Does religion cause sexual repression?
Hare Krishna question from Stephen does religion cause sexual repression does it make people give drives that are actually natural to them answer what religion asks for is not sexual repression but sexual regulation and regulation is necessary even for basic civilized human conduct, even if one does not believe in believe in God even materialists and atheists who may openly reject God and say that we should have sexual freedom, they also they will also admit that sexual freedom does not guarantee does not allow just indulging in any and every sexual impulse, for example almost everyone would shudder at the idea of sexual abuse of children and same way most civilized people would would strongly oppose the idea of forcible sex even upon people who are not people who are not children, people who are elder also, so rape so for example child abuse, child sexual abuse and rape are strongly disapproved even by people who are people who are in favor of sexual freedom so the point is now this also is some form of regulation of course it's the most basic form of regulation but the point is that if we say that because religion asks us to regulate the sexual urge then religion is not alone because of that it is repressive then religion is not alone in asking us for regulating sexual urge even basic civilized conduct, even materialists and atheists they will also expect some basic level of regulation of sex so now the question comes up what level of regulation constitutes repression, so today is standard especially with the spread of materialism and atheism is just consent so the idea that people should have sex only after they are married, only within marriage this many people some people consider to be repressive, so premarital and extramarital sex are often glamorized in today's media and they are considered as forms of sexual freedom so is not allowing that or is disapproving that form of sexual repression we have to look at things objectively not just the word freedom when say we talk about freedom or sexual expression these are words which are meant to emotionally attract people and thereby make them make them immediately receptive to certain ideas, if we look at society the way human society is constituted and not just human society, let's look at broad nature, the way nature is constituted almost always the act of copulation is connected with the act of reproduction, so yes most species may not unite with the specific intention of reproduction but nor do they unite with the specific intention of avoiding reproduction by some artificial means, so that is a result that nature has intrinsically tied together with so body union and bodily reproduction go together, so now in human society if we see we humans alone try to stop this by artificial means and often that leads to abortion which is very sinful, which involves just murder of the unborn child no matter how it is addressed and marketed and further we see that throughout the history of the world societies where marriages have been trivialized have collapsed, the roman empire at one time was ruling a large part of the world and historians almost universally admit that one of the reasons why the roman empire collapsed was the increasing incidences of sexual promiscuity and overall immorality in society so the family is the basic unit of society and sexual fidelity chastity within marriage for both the spouses that is what is vital for the marriage bond to be strong so when that is abandoned in the name of sexual freedom or not having sexual repression then the end result is the family bond becomes weakened and then if we compare so I talk about two distinct reasons one is that when there is premarital, extramarital sex then unnaturally we have to people have to separate copulation and reproduction and further we talk about stability of society and stability of family that is there when there is proper sexual faithfulness and when people have some relationship before marriage then the spouse is always wondering if this person was not faithful was not self-regulated enough in the past what is the guarantee that after marriage the person will be self-regulated and that creates a doubt and if there are extramarital relationship then further the relationship becomes weakened and then beyond that somebody may say that oh but there is no need for this regulation at all even marriage is not required and the question comes up here we have to look at the difference between human life and spiritual human life and animal life humans not only have a potential for spirituality which differentiates them from animals we have a longing for happiness which just sexuality cannot satisfy because sexuality can offer us at least at best a few moments of pleasure and all the more when the relationship when there is unregulated when there is no regulation in the relationship then sex becomes just basically a bodily act for gaining bodily release and pleasure and that lasts at best for a few moments when there is when and that can never satisfy our longing for happiness no matter how much the bodily act is glamorized it is actually very trivial in terms of the amount of time it can offer any pleasure as compared with the amount of craving and the torture of the torment of the unfulfilled craving is there so the medium may glamorize with images of unending erotic pleasure but that is simply a myth simply a phantasmagoria the body's capacity is inescapably limited so when there is no regulation then all that happens is that there is the the the perpetual dissatisfaction that comes because there is no the craving is not satisfied the craving is not satisfied and the end result that so called we have sexual repression on one side and then we say that we have sexual liberation but if you look at society today sexual liberation simply led to sexual perversion by sexual perversion mean that if you just compare historically as this and the incidents of violence against women violent assaults, rapes and incidents of child abuse and overall sexual violence that is there that is far far more than what it has been there in the past and extent to which it is increasing is also alarming to say the very least so in the name of sexual liberation we are ending up with sexual perversion the extent now I am not using perversion again in a religious moralistic sense I am talking about even from the humanistic sense where people say that if any sex is consensual that is not perverse but even from that perspective there is so much forced sex that is happening as the rapes are becoming so many so widespread and further there is also child abuse that is happening so sexual perversion even from humanistic standards what to speak of religious standards that is the end result why? because the desires the cravings are not satisfied and the desires are not satisfied one becomes more and more maddened by those desires and people end up doing things which are unconscionable which are horrendous and that is how it is like a slippery slope there is sexual regulation which is talked about by religion once one says no need for this level of regulation we are opening the floodgates for immorality and then the flood comes out the immoral desires start pushing the person down down down and that ends so once the floodgates are opened what is called as sexual liberation ends up at the bottom of a dirty spool of sexual perversion so now the further point here is that when we talk about sexual regulation when man and woman are married and when they live together at that time there is not just a physical bond but also emotional bond a relationship is formed and that relationship is something which is lasting and that takes the focus over a period of time of just the physical aspect and there is a this forming of a broad relationship can happen only when there is commitment from both sides and the whole idea of sexual liberation removes the idea removes the whole concept of commitment and on this website the article made for each other Harvard Harvard University sociological study was done among young people who were living sexually liberated lives and basically despite the show of living like movie stars having all kind of enjoyment when they were interviewed closely basically they all admitted that they felt extremely lonely and guilty lonely because they had no relationship they had no deep relationship with anyone they knew in their heart of hearts that they were basically using other people and this was for both boys and girls males and females both they were using other people for their own pleasure and they were similarly being used by that and the guilty feeling that they were having was not just because of some hangover of some religious indoctrination from the past they just felt guilty at a human level because they were using others and many of these children had not come from religious background so there was no question of religious indoctrination so even from a human point of view the idea of sexual sexual liberation and calling sexual regulation sexual repression what is the result of that that is at a psychological level there is loneliness there is guilt there is no meaningful relationship that are there in people so further if we see as contrast now what is natural nature is not always the same everywhere somebody might argue that animals don't have marriages that may be true but then humans also have some differences animals don't cook and eat their food humans cook and eat their food and we see that as compared to other species where the children grow up relatively quickly humans are the only humans are related to the exception where the young ones are extremely dependent on the children and they are dependent on their parents and they are dependent for a significantly longer time than most other species and this dependence is not just physical but it is also moral moral mean that animals basically live by their instincts and they basically learn by their instincts how to eat how to sleep how to mate how to survive how to defend themselves while humans do all these things an important duty of parents is also to imbue of human parents is to imbue within their children a sense of morality that this is right and this is wrong we are also driven by our instincts but we are not driven only by our instincts we have a conscience and this is our conscience that actually differentiates us from animals and this conscience enables us to think of not just higher spiritual truths but of higher even material principles and to live in a way that we can develop our potential children may like to play but parents have to tell the children ok your instinct may be to play but regulate it use your intelligence and study then you will have a bright career so same way that just as there have to be choices made between lower and higher things at a material level similarly there are choices between lower material things and higher spiritual things so this all involves morality so it is the parents who have to give education and morality to children and again this is something which differentiates humans from animals so now this sort of education of this sort of taking care of the children is best possible when there is a committed relationship and both parents are there if there is only one one parent a single mother or in some cases a single father then the responsibility of shaping the children becomes becomes crushing it's not possible to let get the children to go properly without both the parents being there it's quite difficult so the point again is if we look at it from a broad sociological perspective then also in most societies where the children do not come up in grow in healthy families both the parents are there then it is a sad fact that the children often grow up to be grow up to be juvenile delinquents they often get into bad habits drugs and premature sexual environment and depression and loneliness and then eventually even suicide lurges so there are many sociological surveys the book God the evidence by Patrick Glenn gives evidences especially compiled from various sources the strongest correlator of a healthy of a youth depression or youth suicide is whether a person has come from a stable family in childhood or not whether children have been loved or not so again all this will not be possible if they if the parents are instead of committed to each other than committed to the child the parents are constantly hunting for new partners for sexual escapades then there will be no taking care and nurturing and growing of the next generation and the future of humanity will be very bleak so this so called sexual liberation will actually lead to human degradation again not in a degradation in a religious sense alone but even humans who will take care of the future races so there is sexual regulation that is there so at one level it is marriage and that's what primarily the religions of the world talk about they recommend that sexuality be regulated to the marriage relationship and that is not repression that is actually channelization it enables the human energy to be constructively channelized in various ways firstly it maintains social order by not going around in violent destructive perverse directions secondly it maintains social order further by ensuring that the next generation is taken care of properly then it helps people to develop a stable relationship with a life partner a relationship which is not just physical but also expands to an all round relationship and most importantly considering that we are at our core spiritual beings the regulation of the sexual drive enables the human energy to be shifted from sex to higher spiritual pursuits and it helps people to eventually learn to love God and find far greater and richer happiness in that than what can ever be provided by any form of sexual liberation.
Thank you Hare Krishna.