How to (not) have sex in the 600s | Hacker News Reader

How to (not) have sex in the 600s

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90 pointstosh53 comments

While there are some extras by this bishop, the common taboos around marriage and sex (no extramarital sex, no homosexuality, no incest, no bestiality, no public nudity, no polygamy, etc.) appear to be created -- consciously or otherwise -- to promote reproduction in nuclear families.

No bastards, divorces, single parents, abandoned children, parentless adults, etc.

Those taboos are the "right" ones, assuming those goals are in fact the preeminent objectives of human society.

Or, more likely: Archbishop Theodore was asexual (before we had labels for such things) so it was effortless for him to label the bulk of the heterosexual experience as sinful. He thought it was all super gross; just like how he felt about beastiality and homosexual acts.

How does not cultivating a healthy sexual relationship with your spouse lead to a nuclear family?

As I mentioned, Archbishop Theodore himself takes a historically extreme version of sexual taboos. And a celibate clergy may have something to do with that.

My points were around the more standard taboos in the list.

> How does not cultivating a healthy sexual relationship with your spouse lead to a nuclear family?

Without defining what is or isn't "healthy," Judais/Christianity explicitly does at least broadly support intramarital children/sex.

"Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." (Hebrews 13:4)

"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.'" (Genesis 1:28)

"He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh" (Matthew 19:4)

And, of course, the entire book Song of Solomon:)

If what we currently see related to people who enjoy this kind of moralizing is any indication, it seems more likely that he had some sexual skeleton in the closet than that he was asexual. Like all these anti-gay preachers some time ago that kept getting caught with escort boys and the like.

I thought it's more common to see the opposite effect: the people who are most drawn to the "sins" they see as harmful (either to the soul or society) are the ones most hardcore about stamping those things out. They are the most aware of the siren's call.

At least, that's my understanding about why you see vocal anti-gay politicians/pastors being revealed as closeted. In particular, there was some "Focus on the Family" type that went on and on about how "well obviously gay sex is much more pleasurable and that's why we have to be vigilant", but I can't find the reference at the moment.

It seems more like he's absolutely terrified of God. Properly God fearing. And of the mindset that pleasure is sin, but torn because sex is necessary for procreation but also potentially quite pleasurable (sinful).

These are people who are living in an era where good people died young all the time. God seems capricious and cruel. You do NOT want to get on his bad side. So they get wrapped around the axle trying to figure out how to best please God and make up tons of silly rules based on entirely circumstantial evidence and the relatively vague and sometimes contradictory rules passed down for generations in the Bible and other texts. They are undoubtedly suffering from large amounts of confirmation bias as well.

There are a lot of clergy people/politicians today who are not asexual that label the bulk of heterosexual experience as sinful. Plenty of anecdotes of scandals from people holding high positions in government or religious organizations that are found doing the exact 'sinful' thing they seemed to be on a mission to destroy.

Also, ban on oral and anal sex makes sense, taking into account level of medicine at the time.

Please explain how a ban on oral sex in a monogamous marriage makes any sense given the medecine available at whenever time in human history.

I have personally experienced sad consequences of oral sex with not-completely-gone cold (or some similar infection) a few times - and my doctor confirmed, that, indeed, these infections are happy to jump from one habitat to another.

However, you're leaving out what I think is perhaps the central thesis of these rules: sex is inherently sinful, and it should be done with as little enjoyment as possible, and by striving to accomplish reproduction in as joyless a way as possible you are following the example of divinity.

Perhaps you consider that one of the "extras" by this bishop, but I see it as central, for all of the other rules are basically along the lines of "even though this feels really good, it is the way of the devil".

So yes, while many of the rules do promote reproduction in nuclear families, I think more importantly by turning one of the most basic human desires, sex, into an inherently shameful act, where your only method of salvation is through the Church, that it is a fairly brilliant attempt at furthering the levers of control of the Church.

To be fair, "even though this feels really good, it is [bad]" is frequently correct. Similar in correctness to "if it tastes really good, it is bad for your health"

Even from a scientific point of view, the ability to refrain from sloth, gluttony, and lust helped give rise to homo sapien's dominance above his fellow animals.

But that misses the point. Sex in a monogamous, loving marriage certainly is good for your health. But the bishop wasn't saying "Sex in the context of a monogamous, loving marriage is wonderful and leads to one of God's highest commandments, procreation." He was saying "sex is gross, a sin, so get it over with as quickly as possible even with your spouse."

So I think implying that the Church was only interested in maintaining the nuclear family misses the mark.

> the bishop wasn't saying

I didn't read the original source material or notice a link, so I don't know what Theodore didn't say, just the 140 character excerpts.

> implying that the Church was only interested

I intended no such implication. "conscious or otherwise"

While it's certainly interesting to read about an early medieval perspective, it's important to keep in mind that this is only the perspective from a single Archbishop. I'm sure many people at the time disagreed with him.

This is a byproduct of the decadence of Western... I mean Roman empire

Maybe, but it kind of became (or already was?) the official position of the catholic church for many centuries. And many of his rules (mariage, bestiality, etc.) were supported by the bible.

A theologist once wrote that the concepts of deadly sins and heaven/hell are one of the most ingenious things anybody has ever invented [+], at least if you are a ruler. With these concepts the church was able to control people even until their last moment (their death). No matter how terrible life as a simple farmer was in the middle ages, who would dare to risk their sweet and pain-free eternal life in heaven by opposing the king and the pope?

I am wondering whether the interest of the church in controlling the bedrooms of their sheep was motivated by the same idea: Not allowing any kind of escape, even temporarily, from hell on earth.

[+] Yes, I know the concepts are older than the catholic church and even christianity but you have to admit that the catholic church had really an unhealthy obsession for the afterlife.

> Not allowing any kind of escape, even temporarily, from hell on earth.

It may read like harmful advice now, but I can imagine that "don't fuck too much" might have been meant well back then (as I believe it is usually meant well today). Certainly lust has caused much suffering in the world, on scales large and small, and this looks like a rather ham-fisted attempt to blunt the worst of effects of lust.

What I find fascinating is that the people would even permit the Church to comment on such intimate matters and in such agonizing detail. Of all the myriad human issues dealt with in the Bible, sexual misconduct isn't particularly important (the one counter example is Jesus mentioning divorce in his sermon on the mount).

This intersection between religion and sexuality is interesting and someone should look into it.

Restricting sex to strict monogamy would definitely limit the spread of STDs and prevent some socially disruptive things like a divorce with children, parents rejecting illegitimate children, etc. Of course in real life none of that ever actually worked, and things like condoms and economic equality might work better. Or not. We haven't exactly solved these issues yet.

But yeah, if people actually cared about what Jesus said about anything, poverty would have been solved a long time ago.

I think what you said about condoms highlights a key historical difference. Throughout most of humanity's moral development, there was no such thing as protection, against STDs or pregnancy, other than the rhythm method or induced abortion. Definitely, there was wisdom in limiting the number of partners and orifices in much of that time.

Edit: which is to say, technology can affect morality and there's a good reason for these attitudes to change now.

Also, what you said about Jesus and poverty is spot-on. I really wish more Christians would embrace the truly good and radical parts of Christianity instead of fixating on arcane moral rules.

>Of all the myriad human issues dealt with in the Bible, sexual misconduct isn't particularly important

I'd say the opposite is true. Jesus didn't have a lot to say because he's speaking to an audience that's very Old Testament in its sexual ethic. Once Christianity spreads to the broader Roman/Greek world, Peter and Paul and others have a lot to say about it.

> to an audience that's very Old Testament in its sexual ethic.

Meaning very positive about it? The Old Testament hold sex between a married couple to be a positive and holy thing, to be encouraged.

> Once Christianity spreads to the broader Roman/Greek world

So you're saying Christianity's discouragement of sex (which is not from the bible) actually came from the Roman/Greek world?

> So you're saying Christianity's discouragement of sex (which is not from the bible) actually came from the Roman/Greek world?

No, not at all.

The original link was about a hermeneutic developed in the 7th century. The post I replied to was speaking about what's in the Bible itself. My reply concerns the latter.

I read it again a couple times, and your reply is super confusing, I don't understand what you are saying.

> about what's in the Bible itself. My reply concerns the latter.

Which is what?

In particular what do you mean by "very Old Testament in its sexual ethic"?

The Old Testament is positive towards sex, but Christianity is not.

Ha, when I went to break this down I saw why my reply is confusing. Thanks for pushing back.

Original claim: "Of all the myriad human issues dealt with in the Bible, sexual misconduct isn't particularly important"

That claim is followed by a parenthetical that hints at an argument I hear often: "<<issue>> isn't all that important because Jesus didn't talk about it". The poster is heavily implying[0] that apart from some talk about divorce, Jesus didn't talk about sexuality all that much, therefore sexual misconduct isn't particularly important. Then from there, you usually hear something along the lines of "Paul ruined Christianity" or "The Old Testament God is way different than the New Testament God".

My response was to disagree with all that and say that the Bible treats sexual conduct and misconduct as very important, and to state that Jesus's relative quietness on these issues is a tacit endorsement of most of the Old Testament sexual ethic.

> The Old Testament is positive towards sex, but Christianity is not.

Depends on who you're learning from, I guess, as well as how you'd define sex positivity. Christian theologians have struggled with Song of Solomon for centuries, but most of the people I listen to have no problem saying that it's actually about a romantic relationship instead of exclusively some allegory about Christ and the church.

This original link is pretty weird to me, very much out of step with how Christians understand marital sex today.

[0]: To be clear, I could be reading this implication wrong. But I don't think I am.

You don't need Song of Songs, Exodus 21:10 tells you that the Bible is positive toward sex in marriage.

I don't understand how the twitter thread can claim a requirement to minimize sex in light of that.

(And thanks for clarifying.)

In this connection I am reminded of the famous 1 Corinthians 7:9 and if they have not continence -- let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn;. Scanning back to the beginning of 1 Corinthians 7 for context, and reading the commentaries at [1] it seems that St. Paul recommended celibacy but recognized that sex was a major distraction, as did many other authorities of the time. As a bonus we see here that Paul says that in this matter the spouses each yield to each other (1 C 7:4) [2] and that Paul is not speaking from the law from his own opinion [3].

I can understand why people would say that the New Testament says, "Don't do it" but it only took a little effort on my part to see nuances.

And in the commentaries I've linked to, I think I see some support for GP's comment.

[1] https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/7-9.htm

[2] https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/7-4.htm

[3] https://biblehub.com/niv/1_corinthians/7-6.htm

Christianity's discouragement of sex is a puritan invention. All the ebjdence you need is the reputation of lovers from majority catholic countries.

> It may read like harmful advice now, but I can imagine that "don't fuck too much" might have been meant well back then

It may not be "politically correct" as we've got a culture obsessed with promiscuity and decadence (it seems), but it's definitely not harmful advice.

I can't think of a downside to reducing sexual partners to a minimum. On the other hand, there's a lot of research that promiscuity/increased number of sexual partners are causing a lot of problems. I'll share a few.

It awfully feels like we are rediscovering some things that many, if not all civilizations knew before us.

A book that touches upon this topic is "The Fate of Empires". There's a section about causality between decadence and societal collapse, and the author is of the opinion (based on his research) that civilizations go through very similar steps.

Once a society gets to be "wealthy" enough, sexual perversion and promiscuity is on the rise, fertility drops, shortly followed by general decadence and apathy. Inevitable, it leads to a collapse (or being occupied by a culture that still keeps doing what the (now) decadent society used to do).

In a way, it's an organism. That's how I like to think about it.

Some societies collapse over a span of period, so it's not instantaneous. Therefore, probably, it's difficult to tell that it is happening. The average was found to be around 250 years.

[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1741-3737....

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752789/

[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fate-Empires-Search-Survival/dp/B00...

> And many of his rules ... were supported by the bible.

Only some of them are. For example unlike these rules Judaism requires the husband and wife to be naked together.

The husband is required to provide his wife with pleasure, as often as he can. Sex even when not for a child is seen as a positive thing.

There are a ton more differences, Christianity is unique among religions in its relationship with sex.

The ban on pleasure is not universal within Christianity, though. There's not a lot of biblical basis for a ban on pleasure, and maybe some people should take a good look at Song of Songs.

It was not 'the official position of the church' to not enjoy sex. While some of what the good archbishop is saying is certainly church dogma, some of it is his opinion. Thomas Aquinas, only a few hundred years later, claimed it was sinful for men to have sex without getting their wife to orgasm which is probably a better situation than we have today. Men of course are also obligated to orgasm by church teaching

I'd be very curious to see a timeline of the social acceptability of various sexual practices: homosexuality, out-of-wedlock sex, bestiality, multiple partners at once...

About homosexuality for example, my naive vision is that it was "not OK" until very recently. Which is very certainly completely wrong.

It also depends a lot on the part of the world obviously

> About homosexuality for example, my naive vision is that it was "not OK" until very recently

Well... it was not "OK" until recently for some time. But was "OK" for some time before that. Atleast in some places... well.. atleast ancient greeks and romans didn't seem to care about that.

After a little more than a 1000 years we've almost reverted to the sexual freedom of the Roman Empire. Sex work and decorating your living room with well endowed gods of fertility is still frowned upon in most of the world.

In fact, in some countries gore is more acceptable than female breasts.

The sexual freedom of the Romans of the Roman Empire did not exist in the Romans that BUILT that Roman empire. They were, although the same blood, different peoples. Just as the founders of our nations and we today are different peoples. The same pretty much with every Empire that has come and gone including the Greeks.

> The sexual freedom of the Romans of the Roman Empire did not exist in the Romans that BUILT that Roman empire. They were, although the same blood, different peoples.

Not exactly the same blood; the Empire included a lot of territory outside Italy. Imperial Rome itself received a lot of population from foreign territories (it was an important place!), especially the East where most of the population was.

The rural Italians near Rome were more or less the same during the Empire as they were during the building process.

> In fact, in some countries gore is more acceptable than female breasts.

That's not because one is more acceptable than the other, but because sex is seen as a private thing and war as a public thing.

So you can show gore in your living room (public matters), but not breasts (save those for your private rooms).

Provided you consider breasts to be a strictly sexual thing.

Provided you consider that quarrels & wars could not be a strictly private matter.

Provided you consider that sex could not be a very public thing.

Comes down to choices, and culture.

It's interesting, the relationship Romans especially had to homosexuality. There was much more differentiation on which 'end' of the sexual act you were (giving/receiving) than most people attacking homosexuality today put emphasis on

(https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ce7a63/would...)

This changes throughout history, with modern homophobia being also a very modern phenomenon.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dw27v9/what_...

Egalitarian homosexuality is a very modern notion, which was first explicitly formulated around the late 19th century. What the Greeks and Romans practiced was dominance-based same-sex behavior which very often shaded into outright sexual coercion of the "receiving" partner. (To be fair, this describes much of their 'heterosexual' behavior as well!) Many philosophically-minded people in the classical world were quite harshly critical of these arrangements, and this attitude in turn was picked up by "universalizing", loosely-egalitarian religions such as Pauline Christianity.

>atleast ancient greeks and romans didn't seem to care about that.

Eh you should do your own research- but I seem to remember reading about how being a top for gay sex was fine, but being a bottom was very much not. So I certainly wouldn't say everyone didn't care about it. It was just accepted in a completely different (and non-reciprocal) way.

If I had to extrapolate from that logic.. to put it bluntly "a hole is a hole" so no big deal for the top, but being on the receiving end probably had the same type of feminine stereotypes we can imagine people still have issues with.

Most of these are pretty understandable if you consider it sinful to do things solely for the purpose of pleasure. They're an extreme interpretation of a pretty common idea.

After some personal experience, I ended up feeling quite a bit like most of the morality demonstrated in this thread. I'm extremely curious if anyone knows about explanations of Christian views on sexuality (by that I mean paragraphs retracings roots of their doctrine, rather than conclusion and judgement).

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