Religious experience and eroticism.

[Horny_rabbi]

I am loving this discussion. As a rabbi, I find the connection between the sacred and the erotic to be of enormous interest - intellectually, spiritually and sexually. I grapple with the tension between the strictures of my faith and my sexual needs. But also see, as others have suggested, the synergies and the way that religions celebrate and uplift fertility and sexual communion.

If any woman would like to share thoughts and insights, I’d love to talk and explore these questions more.

 

[lustychimera]

there's euphoric feelings that can be evoked by fasting

Wonder how much of that euphoria is ketosis?

Prayer is really just a form of meditation. You let your mind go blank and just focus on the song or picturing God's love or speaking in tongues, and your do that for hours on end. It does feel good. Evangelicals have this thing where they talk about getting "đrunk" on the holy ghost, which is like the afterglow of an hours long meditation session.

When I was a kid, I was raised in, what I now realize, was akin to a cult. Super isolated from anything secular. Only had church friends, church schools, 3-5 hour worship services several times a week. I bought my very first CD in 6th grade: Oops I Did It Again. My parents tossed that and my next was a Steven Curtis Chapman.

And there is something intensely gratifying about that isolation, about the constant affirmations that I was enlightened, that the people around me were all the same, and it truly did make me feel whole and content.

Though, none of that ever felt sexual to me. It was very very much purity culture with absolutely no undertones.

In a way, though, the forbidden nature of sex did make it more erotic. Even things like kissing a first girlfriend felt naughty, which did heighten the experience, and made even little things like that feel much more erotic.

 

[StillStunned]

If any woman would like to share thoughts and insights, I’d love to talk and explore these questions more.

Any particular reason you're only interested in women's thoughts?

 

[lustychimera]

Any particular reason you're only interested in women's thoughts?

The hint is in bro's name.

 

[nice90sguy]

I am loving this discussion. As a rabbi, I find the connection between the sacred and the erotic to be of enormous interest - intellectually, spiritually and sexually. I grapple with the tension between the strictures of my faith and my sexual needs. But also see, as others have suggested, the synergies and the way that religions celebrate and uplift fertility and sexual communion.

If any woman would like to share thoughts and insights, I’d love to talk and explore these questions more.

My Jewish wife would oblige, but it's the Sabbath today

 

[Horny_rabbi]

It’s even more sacred and erotic on the Sabbath.

 

[nice90sguy]

It’s even more sacred and erotic on the Sabbath.

what, using a computer to log on to porn site like you just did? You are so busted with g-d

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

I am loving this discussion. As a rabbi, I find the connection between the sacred and the erotic to be of enormous interest - intellectually, spiritually and sexually. I grapple with the tension between the strictures of my faith and my sexual needs. But also see, as others have suggested, the synergies and the way that religions celebrate and uplift fertility and sexual communion.

If any woman would like to share thoughts and insights, I’d love to talk and explore these questions more.

About three years ago, I published a story called Seed of the Serpent (not here on Literotica, it's an ebook for sale) which retells the story of Adam and Eve. I don't remember how I stumbled across it, but I got the idea from a Jewish text (I think it's called "Midrashic") that I found online which suggests that Cain was fathered by a fallen angel while Abel was fathered by Adam.

I haven't been able to track down the text again, but it really piqued my fascination about the Genesis story and the potentially sexual nature of Adam's and Eve's sin: eating the forbidden fruit and knowing good and evil (in the "biblical sense", perhaps?), and also the fact that serpents are phallic symbols.

 

[lc69hunter]

From Athalia's "The Path of Pain" about a woman who tortures herself to ecstasy in a quasi-religious ritual:

"She was not a believer in any gods but the gods of her private pain, but her strict Catholic upbringing, with its memories of priests swinging the censers as they proceeded down the aisles of the church, suggested that these new gods of hers might appreciate the gesture as well. Her childhood church had been filled with images of tortured people -- Jesus being flogged by Pilate's soldiers, Saint Sebastian with blood streaming from a hundred arrow wounds, and the large cross over the altar, showing a life-size Jesus with blood flowing from his hands and feet and side in loving detail. The nuns had taught her that in the Middle Ages, pious people whipped themselves to ecstasy in the firm belief that God approved of pain, particularly when it was self-administered. At the time, she thought that was strange. Not now.

"In college, she took a course in medieval art and came across a picture of a woman being martyred. The woman's face was transfigured into a mask of ecstatic agony as her breasts, seized by red-hot tongs and stretched out from her chest, were being sliced away by a swordsman. It was when she saw that image that she recalled the lessons of her childhood and felt the stirrings of wetness between her legs and a tightening of her brassiere, as if her own breasts were swelling in response to the prospect of pain. She closed the book quickly and thrust it away, but the image stayed with her, and for days she could think of nothing else. That was ten years ago. But it was that picture that would shortly guide her down the path of pain. Now nothing remained of that Catholic schoolgirl but the incense, the love of ritual, and the sanctifying pain."

The whole story is here: https://www.literotica.com/s/the-path-of-pain

As I mentioned to you before, that story blew me away, and is saved as a favorite, and, in keeping with the topic, I believe in the strong connection, as I grew up as a preacher's kid, and saw my Dad, just like in the Grapes of Wrath, whip the congregation into that frenzy, and he took more than few women, until he was caught and defrocked

 

[SteelPenetration]

I just wrote one all about The Kama Sutra, Chakras, Kundalini, Shakti, and some other tantric concepts from Hinduism, combining them in my own way with French post-existentialism. I was an atheist for 30 years before I figured it out. Alas, the world is an intentional place, and sex can help reveal to us its intentions and true nature. I will post a link once the story gets past the mods.

 

[AG31]

I don't know what, exactly, the relevance of this is to the OP, but I definitely feel like there is. In a good way.

The "this" is this: In my mainline protestant Christian denomination (i.e., NOT right wing fundamentalism), the several congregations that I'm familiar with all have staff and promenant members who are part of one or another sexually marginalized community. In one congregation the only straight person on the staff is the organist. Anecdotal information suggests that this is not unique to the area of the country where I live.

As I said, I'm not able to articulate the relevance of the phenomenon to the OP, but I'm sure it's there. Can anyone else articulate what's going on?

 

[AG31]

I just wrote one all about The Kama Sutra, Chakras, Kundalini, Shakti, and some other tantric concepts from Hinduism, combining them in my own way with French post-existentialism. I was an atheist for 30 years before I figured it out. Alas, the world is an intentional place, and sex can help reveal to us its intentions and true nature. I will post a link once the story gets past the mods.

Is it The Beacon of Love, just recently published?

 

[SteelPenetration]

Is it The Beacon of Love, just recently published?

Yeah, but it's seven parts and only five are out so far. 6 and 7 are where it's the most spiritual. Probably just another day or two; I submitted them all at once and they publish one a day.

 

[SteelPenetration]

I don't know what, exactly, the relevance of this is to the OP, but I definitely feel like there is. In a good way.

The "this" is this: In my mainline protestant Christian denomination (i.e., NOT right wing fundamentalism), the several congregations that I'm familiar with all have staff and promenant members who are part of one or another sexually marginalized community. In one congregation the only straight person on the staff is the organist. Anecdotal information suggests that this is not unique to the area of the country where I live.

As I said, I'm not able to articulate the relevance of the phenomenon to the OP, but I'm sure it's there. Can anyone else articulate what's going on?

I was at a christening last month and noticed the Presbyterian minister was clearly gay. The Methodists for their part are going through a gnarly schism over the subject (but the queers are winning). Traditionally it was the Unitarians who were the most progressive and queer-friendly, but as the mainline protestants' numbers have plummeted the most steeply of any group, many of the straight conservatives have jumped ship for evangelism, leaving behind a disproportionate number of queer progressives among Lutherans, Episcopals, etc.

Catholics, of course, have been roughly half-gay since the 11th century when the Pope banned priests from marrying so they would leave their inheritances to the church instead of their families. No mystery how that came about.

There may also be economic factors too. Like the arts, religion doesn't typically pay well enough to support a family, hence the appeal to non-breeders.

Perhaps genuine spirituality requires one to be open-minded, rather than repressed, so modern seekers inevitably find their way to sexual liberation as part of the journey. On which note, my series about (non-Christian) spiritual liberation through sexuality is now fully published! Check it out:

https://www.literotica.com/series/se/493970211

 

[Llehlla]

I use the word “spirituality“ rather than religion when discussing this topic because my beliefs combine some aspects of various religions, philosophy, mysticism, my observations of the natural world, and the insights and intuitions which arise and live within me.

I have no proof for my beliefs because they are beyond provable at this time; perhaps they will always exist beyond the metrics we use to define what is “real.” Also, I don’t present this with the hope that anyone will believe me or say I’m right or offer validation. I’m not trying to convert anyone; I’m merely explaining my understanding of the matter at this time.

For me, “Divine” (by this word I mean the great everything and the great nothing) Love is expressed throughout the universe, beyond time and space. It is a never-ending process of one meeting one through that natural laws of “attraction” (on all levels from the mutual attraction of protons and electrons, to the symbiotic relationships which allow this planet and everything on it to live, to the desire for one animal or one human to merge with another, to the longing of the individual to physically join with another.

“Divine love“ vibrates inside and outside of everything. Again, you don’t have to take this to mean God and you don’t have to believe it. You don’t have to believe. what I’m saying. And what I’m saying is nowhere near what I mean. I’m using words because that’s one of the few expressions we have to work with. Words, images, and sound are the most powerful and precise tools we are given to attempt to give form to the formless. In fact, words, even more than images and sound ( art and music) cloud our efforts at expression because words like Divine and Love are so loaded, so encrusted with the history of human interpretations, so manipulated to justify actions ranging from the horrific to the truly selfless that they are almost meaningless.

In all of this human love plays its part in the endless cycle of One desiring union with the Other. One human following the most primal survival instinct which is to live on. To live on as an individual united with another individual, sometimes to live on by multiplying, but always to find wholeness in fleeting union with another. The essential Other.

I see my own desire to unite with another, my own erotic impulses as entirely compatible within the framework of the spiritual context I have described. It’s one way of letting the natural process of two becoming one (albeit temporarily) flow naturally on. It is Divine Love if I am simply chasing an orgasm with another because that is all there is! Everything is Divine Love. (Yes, everything but I won’t go into that..) . And it is the same if I am looking to dissolve all distance between myself and someone who I love to the core of their being.

The union of two, the point of duality, is to simultaneously experienced one self as an individual and one self as all selves or no selves… all become one, not by thought or learning or because of an adopted belief but because joining and separating, joining and separating, joining and separating is experienced as the eternal engine of life. It’s the in breath and the out breath. It’s the day and the night it’s the you and me apart and together apart and together…experienced as union, both macro and micro, heartbreaking and ecstatic… the conscious experience and acceptance of all so-called opposites which makes us Whole.

P.S. I dictated this entire blurb right off the cuff. It is not a properly organized or complete piece of writing. Most importantly to me, it is my wish to simply contribute to the conversation. I am not interested in debating or defending what I have written. Please forgive me if I don’t reply promptly or at all to even a positive response… my energy is very undependable. I’m sorry to say.
I think this is a fascinating topic.

 

[Comshaw]

I've had a long-standing interest in the connection between religious experience and erotic experience. My attitude toward both is positive, so I'm not interested in reports of abuse in fundamentalist homes or ministers taking advantage of parishioners or the ramifications of worshipping a god who wants to inflict pain. I've not tried to create a thread about this because most people aren't religious any more, and a lot are hostile. (That's OK, I'm not upset by on line hostility). Recently, though, I thought I'd post a thread just listing all my different thoughts about the subject, randomly, and ask if any of them rang a bell for anyone. And then @Kumquatqueen said this, "there's euphoric feelings that can be evoked by fasting (and, I'm told, the joy of religious communication and feeling blessed/saved), or by subspace or intense physical sensation". It was the kind of articulation I've been looking for for years. I'm putting "euphoric" into my list of "Aha words."

This has inspired me to go ahead with my "religion and eroticism post."

1 - I assume that Bernini and the painters of the many images of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian knew what they were doing when they sculpted The Ecstasy of St. Theresa and the St. Sebastian paintings. What I'm wondering is if Saints Theresa and Sebastian knew that they were experiencing something akin to sexual arousal. (Or just plain sexual arousal?) Here is how St. Theresa describes it.


What do you think? There are a fair number of academic writings on line about this topic, but I don't have the will to plow through them. Perhaps someone here has?

2 - Whether or not these religious figures made a conscious connection with sex, does anyone here have a theory as to why the human body can react in such similar ways to such different stimuli?

3 - My thoughts on this topic have centered almost completely on the M side of S&M. (I avoid the term BDSM because of its connotations of life style/relationships.) But now and again I read something that makes me think that religious people, engaging in vanilla sex, may experience the presence of God. Does that ring a bell for anyone?

4 - Some Christian traditions have the concept of Christocentric and Theocentric attitudes on the part of believers. (I don't know about being centered on the Holy Spirit... never heard of it, anyway.) I've always been Theocentric, but just recently, at age 80, I realized that this was, in part, because Christ (Jesus) is all about incarnation. Becoming a physical body. God made man. And Jesus' maleness got in the way of my religious impulses and so I just skipped him and went straight to God. It reminds me of how I was sort of embarrassed on behalf of a friend of mine who gushed about how affecting Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was. I felt she was revealing more about herself than she knew. Does this make sense to anyone here?

As soon as I post this, I'll no doubt think of other things. But there you go. I need to leap, now that I've been nudged.

Hi, @gunhilltrain, here's the post I told you I was going to write.

From here:
This is your brain on God: Spiritual experiences activate brain reward circuits

Religious and spiritual experiences activate the brain reward circuits in much the same way as love, sex, gambling, drugs and music, report researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine. The findings will be published Nov. 29 in the journal Social Neuroscience.

Comshaw

 

[Llehlla]

From here:
This is your brain on God: Spiritual experiences activate brain reward circuits





Comshaw

I don’t think we even know what we don’t know as far as uncovering the mysteries of the brain, the ocean, the universe, the micro verse, etc.
Anything and everything is possible!

 

[Comshaw]

I don’t think we even know what we don’t know as far as uncovering the mysteries of the brain, the ocean, the universe, the micro verse, etc.
Anything and everything is possible!

We don't for sure know what is about the brain. But we will. That's one of the reasons humans got to where we are, curiosity, the impetus to ask "Why"? And to worry at it until we know why.


Comshaw

 

[AG31]

The philosopher Georges Bataille sees a connection between religious experience and sexual experience.

I finally got hold of Eroticism: Death and Sensuality, by Bataille. I do wish I had the intellectual energy I had in college!! I'm sure the answers to all my vague questions on this subject are addressed there, if only I could dig in instead of skim. Thanks, Madeline!!

 

[madelinemasoch]

I finally got hold of Eroticism: Death and Sensuality, by Bataille. I do wish I had the intellectual energy I had in college!! I'm sure the answers to all my vague questions on this subject are addressed there, if only I could dig in instead of skim. Thanks, Madeline!!

You're welcome. I myself find it quite an inspiring text.

 

[Elle4u2use2]

https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=65f6aa5cc5f51

 

[coffeelover5]

https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=65f6aa5cc5f51

A friend of your's or better yet, you?

 

[Elle4u2use2]

A friend of your's or better yet, you?

No

 

[Norway_1705]

I was raised Catholic. In my parish, they taught that it was important to arrive a virgin at marriage.
I realize it may sound strange, but amidst all the kinky perversions on this site, this won't be the most absurd, will it?
Will it?
However. From that, originated an erotic tension both toward girlfriends who “for the time being still you and I don't screw,” and toward other people's stories (who, instead, fucked like rabbits!).
The other pillar of Catholicism was monogamy. I don't know if it is as important in other religions. Maybe not.
Some books suggest that monogamous husbands (and virgin grooms!) exaggerate the importance of their wives' pussy, submitting to any chores, errands or strenuous jobs.
Perhaps in part the erotic literature on the subject of “forced male chastity” stems at least in part from the attitude of those wives who pretend to be tired and unsatisfied all the time? Perhaps the padlocked penis cage is a metaphor for a monogamous husband to whom his wife refuses sex together, with specious excuses? Leading to thousand of Dead Bedroom marriages (so many readers visit the site, while the legitimate wifey is sleeping...)

 

[Elle4u2use2]

I confess---I had sex after bible study