t is widely held by  many that religion is sexually repressive. Although many who make this claim target Christianity, as with the site UndoJesus.org, I see no reason to think that insofar as the criticism applies it applies only to Christianity.  There is no shortage of sexual prohibitions in Islam.  Certainly, Islam is just as critical of homosexuality, for example, as is Christianity.  And I have read with horror the views (written in 1992) of Rabbi Na'hman De Breslev's regarding sex in Remèdes à la Passion Universelle.

But now what exactly do folks like those at UndoJesus.org mean in claiming that religion is sexually repressive?  Everyone quickly points to the truth that the sexual desire is naturally occurring among healthy individual, as if that truth pretty much undercuts any all criticism of sexual behavior. Of course, nothing of the sort is true. 

Along with the sexual desire, nothing is more natural among healthy individuals than the bodily elimination of waste material.  Yet, no one thinks for a moment that this should be done anywhere and wherever it pleases a person to do so.  It would be horrendous for all sorts of reasons, not the least of them being sanitary ones, if people routinely defecated on the streets or in public buildings. 

Although I agree that some religious views have held sex to be something dirty, it is obvious that there is nothing unsanitary about sex.  Just so, it would be horrendous if people gave in to their sexual desires whenever it pleased them to do so. 

Without supposing for a moment that there is anything dirty about the sexual desire, one can still maintained that the sexual desire is one that very much needs to be properly held in check.  Indeed, it needs to be held in check precisely because it is so very potent and often expresses itself with great force long before it can be appreciated. 

Those who think that religion by its very nature is sexually repressive cannot really mean that the world be better off if 13 year adolescents with raging sexual hormones simply gave into their sexual urges; for that would be a recipe for sheer disaster. 

This shows straightaway that it is mistake to argue that if something occurs naturally among healthy individuals, then it is wrong to have in place practices that are intended to minimize, if not eliminate entirely, its expression in certain contexts.  Was there ever a time when it was just wonderful for 13 year old to give in to their every sexual desire?  One has difficulty imagining that such could have been the case.  Yet, it is clear that the biological capacity for human sexual desire to express itself with such force at the beginning of adolescence was not selected against, since this capacity remains in place. 

No one has ever told a good story that explains how homo sapiens survived, given that their hormones were raging at the beginning of adolescence.  Just so, one thing is abundantly clear nowadays, namely that a culture that catered to such a capacity would ill serve its young.  Such a culture would enormously harm its young by letting them become so sexually active to such an extent.

It is worth noting that in order to get an enormous problem here, we do not need to introduce the additional problem of adults abusing adolescent children sexually.  It suffices for the argument that adolescents would do damage to themselves because they are simply not psychologically ready for either the emotions or the responsibilities that came in the wake of sex. 

The problems here are not circumvented by the existence of birth control or the availability of abortion.  For one thing, the use of birth control requires foresight.  And the absence of foresight is easily one of the defining characteristics of adolescence.  I see very little foresight among my college students.  So there is no reason on the face of this earth to expect it from a beginning adolescent. 

As for abortion, it is in fact an operation, which we should certainly not want an adolescent girl to have to undergo.  Or so it is if we care about her. 

So we have seen one very decisive reason for arguing that the sexual desire should be held in check although it is unquestionably natural.  Here is another reason from a very different direction.

Returning from Paris last year, there was a couple across the aisle from me that was making out.  I mean the only thing that was in the way was their clothes.  Fortunately, there was not a child in the vicinity, but there been one I would have been livid.  I would have been livid not because sex is dirty in any way, but because this perfectly acceptable adult behavior is not one to which children should be exposed.  To do so is, in the words of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, to sexualize children.  Accordingly, we have yet another reason to hold sexual desire in check—a reason that has nothing whatsoever to do with thinking that sex is in any way dirty. 

From the acquisition of language to the use of their bodies, children are in the throes of rapid self-mastery.  Much of what they learn comes from the things that they see and hear the adults around them do.  Sexual desire has not yet obtained a purchase upon the life of a 5-year old.  Accordingly, sexual behavior should not at all be a part of her or his learning repertoire.  If adults had “harmless” sex in the streets or public building or wherever they felt like doing so, whenever they felt like doing so, the proper development of children would be exceedingly marred. 

Not only would there be 5-year olds simulating sexual behavior with one another, they would most certainly do so with adults as well; and this, of course, raises the issue of pedophilia. 

I began this essay with the observation that many people take religion to be sexually repressive.  To hear them tell it, nothing would be better for society and its members than if people were allowed to give expression to their naturally occurring desires.  However, I gave two quite powerful examples that show this line of reasoning to be manifestly false.

The mistake of religious critics in this regard is to suppose that holding in check a naturally occurring desire thereby constitutes a form of repression.  What the critics cannot seem to wrap their minds around is that doing so can also constitute a form of self-mastery.  If indeed religion has gone too far in one direction, and there are respects in which this is true, the critics have not proven themselves to be any wiser, since they have gone too far in the other direction.  Indeed, their proposal sounds the death knell for society.  This, by the way, actually makes their alternative worse than the one they are criticizing.