Monday, July 23, 2012

Yada, Yada, Yada (Polyamory Part 2)

A really easy Hebrew word study. (As a sidebar, is that where "Yada, Yada, Yada REALLY comes from?)
In the continuing discussion of what amounts to "Can we have GROUP sex?" at "A Biblical Family (etc)." "Dr. Allen" continues to defend the positions, acts and situations a woman can involve herself in, provided she is married and married with another woman, to the same man. It's getting into the ditch quickly, and I confess to intentionally driving the discussion to that point. It belongs in the ditch. This discussion amounts to several subcategories.

Can we form a triangle? (A variation of the "69" sexual position question.)

I can't get it up but can I watch until I can? (You two girls go at it and I'll join in, my Viagra's not working yet.) This may be a variation of "you're two lesbians and I think that's hot," you want to go to church, and act like it's all normal so I'll marry you.

Will you do me while I do her?

Why don't we spread the Visqueen (plastic sheet), I'll get the Mazola oil, we'll turn out the light (or leave it on, much hotter) and see what happens.

Do all of the above to the Randy Newman song, "You Can Leave Your Hat on."

Many other variations follow, I think you get the point.

"Sola" at "A Biblical(?)" makes some excellent points, you should look.

I've made the argument, and Sola does too, that Scripture states women are for men, created for men, out of men, and essentially (and properly) seek to return to a man's Lordship and headship in a righteous Christian context.

Sex is for the "Husband/Wife" relationship and therefore to be between them.

Scripture (when it comes to human beings) only discusses WHO you should have sex with, not how you should go about it. Some contend it discusses sex acts, but I contend that this is only with regard to animals (a death penalty offense) and doesn't go into the bureaucratic micro managing regulation phone book writing descriptions of what you can and cannot do. Once you go there, you have gone there, and have to write up a description of everything you can and can't do. This got the Pharisees into the tithing of the mint, anise and cummin.

Christ said such micro inspection caused the Pharisees to omit "the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." Clearly this sort of micro inquiry is a last place waste of time compared with other matters, at best. The Pharisees (at their worst) tried to add to the law (a thing I have remarked is abhorrent to God) to clarify it. I am accused of trying to add to it in this discussion, but again, it really depends on whether or not God is saying which humans you can have sex with, or what kind of sex you can have.

Again, even if you mix the two you've still go the "what kind of sex" question, and you have the bureaucratic phone book of regulations and while Christ did say the question of tithing spices had weight, he said it didn't have much. He then went on to say "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel," for the Pharisees attention to that small matter. So, the Bible is written to direct you to the big picture, and leaves us to work out our salvation in that light.

This is what I contend is actually happening with the two rapidly separating factions in this debate. One group is trying to write a phone book, only pay attention to about 10 pages of it, and use it to ratify same sex relations between women in a marriage and the other is saying "do whatever, but only do it between a wife and a husband."

One view is much simpler than the other, fitting in with the ideas in Deuteronomy 30 and Psalm 119 that truth isn't that tough after all, it involves just knowing and staying in the word of God. "With whom may I have sex" is covered by "working out your salvation with fear and trembling" before God, and by the injunctions to refrain from things you personally think are sin, if you doubt. Namely, if you doubt a thing is righteous, then just don't do it.

One of the difficulties with the "what you can do" position is as the aforementioned "Sola" points out. It deteriorates into a discussion of what constitutes sex and what doesn't, and you're left with: "can your unmarried sons and daughters have oral sex" and other heavy petting questions. To go further, you have to ask if they can do so with each other, and whether or not it's a good idea for mothers and fathers to instruct (with participation) their sons and daughters in such activities. It's endless.

Why?

Well let's go back to Leviticus 18:22:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

Now Romans 1:27:

"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

Which refers to Romans 1:26, where the same Greek word for "natural" is used:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:"

Key here is that Paul in writing this letter is making sure you know he's comparing verse 27, that which is about men, to verse 26, that which is about women. He's saying the injunction is the same.

Keith ("Dr. Allen") and his supporters contend what is "unnatural" is only anal sex.

Leviticus 18 is a general injunction, not using the Hebrew word "yada`" (ידע) that is used to denote penetrating penile sexual relations between husband and wife. So it's broader in it's injunction in my view. The text supports that view.

But Keith (and now John Whitten) say Paul in Romans goes on to not make a broad injunction, instead choosing only to slap at anal sex with men in Romans as a way of telling you not to "butt hump" your wife, or men for that matter.

Paul, the star scholar of Judaism for that time, omits the broad injunction so as to let us know that you can go down on your wife, but you can't sodomize her, confining himself to the previously unknown distinction (or imprecisely defined in Hebrew) of anal sex.

We then descend into micromanaging descriptions of what constitutes sex or sensuality, whether or not women are married to one another (Keith says they are, through their husband) and that sensuality is confined to the marriage bed, and so women can be "sensual" with one another, and so on. Since sensuality and penetration are different, and penetration with a penis is the key element to prohibited sexual relations, women can do whatever with one another in a marriage since they have no penis.

We've separated sex from sensuality at this point, and no guide in scripture is present to tell us that we can't be sensual outside the husband wife relationship and Keith in fact simply says the covering of male authority permits sensuality between women. I don't really know where he can justify this "covering" thought in scripture. All the arguments are massively weak. One depends on taking a word almost universally applied to men (I haven't surveyed all uses of the word yet) and making it mean "wives" in Song of Songs 5.

This uncorks the bottle and lets the Genie out. It's Pandora's box. The permutations regarding sexual behavior are nearly infinite, as long as there's no penetration. Richard Pryor once made crude reference to this, contending in a comic routine to his supposed wife, that he wasn't having sex with the naked girl he was also in bed with naked, because certain parts weren't joined. So did Former President Clinton.

Or there's my definition and I would contend, God's: It's who you have sex with, scripture argues affirmatively to have sex with only your husband, if you are a female, and only a wife, if you are a male. Thus no phone book is required, or no lengthy dissertation such as Keith writes in ABF.

There are many other avenues of discussion, some of which I allude to in my previous post. This discussion could go on forever, but you've got a choice, the simple or the complex, and God's word, as I said many times before, declares it's not really a regulatory nightmare, it's simple. Simplicity is embodied in the concept of with whom you may have sensual or sexual activity. Complexity is describing what parts of the body may connect with one another.

Are you really buying the idea that in the heat of passion, you slip up and slip it to the wife via the rear entrance, and you're subject to the death penalty or are you going with "the marriage bed is undefiled?"

Marriage, even for the plural guy, is to each woman individually, and as for me and the rest of our church, we're going with the marriage bed being undefiled, in that one on one context. The rest of you are playing with fire, and if you're a church leader, or purport to be one, I'm going to say you should recant, or be an anathema, both you and your unholy teaching. Professing to be wise, you have become fools.


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4 comments:

April Day said...

This was the only article you have ever written that I have found offensive. I did not enjoy reading the graphic descriptions of sex. Christian men shouldn't talk or write like that. Please don't it again.

I'd like to read from the old Hugh, who has a clean mind and a good heart.

Hugh McBryde said...

April, though you are a good friend, I'm not writing the blog for you or for your specific benefit. The sad truth is that I have a choice, and I've hated writing about this stuff. My position is (based on what you just said) is that roughly, you agree with me.

You marry a guy and I shouldn't ask or talk about what you do in bed with that guy. The problem is a faction of the NON LDS "Christian" plural marriage group has gone for the idea that women on women sexual relations are just fine. Refuting that means going right down into the gutter to point out that the discussion is....in the gutter, and the LORD doesn't want us to be there.

I can't say "This is crap" unless I can use some word synonymous with "crap" and unless I can point to the thing that I am labeling as crap.

Please REALIZE that my position is simply that husbands and wives should have sex only with each other. Sex and and sex play are only for that relationship. Graphic discussions of such matters are omitted from scripture because it is private.

Unfortunately the faction on the "Polygyny can be Bisexual" side of the argument, has made it a choice of silently letting the flock be led over the cliff, or getting down in the much and dragging as many out of error as I can rescue. God permitting. I have opted for climbing down in the mud hole and seeing how many I can pull out.

Fairlight said...

I would like to say that I also made some good comments on that thread, as well. I do not believe that same sex intimacy is morally right, either. However, I must take exception to your comments regarding Pastor John Whitten. He does NOT approve of same sex intimacy.

Hugh McBryde said...

Leaving it up to individual conscience is approval. There are only two positions in this matter. Approval or Anathema.