{"id":191,"date":"2009-03-12T16:49:32","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T16:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/03\/good-sex-great-sex-and-pagans.html"},"modified":"2009-03-12T16:49:32","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T16:49:32","slug":"good-sex-great-sex-and-pagans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/03\/good-sex-great-sex-and-pagans.html","title":{"rendered":"Good Sex, Great Sex, Sacred Sex, and Pagans"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fracas is brewing <\/a> in Good Hope, Alabama over the issue of God and sex.  Seems some Christians are upset with the effort by other Christians to publicly discuss God and Great sex.   I’m glad I am a bystander on that blow-up. <\/p>\n

But it brings to mind the interesting contrast between Christianity’s seemingly eternal struggle with sexual issues contrasted to Paganism’s utter lack of struggle.  This is so despite the truly amazing variety of ways sexuality manifests in our community and our practice.  <\/p>\n


\n
Some covens consist of men and women, some of women only, some of men only.  I know Pagans who are deeply monogamous and others who have practiced polyamory for decades.  Often they are long time friends with one another.  But to my mind, within our community no one spends any time worrying whether someone else’s may of relating sexually constitutes a problem, so long as they are consensually involved with adults.<\/p>\n

I think our lack of concern about one-anothers’ sexual behavior, both in a spiritual context and in our personal lives, is deeply revealing of a basic truth about modern Paganism.  <\/p>\n

A central element of many Wiccan traditions, including my own, is that the Sacred manifests in and through sexuality.  In British Traditional Wicca and other forms as well,  sexual duality is central to our rituals.  We honor, invoke, and sometimes incorporate and draw down Goddess and God, Lord and Lady.  Our rituals usually have a symbolic sexual element: “As the athame is to the male, so the cup is to the female, and so, conjoined, they bring blessedness.”  Or some variant thereof.<\/p>\n

Another central element is that our world is not fallen.  We screw up, but the basic fabric of existence is good, it is even Sacred.  <\/p>\n

From a Wiccan perspective, sexuality is a manifestation of fertility, beauty, pleasure, and love, potentially in all its forms.  It IS the primary manifestation of the Sacred within a world of duality  and multiplicity, for the Wheel of the Year<\/a> symbolizes the wheel of physical existence, from birth to death, and then to birth again, and is possible only through sexuality.<\/p>\n

So when I read of dust-ups such as currently convulses this Alabama community, I thank the Gods the Sacred led me to my Wiccan path instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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