Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Sexuality and God-Images - A healing sexual theology of Submission and dominance

This is a paper I wrote for a class on Christian Sexuality. I hope it proves edifying to you. Note that there are footnotes on citations 14, 15 and 18 which may help to clarify certain points.

Thank you for reading. I hope you too will see the urgency of the task before us, the need to provide everyone with a unique language necessary for living into healing narratives and relationships.


"In Embodiment, James Nelson argues that sexual and religious questions are not mutually exclusive from one another as many traditions maintain, but rather inform and color each other necessarily.1 Our sexuality conditions and affects our theology, and vice versa. This conditioning has a multitude of factors, not least of which is the power of the God-image on the sexually developing being. In what follows, I will explore the interplay between faith and sexuality, first providing personal and historical context, then arguing that God need not be related to in a way that is detrimental to the sexual unfolding and happiness of the individual. Drawing from my own context and Nelson, I will propose a sexual theology wherein the traditional power dynamic between humanity and the divine is inverted to reflect an authentic sexual communion surrounding submission and dominance. I will conclude that faith ought to be a matter of claiming a healing narrative and then living into a healing relationship, both with fellow sexual beings and with God. This will all begin with some personal and historical context on the subject.
Much ink has been spilled on establishing, defining and enforcing the normative God-images of western Christianity. Whether it is God as Father, God as Lord, God as Husband or God as Judge, the symbolic language by which we refer to the divine has concrete implications for how we live as embodied beings, particularly with regard to sexuality. Sometimes these implications are positive, sometimes negative. In my case, they were negative. Growing up, there was no sexual theology in place to make sense of my traumatic experiences.
The early family life of which I am cognizant was not very life-giving. My parents were unhappily married. They spent most of my childhood fighting, and while my mother was loving, she and my father both left me to my own devices. I discovered masturbation and sexuality almost entirely through pornography, as my father was too belligerent and abusive and my mother did not think it her place to explain male sexuality to her son. I was left in the dark. All I had to go on was my natural attraction to the opposite sex.
Partly due to fundamentalist Christian influence and partly because of my toxic relationship with my father, I saw God as an authority figure who said he loved me even when his behavior suggested that the condition for his love was total obedience. My father said he loved me, but I did not feel loved. God made me feel guilty and unworthy. Again, I was left to my own devices, and many days were spent alone before God, repenting but never experiencing absolution. God was Father and Judge, and neither God-image had a positive impact on me. The salt in the wound was that I was constantly told how vital relationship with God was, but I did not desire any such relationship with my Heavenly Father, let alone my earthly one. Needless to say, the God-image of Father did not facilitate my development, but rather nurtured my sense of hurt and resentment. My faith was stunted, and my sexuality developed according to what pornography taught me, leading to sexist dualisms that estranged me from my emotions. Neither my family nor my faith community contributed to my sexual or theological development. I had no context, and until college, I played along. God was Father, but I did not desire relationship with him, and sexual release only happened secretly on a computer screen late at night.
Looking back on the historical context of western Christianity, it is not surprising that my faith community and parents taught me nothing about sexuality. From the days of the overwhelmingly influential Saint Augustine to the present, Christianity has taken a more or less negative view of the human body and sexual relationships that take place outside of marriage (or for purposes other than procreation). This is largely attributable to Augustine. In his mind, sexual acts are sinful by nature and distort the loves and wills of humanity, transmitting the original sin of Adam and Eve like a biological contagion.2 He is adamant on this point because it fits his experience; Augustine's life was characterized by lustful trysts that caused more harm than good, feeding into his sense of listlessness and inner frustration. His sexual drive was high, and he was clearly disturbed by the loss of self-control and willpower that occurs when engaging in sexual acts. In such moments, the human being becomes insatiable, attempting to feed an infinite desire with a finite good. Only God, the infinite good, can meet this infinite desire, and trying to replace God with sex is sinful in Augustine's eyes. Given this association between sex and selfish, insatiable desires (referred to as 'concupiscence'), “every sex act is not only directly connected to original sin (for which each of us is responsible) but also binds us more firmly to it.”3 In Confessions, Augustine writes that his heart is restless until it rests in God, who alone can satisfy his deep longing and properly order his will, so that lust can no longer turn him from divine love, which was waiting for him all along.4
In Augustine's mind, it is not humanity who first reaches out to God, but God who first reaches out to humanity. Even in the midst of sin and concupiscence, God is present, never far away, always ready to break the chains. In terms of grace and salvation, God always acts first. This is solidified later when Augustine argues contra Pelagius that humanity cannot abstain from sin by willpower alone, but is always in need of divine help. In other words, the initiative is God's alone to take. Even so, humanity is still free to pursue finite goods in place of the infinite good:

“How long it was before I learned that you were my true joy! You were silent then, and I went on my way, father and farther from you, proud in my distress and restless in fatigue, sowing more and more seeds whose only crop was grief.”5

Augustine's sexual history did not bring him fulfillment and wholeness, but rather grief. In processing his experiences, he turned to abstinence, prescribing a sexual ethic where sex could only happen in marriage, and then only for procreation. Thus, contraception and sex for pleasure were condemned.6 It takes only a cursory glance to see that Augustine's sexual ethic, first written through the experiential lens of a traumatic sexual history, is commonplace in Christianity today. The west's most predominant Christian sexual ethic was written by a man who ultimately gave up on embodied sexual fulfillment. In this way, it is easy to see how one's sexual experiences can color one's theology, and how one's theology can change the world.
Just as sexuality can color the particulars of theology, it also gives rise to God-images. The God-image most constraining to me is Father, which has become one of the most common God-images. It had its origins with Jesus himself, automatically lending itself to popularity. In first century Judaism, God was understood as a party to the covenant between him and his chosen people, Israel. Before that, he was the creator, the maker of all. In terms of relationship, he was the husband, while Israel was the bride.7 This marital language in theology has endured. Augustine in the 4th century CE used such language when he described his years of lust, during which he “broke troth with [God].”8 Israelite transgression of the covenant was often interpreted in terms of breaking troth and marital infidelity.9 God was not commonly referred to as Father. However, possibly due to his own father's death and the subsequent loss of a stable father figure, Jesus had a moving experience where he came to know God as his heavenly Father, claiming dignity as a Son of God (after all, in all accounts of Jesus' ministry, Joseph is curiously absent).10 This metaphor gave life to Jesus, but for me, this paternal metaphor has become entangled in feelings of fear, hurt, resentment, and powerlessness. It has not contributed to my sexual unfolding.
What does contribute to my sexual unfolding is a God-image that not only makes sense of my experiences, but also gives me new understanding of who God is. In the course of discovering my own sexual characteristics, I learned that it is erotic for me to be in a dominant role. I appreciate and enjoy the submission of a partner because it indicates that they trust me and value my wishes. It is an affirmation of my self-worth, a reminder that I have control over my life and that I need not be a doormat to anyone. It also feeds into my nurturing side, the aspect of my self that has always wanted to be a responsible caretaker and provider. Being dominant and assuming the position of power in sexual acts speaks to what is good in me; it banishes my anxieties surrounding my sense of worthlessness engendered in me by my father, and it fills me with love for the person who first loved me enough to submit. It makes me a fuller person, and it was only when I became sexually active in this way that I achieved an orgasm meaningful to me. Being in control and indulging in the moment of desire, far from corrupting my humanity as Augustine feared, actually restored it.
This sexual development represents a deviation from the sexual ethic prescribed in most faith communities, which often closely resemble Augustine's. At the same time, it is also a departure from historical Christianity, which has always conceived of God in male terms and then as a figure of supreme authority, not as an intimate lover. The God-image that makes better sense to me of my sexual experiences and general context is God as female Lover. Like Augustine, I too wasted much time sowing seeds whose only crop was grief. But in the midst of all my loss and heartache, I have learned that God alone is the Lover who will never leave, the Supporter who will build me up, the Wife who will give my labor meaning, the Seductress whose charms will unfailingly hold my wandering gaze, and the Heart that will always desire me, even when I feel undesirable.
Moreover, God is the Lover who will give herself to me, not because I am more powerful or significant, but because she knows that her submission will make me happy. That is how much she loves me. Her submission and the transfer of power it signifies is an affirmation of my worth as the beloved, as a creature made in the image of God. This mode of relating to God gives me insight into the divine; for once, the tables are turned, and I can see God from an inverted point of view.
My proposal for a sexual theology is precisely this: humanity is afforded new perspective and is affirmed in its created goodness when it allows God to be submissive and itself to be dominant. Throughout history, God has always been the one to take the initiative, as Augustine argued. In nearly all of the philosophical and theological literature, God is all-powerful, dominant, all-knowing, utterly transcendent, and always in charge. God calls the shots, and humanity is the one who must surrender and find value in the act. I would argue that while this dynamic is not without merit, it also cuts off possibility and inhibits growth when it becomes the sole lens through which the relationship between God and humanity is viewed. Nelson writes that sexuality is “a highly symbolic dimension of human experience,” and that to think of it as such represents a “departure from from the heavily biological emphasis typical of traditional natural law theory in ethics.”11 By the same token, I would argue that to see sexuality as a highly symbolic dimension of human experience also represents a departure from the heavily philosophical emphasis on traditional metaphysical and hierarchical distinctions between God and humanity, such as creator and created, spirit and matter, Lord and subject. When the relationship between God and humanity becomes one sided in this way, it ceases to be a polarity where “two harmonious elements essentially belonging together are yet distinguishable and may exist in creative tension.”12 The implication of God always being in the position of power and dominance in the relationship is that humanity is always in the position of lack of power and submission, meaning that humanity will never fully understand the act of submission in context. Does giving mean as much when one does not know what it is to receive? God knows equally well what it is to dominate and what it is to submit, but in the historically adopted paradigm of divine domination, humanity has only ever known submission. In allowing God to submit, humanity is given the opportunity to know another aspect of God, to touch the divine heart, to experience union with the divine in a new and empowering way.
The first immediate objection is that if God submits and humanity dominates, God is made less and humanity is lifted up beyond safe boundaries. This need not be a concern. Nelson argues that authentic sexual communion precludes both dichotomy (wherein fundamental distinctions are not resolved) and absorption (where the two become one or both lovers are rendered precisely the same, in which case there is no polarity worth having). Rather:

In authentic sexual communion dichotomy is overcome while polarity remains. The body-self is united with the beloved partner. . .This communion retains its polarity. . .In a true sexual relationship with the beloved, I do not possess my partner. The same is true in the knowing relationship with God.”13

In short, if a sexual relationship of dominance and submission is entered into in good faith and loving intention on both sides, the polarity of creative tension and the uniqueness of both dom and sub remains untouched, regardless of whatever outward dynamic the sexual act might imply.14 The dom does not own the sub, and the sub's value or identity is not invalidated by the dom. Real sexual communion means giving lovingly and graciously accepting what is given, all in a dynamic of mutuality. However the power dynamic appears on the surface, if it is authentic sexual communion, the polarity remains. Even if God is conceived of in the role of sub, her power, identity and majesty is preserved. The ontological status quo between God and humanity remains, despite the outward appearance of power transfer. God does not become humanity and humanity does not become God; they merely become the beloved of one another in a different capacity.15
Another objection is that the rightful place of humanity is one of submission. This depends heavily on how one defines submission and whether or not the act of submission is toxic for the individual. There are those for whom submission is a return to a violent and traumatic childhood, for whom the language of submission holds little but trauma and sadness, just as there are those for whom the language of dominance denies the value of submission. Everyone has different experiences, and the language of submission will not be life-giving to everyone. For this reason, I argue that Christianity's historical emphasis on the value of human submission is highly contextual and should not be taken as universally valid across the board. There will always be those who find life in submission to God and to others, but there will also always be those for whom submission is death.
For those who seek to know and love God by way of the sexual theology I am proposing, there are arguments to be made against humanity always being in submission. When Augustine wrote that the initiative is God's alone to take, he implied that the human being was a “receptor only – a passive, waiting vessel who can only respond to the divine initiative. . .Thus, the image of a passive self totally pliable before God not only truncates the fullness of the body-self but also impoverishes the God to whom we would respond.”16 If humanity and God are lovers on a polarity, God is robbed of a lover when humanity does not contribute to the co-creative tension, floundering limply like a doll. There is little pleasure to be derived from a partner who lies lifeless and still, lacking dynamism of any kind, never giving feedback during the act. Whether dominant or submissive, God surely desires an active partner, not a passive receptor. If the initiative is always God's alone, then humanity is robbed of its right to be co-creative with God, and co-creativity is part of what it means to occupy a polarity of authentic sexual communion with the divine.
It goes without saying that all language applied to God is symbolic. Any sexual theology that conceives of God as Lover in the context of a specific sexual act is necessarily metaphorical and will not fully encapsulate the Mystery. Equally obvious is that the language of dominant and submissive relationship will not resonate with everyone's experiences, sexual or otherwise. But whatever form a sexual theology may take, it is important to recognize that sex, as a form of human language, is “an expression of the human search for meaning and belonging,” and that “sex for human beings is a language of love.”17 One of the first things a child in Sunday School learns is 'God loves you.' What that love means will change from person to person, from sexual history to sexual history, from heartache to heartache.18 Many people carry a lot of pain and alienation inside of them, as Augustine did for so many years. But where he dismissed the desire of sexuality as inherently sinful, I would argue that sexuality and sexual theology both ought to be about claiming healing narratives that speak to and validate our individual stories.
At its core, religion is about claiming healing narratives. Unfortunately, where there is no language in the community to give voice to their sexual or theological experiences, people will either bear the pain silently or look elsewhere. When the stories of the faith community do not resonate with and make room for the sexual self, that sexual self will be forced to find expression elsewhere, perhaps in a subculture established around a certain sexual act. Too often, an individual will discover themselves sexually only to find that their faith community is not only unwilling to celebrate that discovery, but condemns it! The simple fact is that not only are we unable to understand ourselves apart from our sexuality, but we also “do not have complete control over interpretations of our sexuality; some definitions and understandings are forced upon us. . .our sexuality is shaped by the time and space in which we live.”19 We cannot help being what we are, and we are fully justified in wanting to find communities where aspects of our sexual-selves can find freedom of expression. The tragedy lies in the fact that while many find acceptance in sexual subcultures, they do not always find that same acceptance in their faith communities or in their homes. This is true not only of certain sexual acts, but also of sexual theologies that go against the grain established by Augustine long ago. I know of no church where the sexual theology I proposed could be wholly accepted. Like many, I am forced to compartmentalize my self, to pick and choose between membership in seemingly mutually exclusive tribes.
There is an urgent need for theological language that can facilitate the synthesis between these tribes, so that people may experience both sexual and spiritual fulfillment, not one at the expense of the other. Whatever human beings are, we are social and sexual, and our sexuality is an expression of our search for value and meaning; when we find that value and meaning, we ought to be able to share it with others! Our sexuality informs our intimate relationships, both with people and with God. In the final analysis, these relationships should reflect authentic sexual communion and take forms that heal us, rather than hurt us. They should never inhibit our unfolding as social and sexual beings desiring intimacy and acceptance. The sexual theology of human domination and divine submission is merely one of many sexual theologies that need to be written. We need many more such theologies and God-images, so that all people may own a language by which to express their sexual experiences to both their divine and human beloved.











Works Cited:
Nelson, James B. Embodiment: An Approach to Sexuality and Christian Theology. First ed., Minneapolis, MN, Augsburg Publishing House, 1978, pp. 15-106.
Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. San Francisco, Harper One, 1989.
Beattie, Patricia, and Darryl W. Stephens, editors. Professional Sexual Ethics: A Holistic Ministry Approach. First ed., Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press, 2013, pp. 12-62.
Augustine, Saint. Confessions. Westminster, Penguin Books, 1961, pp. 34-44.
Hinson, E G. The Early Church. First ed., Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press, 1996, p 30.
1James B. Nelson, Embodiment, page 15
2Professional Sexual Ethics, page 62
3Nelson, page 53
4Saint Augustine, Confessions, page 21
5Augustine, pages 43-44
6Professional Sexual Ethics, page 62
7Holy Bible NRSV, Isaiah 54:5, Hosea 2:19, Jeremiah 31:32, Malachi 3:17
8Augustine, page 34
9Hosea 2:2-23, Jeremiah 3:20
10Glenn Hinson, The Early Church, page 30
11Nelson, page 28
12Nelson, page 37
13Nelson, pages 34-35
14Briefly, in relationships of power transfer and exchange, the dominant one who takes initiative and derives pleasure from dominance is referred to as a top or dom (there are fine distinctions between a top and a dom, but these lie outside the scope of this paper. We will simply use the term dom moving forward), and the submissive one who derives pleasure from submission is referred to as the sub.
15In such relationships, it is the sub who has the power; while the dom takes the initiative and dictates what sexual act will happen and when, the sub has the final word and retains the power to say “yes” or “no,” to which the dom must respectfully comply. The dom has only the appearance of power. God is not diminished in any way as the sub. In fact, her ultimate power is thus affirmed.
16Nelson, page 32
17Nelson, pages 105-106
18For many with experiences similar to mine, the statement 'God loves you' can be harmful if that love is perceived as coming from certain figures, i.e. paternal figures. My father said he loved me, but his actions implied otherwise. If God is paternal and I hear 'God loves you,' it rings hollow in my ears. If a faith community succeeds in making the statement 'God loves you' ring hollow for anyone, it has failed in its primary mission.

19Professional Sexual Ethics, pages 12-13"

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