
How to (not) have sex in the 600s - tosh
https://twitter.com/erik_kaars/status/1196756091289423875
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paulddraper
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.

~~~
spamizbad
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?

~~~
paulddraper
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)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
And, of course, the entire book Song of Solomon:)

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mcv
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.

~~~
tralarpa
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.

~~~
javajosh
> 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.

~~~
mcv
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.

~~~
manifestsilence
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.

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williamdclt
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

~~~
ajsnigrutin
> 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.

~~~
1_player
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.

~~~
DiffEq
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.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> 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.

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Smithalicious
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.

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agumonkey
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).

