Sex Disrespectful to God?

Great Debates
1

In this thread, I got the general sentiment that there are alot of people in the SDMB who would consider sex to be disrespectful in a place of worship.

Before I continue, I want to give a little background on me. I consider myself Wiccan. My personal belief is that sex itself is sacred. I wouldn’t really see too much of a problem if two people decided to have sex in a sacred space, as the act itself celebrates life in general and deity in particular.

I also find the latest “Opie and Anthony” stunts distasteful, as they both were well aware of the stink this would cause among the faithful. In other words, they were being jerkish in order to garner ratings.

With this in mind, I would like to ask the SDMB religious community the following questions:

What faith do you follow?

Would you consider sex in a place of worship disrespectful?

Is having sex in a place of worship disrespectful more towards God or more towards the people worshipping?

Would you consider the act of sex itself sacred?

If so, would it bother you if you found out that fellow members of the religious organization you belong to have in fact had sex in the place you worship(let’s assume in this case that it was in a bathroom)? Why?

If not, why would you consider sex as less than sacred?

Would you say that having sex in a place of worship desecrates it? Why?

I posted this in Great Debates because I want sincere responses. I’m not trying to stir up trouble or attempting to be flippant. I also would like responses from people of many different faiths, as I have always been curious about how other religions view sex.

I would also ask that this thread not degenerate into Christian bashing, or bashing of any religion for that matter.

2

I don’t think it’s disrespectful towards God. It IS disrespectful towards those that worship at this place, because this is NOT a place for people to be having sex.

And the fact that they’re doing it for “shock value” on the radio makes it doubly so.

3

Sex in and of itself certainly isn’t disrespectful of any god. After all, what do most people say as they reach the climax?

4

I agree. It was a pretty crummy thing to do.

5

I don’t think it’s disrespectful to God, but I think it’s highly distasteful and disrespectful to the regular users of the building, especially as it seems it was calculated to have exactly that effect.

Sex is not disrespectful of God (although someone will no doubt be along shortly to tell us how the garden of Eden story is all about sex)

6

Agnostic neo-shamanic neo-paganism with a healthy dollop of Coyote worship.

Context is everything; I think that having sex in a Catholic church, in a confessional, is disrespectful. I think that having sex in circle with all participants (in the circle and in the sex) being consensual is not disrespectful.

I guess my line is drawn on that consensual point.

The people worshipping; this is going to sound a little odd, but God(dess) strikes me as probably a consensual partner in most of what happens between two people. Those worshipping, however, may or may not have been given the option to consent to what’s happening.

abso-bally-lutely.

Again, context is everything. I, personally, don’t think I’d be bothered by this discovery (although I might be a little puzzled by the couple - or however many were involved - and react oddly just because I have a vivid imagination). But, there’s a difference between my finding out that it happened at a later date and/or time, and my walking in on the couple having sex in the bathroom, too.

It’s not a question of the sex being less than sacred; it’s a question of the lack of consideration for others in those having the sex.

Probably not. But I need to think about this one a little more, I think; largely because I rarely consider the desecration angle (everything is sacred and nothing is).

7

I’m Catholic. I would consider having sex in a church disrespectful both to God and to other worshippers.Not so much becasue I think sex is less than sacred, but becasue I don’t think it’s any more sacred than a variety of other activities which are not appropriately performed in a church. It would bother me about as much to find out that other members had had sex in the church as it would to find out they brought a bucket of KFC in and had a picnic- very upset if I saw it while a service was going on or people were praying. If I found out after the fact, I probably wouldn’t be too upset, but it would lead me to think that those members had no sense of appropriate behavior.Not sure about if I think it desecrates the church. If you mena in the sense of the church needing to be re-consecrated, I dont think so. If you mean in the sense that a cemetery is desecrated when vandals knock over tombstones, yes.

8

I’m Catholic. I would consider having sex in a church disrespectful both to God and to other worshippers.Not so much becasue I think sex is less than sacred, but becasue I don’t think it’s any more sacred than a variety of other activities which are not appropriately performed in a church. It would bother me about as much to find out that other members had had sex in the church as it would to find out they brought a bucket of KFC in and had a picnic- very upset if I saw it while a service was going on or people were praying. If I found out after the fact, I probably wouldn’t be too upset, but it would lead me to think that those members had no sense of appropriate behavior.Not sure about if I think it desecrates the church. If you mena in the sense of the church needing to be re-consecrated, I dont think so. If you mean in the sense that a cemetery is desecrated when vandals knock over tombstones, yes.

9

Sex is sacred to me, and my home is the sacred place where it is appropriate to engage in it. A public house of worship is sacred to different things, such as community worship services, communion, sacred music, meditiation, mutual uplifting, etc. A church is not the place to engage in private sexual activity, because it is a public place, and no one wants to be the unwilling witness to your fun. Like Guin, I think it is extremely disrespectful to other people to have sex in a church. I also think, however, that God would not think much of it. Bottom line–different sacred activities are appropriate to different sacred places.

I would not be thrilled to hear about someone having sex in my church building, and if it’s happened, I don’t want to know. In fact, I don’t want to know about anyone’s private life but mine. (Incidentally, in my church, the chapel is sort of more sacred, since it’s where actual worship takes place. The rest is just classrooms and gym, etc. So chapel sex would be much worse than bathroom sex–but I don’t wanna hear about sex anywhere in the building any more than I wanna hear about library sex. Bleargh.)

I’m LDS, since you ask.

And yes, I agree that these louts who did it for money and shock value for a radio show during a service makes it much worse. Sex engaged in for shock and money kind of loses the ‘sacred’ aspect, don’t you think?

10

Did you want my opinion on whether sex can lose it’s sacred value, or was that a rhetorical question?

11

Well, since God has no choice but to watch, I at least hopes He enjoys it.

12

As to the question of whether or not sex is disrespectful to God, I believe the answer is sometimes Yes and sometimes No. While it is true that God created us to be sexual beings, He also created the concept of “A time and place for everything”. So while sex between a married couple in the privacy of a bedroom is one place where it is not disrespectful, sex in a church in the presence of worshipers is one place where it IS disrespectful.

Perhaps it will help illustrate at least part of the concept to put it in a different context. Let’s talk about a couple who doesn’t have any religious belief at all and gets married before a judge. Would it be appropriate for the husband to throw his wife on top of a table in the courtroom and go at it as soon as the judge pronounced them married? Why not? Didn’t the judge just sanction this union? It should be apparent that whatever blessings the judge may have pronounced on the couple did not give them license to consummate their marriage in his courtroom and in his presence.

It is generally regarded, among at least the members of mainstream society, that there are such things as public behavior and private behavior. So to perform sexual acts in a public place are disrespectful to everyone present, be it God or other human beings. (The only modification of this would be a forum specifically designated for the purpose of public sex.)

As for those who would say that God is present everywhere, I would respond that I believe He recognizes that a bedroom is a proper place for such an activity. But a church, which is a venue sanctified for worship, is most definitely not an appropriate place. And to those who hold that sex is an act of worship, I would say that this particular form of “worship” belongs in a different “sanctuary”, i.e. a bedroom.

Finally, to answer the specific questions in the OP that are not covered in the above response:

  1. I’m a conservative Christian. (Some might group me with the fundamentalists, though I don’t categorize myself that way. 2. As for whether sex in a place of worship is disrespectful, it depends on what you call a place of worship; if you worship in your bedroom, then No; but in a church, synagogue, or mosque, Yes. 3. In a public house of worship it would be disrespectful both to God and the other worshipers. 4. While God gave us the sexual act to fulfill the relationship of a married couple and for procreation, He also indicated parameters within which it is to be enjoyed. 5. Yes, it would bother me a great deal to learn that people had been having sex in my church. No, it would not “shake my faith”; but I would consider it an extreme effrontery. I would hold this for any place on church grounds, by the way – bathroom, basement, social hall. The entire campus is “Holy Ground”, in my view. 6. These views are not because sex is bad, but because sex has its proper place. 7. Yes, sex desecrates a place of public worship because that place is “sanctified” to a different purpose.
13

Mostly rhetorical, but then I’m sure there’s someone out there who would disagree with me. Possibly you. I think sexuality can certainly lose its sacredness when abused–it happens all the time. Sex for the wrong reasons (power, abuse, money, to hurt others) or without love–yeah, I think it loses the sacred part. But I suppose that’s a hijack.

14

I agree that it would be a hijack of my own thread. It would be a very interesting discussion in another thread though! I would be hard pressed to reconcile the sacredness of sex when it can so obviously be used in less than sacred context.

15

Pseudo-Wiccan. (I sometimes say “Western Unorthodox”).

I think it would be disrespectful to sex to have sex in a church. :wink:

I think sex is sacred in its nature, and is supposed to be sacred, but it can be profaned, mainly by depriving it of the full range of its “oomph” and turning it into a commodity with no vulnerabilities and little communication.

If the participants are celebrating sex in the best natural sense with full sharing and meaning, and the context happens to be in a church (regardless of whose or what flavor), that could be a good thing, perhaps even a revolutionary good thing.

If it’s done just to shock people, then it demeans the sex and therefore profanes it.

16

I don’t neccessarily think sex is sacred, or at least that it has to be. But it’s still wrong to piss off people just for cheap digs at THEIR feelings of sacredness.

17

I’m Catholic, too. It is the position of the Church that sex is a gift from God. Because it’s a special gift, it is not to be taken lightly, or outside of a marriage consecrated by God. The Church doesn’t tell people what positions they must use, or where it is to be performed, however, it should be obvious to most people that in a sacred place (and there are special ceremonies to consecrate the grounds of a church) it would be inappropriate. It is disrespectful to both God and the people who worship there. I’m sure God will get over it, though. Do I think the church would need to be reconsecrated? No, but I’m no a canon lawyer.

StG

18

I agree with Stgermain. I am also a catholic, sometimes it is hard being one and also being 22. Thank god for confession :slight_smile:

19

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

20

Ah, Wiccans… so serene, so sincere! They honestly can’t understand why anyone would find sex in a church distasteful when sex is so beautiful and so natural!

Do the words “a time and a place”? mean anything to you? If not, well, let me ask you this?

Is music a beautiful thing? Yes, you say? Good! Well, then, tonight at 3 AM, when you’re trying to sleep, you should have NO problem with me coming over and blasting Judas Priest tapes on my car stereo. And you wouldn’t DREAM of telling me to turn it down, or call the police to complain, WOULD you? Because music is a beautiful thing, and how could music ever bother ANYONE?

Let me ask you another thing? Is urination distasteful? Why, noooo! As every good Wiccan knows, urination is a perfectly natural bodily function, and we should NEVER be shy or repressed about our natural body functions. And so, when a drunk unzips his fly and takes a leak on your front porch, you would NEVER condemn him for that, or make a fuss, or call the police, for you believe natural things should be CELEBRATED!

Is my sarcasm too subtle? I hope not.