When Adam & Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit, they realized their nakedness and covered themselves with fig leaves to hide their shame. At least that's what I learned in Catholic School. For a long time I didn't really understand why before Adam & Eve were happy going Dutch then suddenly felt ashamed that they were nude and in need of clothes. I've come to realize that we all have that same thought of shame when it comes to sex. We are the only species that has morals when it comes to making love to a significant other. Let's explore why.
First off we'll try to interpret the meaning of the story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. There have been many stories, poems, paintings done to describe the Original Sin. Some have taken the story literally while others see it as figuratively. But what "sin" are they referring to? At first you assume it was the sin of disobedience. God sure was pissed that Adam & Eve ignore his rule about the Tree of Knowledge. But if God didn't want Man to eat the Fruit of Knowledge then why put it there? It could have been a test. God was more like a parent, He was angry that Adam & Eve hid from Him instead of coming forward with the truth. Feeling shame is one of the reasons we lie, bringing us back to the bad feeling of being naked in the open for all to see.
So let's throw out the disobedience theory and skip ahead a few thousand years to Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus Christ. Why did God choose some random teenager (and yes she was most likely 14 or 15 while her husband was 30-something; that's how it was back then)? The Bible and Theologians say that Mary was born without sin. What does that really mean? The theory is that we, being the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve all are born with their Original Sin, so from the womb before we even know anything we're already sinners. That doesn't make sense, babies are just that, babies: they can't walk or talk, they cry and laugh for whatever reason that makes them happy or sad so how could they be sinners from the get-go? Mary is referred to as the Virgin Mary because well... she didn't have sex and yet she became pregnant. Heterosexual sex results in progeny, which continues on our bloodlines and that shall be discussed later. For now we'll focus on Mary. None of us are born with sin. Sin is a concept of feeling shame (there's that word again) of doing something we feel is wrong. A baby doesn't know the difference between right and wrong or what right and wrong mean for that matter. I think the "born without sin" fact about Mary is that she never succumbed to sexual temptation. Mary was by definition "pure" and "untouched" by any man. Being that Jesus Christ was born of a Virgin we then automatically assume that Christ himself was pure and that adds to his aura of being holy. There have been theories that Jesus actually took a wife and that there's a bloodline of Christ out there. I have no idea if this is true but it might be as there were other gospels found that were cut out of the Bible where Jesus was very intimate with Mary Magdalene. So it could be a possibility. Sex is a form of initiation you might say into a whole new world so one is "born again".
Anyway, back to the beginning of creation. Let's see... yes the Tree of Knowledge. There's a question of what the Bible means by "Knowledge". Knowledge of what? Good and Evil? What defines Good and Evil? The identity of the Serpent has been left up to debate for centuries. Some claim that the Serpent was Lucifer, the jealous angel who refused to bow down to Man as God told him. Maybe, but God punished the Serpent to spend his life and generations after to drag its belly on the earth and eat the dust. So at first the Serpent had legs. This could have just been one of God's creatures over stepping it's boundaries. Yet we should look at the symbolism behind the Serpent or Snake. In the old days of paganism, the snake represented wisdom, knowing the secrets of the universe. They also represented the power of healing (as shown on ambulances where there's a staff with two snakes entwined). So the Tree of Knowledge was perhaps the idea of free thought as having wisdom one must question their existence and their surroundings. Another reason the Serpent was possibly demonized was later on when the New Testament was being written (or Torah as the story of Creation was first told by the Jewish Faith), there were probably still people who worshipped snake deities and the monotheistic religion was trying to stamp it out.
Let's now look into the pagans and how they viewed sex. Pagans saw sex as more as a sacred act. There was nothing more holy than to copulate as their gods did because the lust of their gods gave birth to all of creation. Atem, from Egyptian Mythology, masturbated and from his orgasm came what scientists call "The Big Bang". So even to them masturbation was just as okay. The pagans likened the feeling of climaxing to the Big Bang. Sex was important because it produced children so one's genetics may continue into the next generation. Sex was also for pleasure. If the gods could enjoy the act of lust why not Man? Even the job of prostitution was an acceptable idea. The Romans saw it as another tax revenue. They would have prostitutes register with the State and have them subjected to physicals to make sure she is healthy and won't spread disease.
The word harlot doesn't have the meaning that we think it does. It actually means "holy". The priestesses of Babylon were called harlots and yes at times they did sell their bodies for sex but the money went into maintaining the temple. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, there is a wild man named Enkidu whom Gilgamesh seeks to tame. He invites the wild man to his home and gives him beer and a prostitute. After a week, the wild man became less wild, more civilized. So in a sense the act of sex could tame the wildest beast and is also an introduction to civilization.
Now I'll get more intimate with the story of Adam & Eve and the "Original Sin". The apple has long been thought to have been the Fruit that Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge but in reality it was probably not. Apples aren't native to the Mediterranean (as some have claimed the Garden of Eden was located). More likely that the Fruit was a fig (as Adam & Eve covered themselves with fig leaves). Yet the apple has been a symbol of knowledge. Funny but the root word of apple means "sin". So I guess on a subconscious level we chose the apple as the Fruit of Original Sin. Looking more into the symbolism of the Serpent, snakes have also been considered a phallic symbol. It's cousin the eel, snakes of the sea, are also phallic symbols. Such a sexual subtext here! Or sexual innuendo. So the Original Sin may have been sex? I think we have to go into other versions of the story.
In the book of Genesis it was said God made man and woman. However, in the Christian school of thought Adam was made first and Eve was made from his rib. So who was the woman? In Jewish text, Adam had a first wife named Lilith. She was what you would call the first feminist. Lilith and Adam knew about sex. In fact, the reason for their break up was because they were arguing on who would be on top. Adam said that since he was the man he should be on top while Lilith took the submissive position. However, Lilith said, "I was made from the same clay you were so I'm just as important as you." So Lilith stormed off and like a vindictive ex she started having sex with anything that moved. She copulated with demons and beasts giving birth to all kinds of monsters. This to me seems like a subtext to the supposed "evils" of sex or the "evils" of sex with someone not your mate. The Monotheistic religions viewed the act of sex as giving birth to evil or that giving into sex was in line with giving into demons. It's the idea of having sex makes you do other evil things like murder or greed. Humans already are greedy and there have been many genocides over the years.
In the Pagan world, women held some great power and influence when they had sex. It's scientifically proven that all women are born with an innate sense of bisexuality. That's why most girls say they had a "lesbian phase" in college but fall in love with men later on. It's the idea of subduing others with the power of lust. There were goddesses whose niche was in the world of carnal desire. There was Venus/Aphrodite, then Ishtar, and Freya. All goddesses of sexuality. Their titles will also read "goddesses of fertility", well by extent the act of sex produces offspring. Women prayed to these goddesses in hopes of not just enticing a lover but also in hopes of conceiving a child so that their husbands may have an heir. Even in Jewish stories, sex was recognized as a woman's best weapon of choice. First there was Esther, a very famous woman in Jewish culture, who saved her people through her marriage to the Persian King, Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus's advisor sought to have a genocide of the Jewish people, but through Esther's beauty and charms, she convinced her husband to spare the Jewish people. It worked! Ahasuerus ended up having his advisor executed. The Persian King had other wives surely but Esther was special in her ability to use what gave her to help her people. Another heroine of the Jewish people was Judith. The Assyrians were conquering, raping, and pillaging as they made their way through Israel. Judith, a Jewish girl, caught the eye of the Assyrian leader, Holofernes and invited her to his tent. Judith did so but she drugged Holofernes's wine then when he was out she beheaded them. Without their leader, the Assyrians gave up their campaign. Now, Judith has been discovered to be a fictitious character yet that doesn't diminish the importance of the story. A woman can use sex to subdue her enemies. That's a clear message to me.
So back to the Garden. Eve succumbing to eating the Fruit of Knowledge was perhaps discovering the pleasure of sex. The Serpent could be a representation of Lust, the desire for having sex not just for procreation but for the sheer joy one has during the act as well as the feeling of having an orgasm. The Fruit could be the discovery of the orgasm or just the idea that a woman can enjoy sex as much as man does; capable of climaxing as the man does who shoots his sperm into the woman in order to fertilize her eggs and so have children. Before Eve ate the Fruit I'm sure she and Adam had sex, it was just mostly him on top taking his pleasure while Eve just laid there. After the Fruit was eaten, Adam and Eve discovered that one can make love that satisfies both parties involved. Now we come again to the idea of shame that comes from Christianity. Adam & Eve realized that they were naked. To me it was probably a realization that Lust can be a beast; to be more frank, Lust is hard to control and once the First Couple realized their lust they realized that they could be tempted to enjoy it with others.
Strange at the time, if you believe in the Bible as a literal interpretation, there was only Adam & Eve and they only had each other to have sex with. The whole incest thing is sick if you think about it yet that's what the Bible teaches us. Adam & Eve had sons and daughters who married each other to have more children. So lust gives way to incest I suppose. We do have thousands of cases of children being molested by close relatives. Also there a cases of rape through out history. All horrible but it's mostly a problem of afterwards when the victim is afraid to come forward. It's the shame of being seen as a victim or that if we tell someone then they'll view us being broken and so unlovable. What we need to do is get rid of some of the shame we feel about sex and encourage those who have been violated to not be afraid to come forward. They must not be seen as victims but as survivors and that even though such a horrible thing has been done to them that they will be okay and not seen as damaged goods.
So in conclusion, I blame Christianity for capitalizing on the idea of abstinence and that sex is evil, especially since the leaders of the Church are complete hypocrites. Many Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, and Priests have had mistresses even today! The Pagans realized the power of sex; it shows virility, influence, and through the children produced can carry on one's family name. The Christians may have realized this too. Women have an amazing power of seduction as much as men do and by subduing sex, the woman has also been subdued and pushed into the role of Eve: the submissive wife. Around the world, we feel a certain freedom in exploring our sexuality. There is pornography, sex shops, sex toys, PlayBoy Magazine, etc. Yet there's also that sense of shame that comes with it. We become completely mortified if someone discovers our vibrators or porn collection. We believe sex should be private and what happens between two people in the dark is of no concern to anybody else. I agree yet I think the idea of sexual freedom is to not be ashamed of your sexuality. Especially for women who are re-discovering the joy of sex as Eve did before them. I think that since we hold the idea that sex is dirty that it makes it even more pleasurable. What's more exciting than doing something that society frowns upon?
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