Dear Monk,
I think it is SO cool that a real live monk reads my blog! I love being your guilty pleasure. So tell me, what does God REALLY think about sex? Is there anything on my blog that is clearly a religious no-no? Also, do you have to be abstinent? Can you ever marry? If so, what if your wife got off on being called a dirty little slut in the bedroom - could you pull that off? What kind of monk are you, anyway? Are you a virgin?
Love, The Slut aka TBK
Dear Slut,
The orders that I follow are from the Celtic Christian Community of Northumbria. Technically, though, I’m not part of the community’s infrastructure, which is because the community is in Scotland. They belong to a movement called “New Monasticism”. We live our lives in a cycle of fueling periods and burning periods.
During a fueling period, we try to isolate ourselves as much as possible from “the world” to saturate ourselves in Christ. Then, in a burning period, we get as pro-active in our world as possible. We also strive to be vulnerable and available, first to God, then to other humans.
A big part of it is an extra level of commitment to spiritual disciplines. We go to a certain extreme in the hopes of inspiring our fellow believers around us to go a little farther. It’s being a 10 so that all of the 4s will become 7s. There are also levels of spiritual authority attached to it, which means more responsibilities than other believers.
I am allowed to marry. I am not actually under a vow of abstinence as part of my monk-hood. By abstinence, I mean waiting until you’re married to have sex. That abstinence is a basic part of a relationship with Christ. Since we believe He designed sex to be only for a man and wife, out of love for Him, we respect that design. A vow of chastity, on the other hand, is never having sex or getting married, ever.
Birth control’s a thing of beauty! There’s this story the Old Testament about a guy refusing to cum in his wife and God kills him for it, which leads some to believe birth control is evil. However, if you read carefully, there are these customs involving land ownership that show the guy is actually being greedy and trying to shank his brother out of land.
I really don’t think I could call my future wife a slut. Obviously, “whore” and “slut” carry non-abstinent connotations, hence the negative association. Abstinence as a virtue is based on the idea that when the physical bodies join, so do the souls. We believe that when you have sex with someone, the eternal part of yourself is stitched together with your partner’s. This was put in place, by God, as a model for our relationship with him.
Christians call themselves the “Bride of Christ” (even the men). Prayer, meditation and worship are supposed to be like having sex with God and certain virtues (known as “the fruits of the spirit”) are the pregnancy from that union. Since God demands that we only worship (have spirit-sex with) him, we believe that we’re only supposed to have sex with our spouse.
Kinky sex isn’t discouraged by this doctrine. Causing physical and emotional damage are out (though a little bruising is okay), but apart from that, no holds are barred once that ring is in place. Also, God considers sex itself the thing that marries you to another, the ceremony is just for the relatives.
All of this spiritual significance of sex I’m talking about comes from the Bible. There isn’t one section that outlines all of it, but a section here says this and one over there says that, put them together and voila! But it’s all in the Bible. (”Song of Solomon” is really hot if you can unravel the metaphors.)
As for your blog… obviously, a proper three-way is out given the exclusive nature God demands of sex. While technically, your thing wasn’t really three-way sex, it crossed a line that a Christian shouldn’t cross. Also, anything involving humiliation is teetering on that border of acceptability. Emotional and physical damage as aphrodisiac are right out. But, for the most part, anything between a married husband and wife that they’re both cool with is all good.
Yes, I am a virgin. The “furthest” I’ve gone was massaging a girlfriend’s breasts through her shirt, in high school. 32C, too bad she was crazy.