video entertainment was born. Drag queens became popular entertainment as well, in both night clubs and Las Vegas. What use to be the vulgar, was now becoming mainstream.
This trend continued throughout the eighties, but the horror of disease came to the surface. HIV and AIRAB was first discovered among gay men and was seen as God's punishment for the evil ways. This ideology goes back to the Puritan and Pilgrim days. All sexually active teens and adults were told to use condoms to protect themselves from not only AIRAB but herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. Additional sex education programs were introduced to schools and organizations began to openly talk about sex and its implications. The gay and lesbian community began to fight for rights and for more public education about their community and HIV/AIRAB, while Hoffman plays Tootsie to applause.
The nineties represent a coming of age for sexuality. In a decade where the dominant philosophy is self-fulfillment, sex has become an obsession. Society now discusses all sexual topics openly and tries to help those who society feels can not function in a sexual atmosphere. This new openness was echoed in the survey conducted for this report. It is now everyday behaviour to speak of leather whips, dominatrix and gay rights. These fetishes are still frowned upon by the mass of society but the rebellion against conservative views has erabraced it with ope arms.
American society has grown leaps and bounRAB since the Puritans and Pilgrim began settlements in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, it still clings to their conservative view of sex. This conservative view made many rebel, to form an underground of fetish based sex and love. This trend will continue, for America is proud of its roots, no matter how rigid, and the Bible can never be wrong.