In the 8th grade, I briefly --very briefly -- attended a Southern Baptist school (Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, For My Parents Tell Me So/10.8.06).
To call the entire experience harrowingly surreal would be an insult to the collected works of Dali and Argento. The reality was that life at Dade Christian was, and I'd imagine still is, a little like being held in a prison camp somewhere in Stepford enemy territory. It was generally almost impossible to tell which of the kids had truly succumbed and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior and were therefore willing vessels of the daily onslaught of superstitious nonsense being heaped on them by the school's silver-haired pastor -- a man straight out of Central Casting -- and which were just faking it out of fear that, if exposed, they'd be the targets of a point-and-screech mob scene, a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
It goes without saying that every class taught at Dade Christian was, in one way or another, a Bible class. There wasn't a scholarly subject or topic of debate that couldn't be improved upon by filtering it through a 2000 year old text written by people who literally knew nothing about anything. This, unfortunately, included sex education -- euphemistically rechristened "Human Development" and relegated to one or two class discussions helmed by a compact and balding, Phil Collinsy hyper-Southern Baptist named, amusingly, Bobby Winkler.
Winkler was a walking cliché -- the kind of guy who seemed to always be "on," as if he were acting for the invisible cameras of a Christian-themed reality TV show. He wanted to make sure that the kids in his care never doubted that the knowledge of an eventual ticket to heaven meant a life of 24/7 exuberance, and he went about it by rarely turning the "frenzy" setting below a flat nine. Any conversation with Winkler left you overwhelmed and in need of a nap.
One Friday afternoon, during his usual end-of-the-week "Ask a Bible Teacher Anything" segment, Winkler got hit with a question about the seemingly taboo topic of pre-marital sex. It's the sort of thing you would've expected to come from a class full of kids coping with a lot of nascent horniness, the kind that even Jesus couldn't help them stave off. One 13-year-old boy, a classmate of mine, asked Winkler what was so wrong with masturbation and sex in general -- why God had gone through all that effort to create it, only to turn around and declare it verbotten. (Obviously, the kid could've substituted just about any "sin" in place of sex and the argument would've worked just as well.)
Winkler's response to this perfectly legitimate question was to stand silently for a moment, seemingly taken aback, then ask the class in his booming southern drawl if it could answer the question of "why God doesn't want you to play with yourself."
The kid who asked the question, sufficiently shamed to the point of immediately trying to fashion a noose out of his shoelaces, shrunk into his seat and didn't speak up in class again -- ever again. Still, Winkler I guess figured he might as well attempt to clarify for his charges just what Jesus's specific rules were when it came to the pleasures of the flesh. He stalked back and forth in front of the blackboard, prattling off the usual "sex is between a married man and woman in the eyes of God" spiel, the sweat glistening on his abundant forehead like the AC had died and it wasn't a brisk 60 degrees in his classroom. This line of religio-blather continued for several minutes -- Winkler laying out (no pun intended) the standard Baptist arguments against pre-marital contact of any kind -- before the Bible teacher suddenly stopped cold, turned to face the class and said something that made pure liquid nitrogen run down my spine, even at the age of 13.
He looked at us -- his eyes scanning the class one face at a time -- gave us a frightening grin that can't be described as anything other than, ironically, devilish, and said quietly, "But let me tell you what happens when you get married. Once you're married -- you can do anything you want to your wife."
I bring this story up to show that the entire idea of sex and Christian Conservatism has always made me more than a little queasy. The two notions -- whether the former is of the married variety or not -- just seem completely incongruous. And yet something strange seems to be happening these days: Christian Conservatives, as they do with so many other subjects, are usurping and dominating the debate over sex by adopting an attitude that they can lay (once again, no pun intended) claim not only to sex but to better sex. As if Jesus makes them come harder than the rest of us, maybe as a little something to tide them over until the real rapture shows up and brings them all that eternal bliss.
The God folks arrogantly dictating the parameters of the discussion on sex in our society -- and everyone else willingly ceding the floor to them -- is a bad idea all the way around. People who've only experienced sex, ostensibly, with one person claiming to be experts on the subject is a laughable conceit.
Although not a surprising one, if Bobby Winkler and his implied proclivities are any indication.
God help his wife.
Read on:
(Salon.com: Jesus Loves You -- and Your Orgasm)
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