it comes across like this act between two people means you've cut out a piece of yourself and handed it over
I think... part of the historical basis for that concept (and it's not even historical, really; it goes back past history, into the roots of society) is that rape is a violation. It takes something from you - your free will, your right to choose, your control over your own body, your dignity - and even if you regain that afterwards you're not going to forget; you'll never be unaware of the possibility again. So because nonconsensual sex can/can seem to take these intangible things away, in society it becomes confused with sexuality in general. Anything that can be taken by force can be given away as well.
Re the Eden mythology and Original Sin (and I must take a moment to go o.O that Winamp just started playing Original Sinsuality at me)... as far as Christianity's effect on society goes, the wires are seriously crossed on that one. The pure biblical version of the story is that God threw them out because he was afraid that they'd eat from the Tree of Life and live forever. Being denied paradise wasn't a punishment either, but a result of knowing good from evil; it's a commentary/parable on innocence and the rise of human consciousness. Sex didn't come into it at all until the Church put it there; there are even parts of the Judaic Apocrypha that suggest that there was plenty of sex going on in Eden before anyone started getting ideas about apple pie.
It was only much later that sexuality came into the equation, and it would be fascinating to know how and why the Church worked that one. Eve became the evil temptress, and sex became the mechanism of the Fall, and they turned the whole thing into a lesson about women's sexuality being evil and leading virtuous men astray. And the impact of that on the entirety of Western culture is immeasurably huge.
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Date: 3 Dec 2005 09:14 pm (UTC)I think... part of the historical basis for that concept (and it's not even historical, really; it goes back past history, into the roots of society) is that rape is a violation. It takes something from you - your free will, your right to choose, your control over your own body, your dignity - and even if you regain that afterwards you're not going to forget; you'll never be unaware of the possibility again. So because nonconsensual sex can/can seem to take these intangible things away, in society it becomes confused with sexuality in general. Anything that can be taken by force can be given away as well.
Re the Eden mythology and Original Sin (and I must take a moment to go o.O that Winamp just started playing Original Sinsuality at me)... as far as Christianity's effect on society goes, the wires are seriously crossed on that one. The pure biblical version of the story is that God threw them out because he was afraid that they'd eat from the Tree of Life and live forever. Being denied paradise wasn't a punishment either, but a result of knowing good from evil; it's a commentary/parable on innocence and the rise of human consciousness. Sex didn't come into it at all until the Church put it there; there are even parts of the Judaic Apocrypha that suggest that there was plenty of sex going on in Eden before anyone started getting ideas about apple pie.
It was only much later that sexuality came into the equation, and it would be fascinating to know how and why the Church worked that one. Eve became the evil temptress, and sex became the mechanism of the Fall, and they turned the whole thing into a lesson about women's sexuality being evil and leading virtuous men astray. And the impact of that on the entirety of Western culture is immeasurably huge.