Coping with Fear

Taking Pride in Acts of Love and Pleasure
(a pagan perspective)

All acts of love and pleasure are worship of the Goddess. 

These words have such a lovely resonance, but do we each really believe them in our heart?  Do we all support them in our speaking and do we each really live them in our day-to-day life?  What is happening to sexuality and pleasure in our culture?  And what does it have to do with being a pagan? 

This is a time of enormous confusion regarding the roles and behaviors of the sexes; just how many genders are there anymore?  In thirty years we have gone from "make love, not war" to a social obsession with sexual evil. 

It appears to me that people, in particular younger people, no longer flirt and play with sexual energy as we used to.  It sometimes seems the pleasure phobia of the larger Christian culture has taken over the pagan world too.  While we give lip service to our willingness and commitment to serving the Goddess of life and love, we sometimes act as if we are just as scared of sex as the Christians are. 

There are still pockets of fun.  The recent Whole Life Expo was filled with people who flirted, smiled and wiggled with pleasure while chatting and touching.  Spring Mysteries once again celebrated the Earth's yearly explosion of sexual energy with laughter, dancing, chanting and play.  But how many of us who attended actually danced with the energy of life in the embrace of a lover during the festival?  How many of us feel free to celebrate the mystery and the joy of life's energy pouring through us as we gaze into another's eyes and drink from another's lips, joined in the dance of life? 

How often do we pagans pull back in fear when we feel that life energy surging through us?  How deeply has the Christian hatred of the body burned into our consciousness?  Most of us began as Christians, and unless we look within ourselves and make an effort, those fears influence our behaviors more than we may realize. 

What should the pagan conversation be concerning sexuality?  Pan chuckles and dances seductively with the nymphs, Aphrodite smiles and beckons as she sheds her garments, Gaia explodes with life and consciousness of every kind.  No wonder those who fear the energy of life fear us and try to twist the conversation toward victimization, hurt, abuse and death.  Are we going to let the larger Christian world send us scurrying for cover, or are we going to stand up for joy, and fertility, and pleasure? 

Is it possible any longer to talk about sex without starting every discussion reassuring each other that we don't believe in abuse and violence?  One of my friends who is a sex educator says that no matter where he speaks these days, there are always several people in the audience who keep turning the conversation toward sick sex, no matter how often he turns it back to healthy sex. 

Perhaps those of us who like to flirt and play need to wear buttons that say "I like to flirt," or "smile if you love the Goddess," to counteract the fear that surrounds us.  That fear is all out of proportion to what is actually happening in our lives.  Smoking cigarettes and driving cars are vastly more dangerous than anything else we do, yet when we light up, or turn the key in the ignition, we seldom turn our thoughts to lung cancer or horrible car wrecks.  When it comes to sex, why does it seem so much easier to focus on the few bad experiences we have had rather than the many fun times?  And what should we as pagans do to change this? 

Sexuality is enormously complex, and so are our feelings about it.  Sometimes we make mistakes; we drink too much or dance too freely.  We let our feelings overwhelm our common sense, and go home with a charming stranger.  The next morning we have second thoughts and regret our casual encounter.  Is this a sin?  Have we been anything more than foolish?  Do we wonder if the Christians are correct that this energy is too easily expressed? 

Our young people are growing up in this time when the surrounding society is enthralled in a moral panic.  What can we do to help them understand that this is just one more swing of the pendulum, and that love is not something to fear?  The Goddess calls us to create ever more celebrations of the energy of life, to dance with the joy of our bodies and spirits, to love one another with our hearts and our lives. 

I invite everyone reading this to enter into a dialogue about the joyous celebration of the energy of life, about sexuality.  I invite everyone to educate herself or himself to the realities of the world, where violence and abuse are not the norm despite what appears in the news.  If we insist that at least our social conversations, if not our activism and the laws, reflect the actual occurrences in society rather than the political agenda of groups that hope to enforce their belief systems on the rest of us through fear, that will be a good beginning toward helping the pendulum swing back toward love and peace. 

I invite each person reading this to consider her or his own thoughts and fears about sex to see how much they are influenced by the Christian myths of most of our childhoods.  The beautiful young God who had to die on a cross in the flower of his youth, to wash away the sin humans were born to, can put quite a twist on the psyche.  For myself, it took years of introspection to root out the automatic feelings of guilt whenever sexual energy surged through my body, thoughts and feelings. 

Most of the information we get from the media about sex is bad news.  We are encouraged to believe that sexuality is a menace.  It is not true that our society is a horribly dangerous place to live or that there is some sort of horrendous increase in violence, sexual or otherwise.  Accurate information about the real incidence of crime and violence is not very easy to find, but it is possible, even as those who are spreading the inaccuracies are using their distortions to get political and economic power and to prevent factual discussions of the issues. 

It is all too easy to go along with the crowd, or do our best to avoid thinking about it altogether.  We are also all busy, lazy and afraid.  Our fears are not groundless; it is common for those who try to tell the truth to be accused of trying to cover something up or justify their own behavior.  And social change can be a lot of work.  But if we don't do it, those who fear pleasure the most will make the laws we will have live with. 

The dance of the Goddess and the God is seductive, so those who fear their own energy will always oppose us.  But most people love life and envy our playfulness.  Our gods are not dead, and many people welcome information about the beauty and joy of worshipping the living ones. 

Working for social change can be a lot of fun.  It doesn't have to be somber and heavy.  Just refusing to be silent when sex-negative ideas are being discussed as "the truth" and sex-positive ideas are being scorned can make a difference.  Conversation about racial issues changed when most people refused to join in the slurs, and refused to remain silent when others offended them.  Pagans can do the same for pleasure if they want to, and if it matters enough. 

Do we believe enough in our right to worship our Goddesses and Gods to become politically active?  What would we need to do?  What is in our way?  If we believe that "All acts of love and pleasure are worship of the Goddess," we may need to look within ourselves and discard the internalized erotophobia (a fear of pleasure) we hold.  Just as the lesbian/gay/bi community did not begin to have political power until they stood up for gay pride, if we really believe that the worship of the Goddess is the expression of pleasure, and that we are worthy and deserving of it, we just may have to take a stand for pleasure. 

Sounds like fun to me.  But how can we do this?  Join me in this conversation, and let's celebrate our living gods.  Write stories and send them to us about the times Aphrodite came to you, and when the Horned God called you into the forest.  Flirt more, laugh and sing more, have more parties and celebrations of being a child of Mother Earth and Father Sky.  Create safe and healthy opportunities to celebrate being alive.  And don't forget to pay attention to who is running for office, and learn what they stand for.  Run for office yourself.  And don't forget to vote. 

Blessed be... 

(originally published in 1996 in Widdershins volume 2, issue 1).