I was raised going to church and Sunday School, and while my parents luckily didn’t reinforce it at home, I was exposed to the intolerance of sexual acts that is rife in most organized religion. While my Sunday School teachers didn’t get into the nitty gritty of “sex is bad,” or teach me anything about it at all, it was implied strongly that sex should only happen between a husband and a wife (or God and his chosen vessel). Maybe I was a born heathen, but that never sounded right to me.
Sexuality is literally at our core as human beings, and the need for release, and the mental and physical benefits of it, are unavoidable, no matter what form of celibacy you’ve sworn yourself to. The denial of those sexual urges – and I mean outward denial, because we’ve all heard of the preacher who “tends” to his flock – can be driving force behind a lot of humanity’s deviant behaviour. Rather than sex being seen as a natural act performed in one way or another by literally every species on this planet, organized religions teach that it is at the foundation of evil, an act designed by God but exploited by Satan. Hail Satan!
So it shouldn’t be that surprising, although it’s funny as hell, that Christian author Mack Major, following another religious tradition of men telling women what to do and not do with their bodies, published a book called Diva, Goddess, Queen: Breaking The Power Of Soul Ties, Lust And Sexual Demons, where he claims that dildos open a portal to Hell allowing Sex Demons to enter your body. Not sure how the sales of his book have gone, but I know there are enough insane people in this world and country to make him at least a little money on it. In fact, he’s written several books that all take aim at sex and lust, but seemingly focus on female sexuality in particular. He ironically uses the word “goddess” in his title (note the lack of capitalization) for a book that focuses on robbing women of their sexual power, something that the goddesses of polytheism are notorious for celebrating. In another of his books, Hedonism: Destroying Demonic Sexual Strongholds, he states that:
There are such things as sex demons. And the danger in masturbating is that one could inadvertently summon a sex demon to attach itself to you through the act of masturbating. And once that demon attaches, it is difficult to get it to leave. It will drive you to masturbate, even when you don’t want to. You’ll be hit with urges to play with yourself so powerful that only an orgasm will allow you some temporary relief.
Fuck, is that why it feels so good, and why I want orgasms? Sex demons are awesome! Unless you are an extremely repressed, angry, judgemental and brainwashed human being who wants to make people feel terrible about themselves. Then they suck.
What has always boggled my mind about the Christian (and Islamic, Judaic, etc. etc.) attitude toward sex is that while the leaders of these religions are happy to teach us about how bad and evil sex is, and how Satan has his finger on the trigger while you’re masturbating – or even thinking about masturbating – they leave out the fact that part of the anti-pagan campaign their religion waged centuries earlier was focused on literally demonizing any pagan practices that they felt couldn’t easily assimilate into their form of population control. Sex rituals were a popular target, as they were widely practiced in most ancient societies. In fact, as a species we’ve been enjoying sex for much longer than we have been denying our urges.
From the earliest known human histories, there is ample evidence that sex and masturbation were linked to abundance in nature, and positive outcomes in any number of situations human beings have stressed about for millennia – having children, growing a good crop, cultivating a healthy herd etc. Masturbation was also linked to both fertility and a good time, as is evidenced in the 30,000 year old dildos found in Europe and elsewhere. The Sumerians believed that masturbation enhanced potency, and their sex rituals were the first to be recorded in story form. In Sumerian society, the New Year festival included the act of “sacred marriage,” where the high priestess, representing the goddess Inanna, would have sex with the king or high priest, representing Dumuzi, the goddess’ earthly consort. The ritual served to ensure that the new year would bring growth and abundance to the Sumerian people and to the earth itself.1 Similar sex rituals have been practiced by so-called “pagan” societies for millennia, and the popularity of sex as a magical and ritual act in these societies is in direct correlation with organized religions denouncing of such acts as anti-monotheistic. This was because most of the creation stories of early polytheistic societies included actual sex between a goddess and god in order to birth the universe, world and humanity. One god doesn’t need to procreate with anyone else; but in that case, doesn’t it stand to reason that he might have masturbated Adam and Eve into existence?
High Priestesses were most often the initiators of the sex ritual. In fact, there is some evidence to link modern-day prostitution to ancient sex ritual practices. In the ancient societies of Mesopotamia and Chaldea, prostitution was a sacred act rather than a sordid one. It was practiced by the priestesses in the temples, where a man hoping to increase his and his wife’s fertility or the fertility of his crops and herds would bring an offering to the temple in exchange for sex with a priestess. The act was considered a magical one, bringing to fruition the needs of the supplicant through his literal connection to the initial creation act through the holy body of the priestess. Thanks largely to organized religion and its misogynistic roots, this act became a disgusting thing, one relegated to the shadows of society, and the woman’s body took on a demonic role rather than a blessed one.2 This led to sex workers being considered the lowest of the low in society, people to be used and abused rather than venerated as giving a gift of sexual magic and power.
The Romans were notorious for their enjoyment of sex, and of course they were the ones who initially pissed the Christians off and fuelled the rise of Christianity. Obviously, they are famous for their ambivalence to and enjoyment of homosexual sex between men (another thing organized religion took and ran with), but what’s not always discussed is their appreciation for female arousal and orgasm. The Romans are credited with inventing the double dildo, and along with the Greeks believed that women who weren’t getting any while their husbands were off at war were prone to hysteria, and therefore needed to masturbate to keep themselves sane.3 According to Hippocrates, the liquor vitae that flowed from an aroused woman was considered to contain her “seed” and was therefore vital to reproduction, and it also made sex feel better, as was noted by ancient Greek physician Galen.4 In the early “Christian Era,” tantra became an important Hindu practice in India, where over 85 temples were built in central and eastern India in celebration of the divine sexual energy. Female ejaculate, or suklam, was also considered to be hugely important to the ritual, and was vital to the attainment of enlightenment in tantric rituals. In fact, it was so magical that practitioners were encouraged to drink it in order to embody its various properties. In a practice known as amaroli, practitioners were taught to drink the suklam right from the source at the height of the ritual.5 Similarly, female ejaculate was revered by the Taoists in ancient China, considering it essential for sex. The Taoists used a river metaphor when describing a woman’s arousal during sex, describing the stages of arousal as the Three Waters, with the sage advice of “never launch the boat on a rocky river!”6 I think you can guess what that means.
In modern day Wiccan and pagan practices, The Great Ritual is, like the early polytheistic practices, the act of sex (either figurative or literal) between two consenting adults. As with the Sumerians, the adults are usually of equal rank/power in the coven rather than it being an initiation rite. The sex represents the joining of masculine and feminine energy, accepting that these two energies are equally essential for divinity and enlightenment and that both are embodies in our human nature on an individual level.7 Sex Magic is another concept that brings a higher purpose to sex without robbing it of pleasure, and is less heterosexual in its ritual use. In sex magic, a person is encouraged to think of sex as a rite of purpose, where this intent or purpose can be achieved through the act of sex and orgasm.8 This makes sense, in the way that anyone who’s ever had sex can agree it is a powerful moment of energy exchange and release, so if you have a singular visualization in mind, this sexual energy can be used as a way to channel it into being. It brings a whole new perspective to The Secret.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that in 2016, sex demons can be considered a real thing. Or that dildos are a big, black portal to Hell that demons travel through like semen. But considering the millennia of appreciation us humans have had for sex both as a procreative and pleasurable force, and the current research that shows masturbation’s health benefits, it still captivates me that there are people like Mack Major, and millions of them, who think that Satan is guiding their hands down to their genitalia in order to ruin their lives. Maybe they all just need a little more jizz in their diets.
SOURCES:
1 http://www.ishtartemple.org/myth.htm
2 http://www.paganspath.com/magik/greatrite.htm
3 https://www.kinkly.com/2/762/passion-play/sex-toys/a-long-strange-trip-through-dildo-history
4 Female Ejaculation and the G-spot, Deborah Sundahl, 2003
5 ibid.
6 ibid.
7 http://www.paganspath.com/magik/greatrite.htm
8 http://www.llewellyn.com/journal/article/2262
