Christianity vs. Tantra vs. Sex – one spiritual path?

This conversation is inspired by the common narrative in western spiritual (especially rationalist or new-age) circles that Christianity is a dogmatic, conservative, asexual system of repressive control, while tantra (here referring to neo-tantra) is the liberated path of self-discovery and trauma-healing that helps one to activate one's life-energy, power and joy. Having been practicing tantra myself over the last 8 years, I largely subscribed to this narrative, and so was very surprised when in deeper theological discussions with my Christian friend Robert, I realized more and more that the differences actually seem quite superficial, often at the level of language only. Robert and I were labmates during our Physics PhD program at MIT, after which he went on to get his 2nd PhD in Catholic theology, and I am now in Rome for his ordination into priesthood in the Vatican.

One important caveat here is that while the views he shares here represent the doctrine and theology of the Catholic church, it is not always well-represented among the practicing preachers – just as much as modern understanding of quantum mechanics is not well-represented in average pop-sci sensationalism. This, he argues, is not a problem of Christianity specifically, but rather a challenge of organising any large community, especially one as sprawling as the Catholic church, and must be rectified with patience and dialogue within the community.

[This is a cleaned-up transcript of a conversation we had, R - Robert, P - Pavel]

---

R: I think maybe the three things that are coming down to structure this conversation are first, just the overall outline of Christianity as a spiritual path. And then having your explanation of the vision you're coming to, with your synthesis from the tantra retreat. And finally trying to flesh it out with the example of the virtue of chastity. 

P: Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.

Part 1: Christianity as a spiritual path

R: Great. Yes. I think to do the first introduction to Christianity as a spiritual path, the easiest thing is just following the narrative of the Bible also, because that's the most natural approach. This is not me inventing things. This is what's in the text.

In any spiritual path, you have to start with some account of your starting point. The whole reason you're embarking on a spiritual path is because you think the place where you are is somehow not good or not sufficient. You need to go somewhere else because there's some problem, and then you have some account of what the problem is or where it comes from, and that's going to characterize what the solution is going to be.

Adam and Eve at the tree of knowledge - the fall

The account of the problem that you find in the third chapter of Genesis is that it's essentially about the relationship of human beings with God and moving from a relationship of trust to one of suspicion. The serpent comes into the garden and says, "Are you sure that God really wants your good and your happiness? Why did he tell you not to eat from the trees?" Eve initially responds, "No, he didn’t forbid all the trees, just this one tree." But the serpent is sowing these seeds of doubt that eventually lead to turning away from God, saying, "Actually, I can't trust in God anymore. I'm going to try to make my own life, protect my own happiness, build my own system apart from God, because we're not really sure what his intentions and aims are."

That then is how the problem is characterized. So all of the resulting things of wars and suffering and moral evil, everything somehow gets pinned on, somehow it's related to that. The reason why all these bad things happen has to do with that initial loss of confidence, loss of trust.

That explains why the one-word summary of the solution that Christianity offers is faith, which sometimes in the Protestant version can sound somehow simplistic, that "Okay, you'll be saved if you just believe in Jesus." It's like, "Well, what does that mean to believe? And how does that save me? And how does this one mental act, accepting this proposition, change my life?"

You need more context, but once you have it, it actually makes a lot of sense. Because if the problem is that you lost confidence, if now somehow something happens that makes you regain total confidence, and reach this level where that trust is just fundamental to your whole way of being and entering into all of your actions, then that would be the solution.

And so that's where Christ comes in. Because the idea is that for whatever reason — that we could also get into later — somehow all of humanity ends up in this state; it’s not just the first two human beings who don't trust in God, but somehow we arrive at this situation where no one really has full trust in God. Even people who kind of do—no one really takes it to the full totality that would allow you to emerge from this cycle of evil.

So the only person who can actually do that is Jesus, because he has a radically different way of being. What it means for Jesus to be God is that his whole personal existence somehow flows completely from God in a way that's not true of other human beings. From the first moment of his conscious existence, he relates to God directly as Father. This goes so deep that even prior to his existence as a biological organism, he already has that relationship. 

That's what enables him to persevere even through the crucifixion — he's able to carry out the mission he’s received from God his Father in every circumstance, even when he knows that he's facing this brutal, violent death. His whole bodily organism is resisting this because it's horrifying to think you're going to be crucified. He's able to persevere in trusting God and say, "Even if the world seems horrible and it's going to be horrible to me, I can still have this radical trust because that is who I am."

But you could still dismiss him as just this crazy person — his trust still doesn't necessarily give me a reason to trust. He was trusting and then actually did get crucified in this horrible way—that's why the resurrection is also an essential part of the picture. God actually ratifies this trust as valid because after the crucifixion, he is still alive, and is alive in this definitive way that somehow partakes in God's own eternity that is not subject to any possible further suffering or injury.

So then that's Jesus, who's able to fully reverse this loss of confidence in God. And because he's the only one who can do that, then the way that other people come to escape from the cycle of evil is by being identified with him, by somehow being assimilated into his own way of being. It’s a still true that he's the only one who can do it. But you can do it too, because you somehow become him.

That process of assimilation is then where all of the other structures come in. Why do we need baptism? Well, baptism is this symbolic beginning of your assimilation into Christ where you make that initial act: "I do trust God and I'm going to let myself die and be buried with Jesus by submerging in the water. And then I'm going to emerge from the water rising with Christ." And so that's symbolic identification with Christ. And it's the beginning of your process of being assimilated to him.

But then this is still a path in the sense that that initial change of orientation—where you go from not having confidence in God to, in principle, having total confidence in God because you have the same confidence that Jesus has—that still takes time to work its way through your whole way of being, your way of seeing the world, your way of acting and reacting to things. Because God, who was the one who created the whole natural world in the first place, doesn't suspend the laws of biology or psychology when he saves. So he plants this new seed, this new dynamic. But then that still takes time to develop and spread through your whole way of being and to spread through history as well.

And so that's where you always have, in Christianity, a little bit of this sense of: it's a path, but it's also somehow instantaneous because there is this instantaneous moment where you just go into a new attractor, where you change your trajectory, but it takes time for that trajectory to work itself out.

P: Okay, so there's an instantaneous shift in direction, but then the evolution, subsequent evolution, takes time to actually take you to a different place. And the instantaneous shift of direction is with baptism, roughly speaking, with acceptance, with faith.

R: Yes, and baptism is a concrete manifestation of faith which you actually do need. It's not sort of a trivial addition or kind of an extra decoration that you have this physical ritual. Because if you really are taking serious this idea that Jesus is the only human being who has ever done this or is capable of doing it, then I don't just need to have some kind of new intellectual content — “I have this concept of Jesus, so now I can do it” — but you actually have to somehow be physically attached to him. 

And so that whole physicality of these rituals that connect you to Jesus has this kind of strange importance within Catholicism that people take a while to adjust to, that are used to a more intellectualist kind of paradigm. But the sense is that this process of identifying with Jesus isn't just an intellectual ascent, but is actually an embedding in a new social context. And that new social context includes rituals and includes the community. 

That's also why you need a church. You need other people who are living this before you hand it on to you. You need some authority to organize the community. So all these things come out of the fact that you have to have this integral process of assimilation to Jesus that needs to incorporate all the aspects of being human, and not just believing in some intellectual proposition.

So I think that's the main idea: it's true that you're saved by faith in Jesus, but that's true because the problem was lack of faith. The problem was suspicion of God. Jesus is the only one who can actually have total confidence in God because he's the Son of God. And then you participate in that by being assimilated to Jesus, which is what all the rest of the stuff is about.

P: So it almost feels like the key difference really, I see here is, is this assertion that Jesus is the only one who can have 100% faith in God. In all the other traditions that I'm familiar with, there's this problem of: if humans cause the problem, how can humans be the solution? You almost need something else, something external, something extra to get you out of it. How do you get that extra ingredient that will pull you out of Samsara? 

So Christianity takes Jesus as that secret ingredient. Whereas in these other faiths, it's almost left unspoken. I think it's more equivalent to the grace of God in Christianity. It's something that you cannot achieve through your works. You can do your works and it can somehow dawn on you, but it's almost like it's outside of you. It just comes to you. And so that external secret ingredient, I guess is seen more as directly God's intervention, something like that. 

Yeah, so it has that paradoxical nature that, you know, here are the practices that you should do, like meditations and what not, but none of them actually get you there, because the thing that will get you there is this other secret ingredient. Whereas in Christianity there's maybe a more concrete thing, where the secret ingredient is Jesus. And if you do these practices of finding faith and connecting with Christ, then, you know, that will actually get you out.

R: I think that's a reasonably accurate summary, because in Christianity also recognizes that in that whole process of identifying with Jesus – even once Jesus has come – it's not just the dynamics of your own psychology and biology that then can carry you all the way: the assimilation involves a deeper spiritual connection. It's going to include all of sociology and all of psychology, but it still is going to require this element of this spiritual connection with Jesus, which in some sense is on a continuum with your spiritual connection with another person, just like in human relationships. You can't reduce another person to just the operation of some Bayesian update on my theory of mind, even though that includes that. And so I think that there's something analogous in this idea of grace, but it becomes visible and concrete – and that’s I think one of the main differences. 

Then the theory that later Christian theologians will develop is that anyone who actually is saved and rescued from this cycle of egoism and evil outside of knowledge of Christ, is actually still part of this process of being identified with Christ, but has this kind of anticipated spiritual connection with Christ – this sort of hope that something will happen in history that enables this transformation take place. And that hope already is enough to give you this connection with this thing. You still don't know what it is, but you don't have to know what it is in order to be part of it.

Part 2: Pavel’s Eastern synthesis

P: So, okay, maybe I'll start with outlining my vision of things. It's based on psychotherapeutic dimensions, trauma healing, neo-Tantra, more traditional Tantra, Buddhism, and Hinduism, a vague mix of things associated with the New Age or hippie sort of community.

Yeah, so first of all, I like the analogy—maybe it's used a little too much—of different paths up the same mountain. I was even thinking of writing a blog post about it because, actually, what you're saying is true: the first step is recognizing you have a problem and identifying the starting point. One thing I find interesting, and that I’ve come to appreciate as I’ve traveled, is that the starting point and the immediate problems are actually different for different humans in different cultures. It’s not universal that all humanity has the same problem. It’s really specific to the culture. It’s almost like you have this mountain, you want to get to the peak, and different cultures are situated around the mountain at different places. The path you take needs to start at the place where you are. You can’t take a path meant for, say, the people of India, because it starts in a different place—it’s not where you come from.

So, for example, neo-Tantra or these imported mindfulness practices, which are basically Buddhism brought to the West, are paths designed to address the problems of the West and lead you up the mountain. The first question is: how do you start on this path? With that, you just need to start with the lowest-hanging fruit—what are the problems you’re aware of in your life? Because I think, maybe you’re right, and maybe the ultimate or final problem is universal. I’ll get to that. But when you’re starting, you need to begin with the obvious. In Western society right now, for example, the obvious problems are hyper-individualism, where we lose connection and socialization; worshiping money and making a god out of it; and, from all that, depression, mental health issues, and a general lack of fulfillment, purpose, or joy in life. That’s the stuff people are aware of.

The point is that in India, the low-hanging fruit problems are not the same. They’re quite different because their culture is deeply communal, and they actually long for more individuation. So, where Westerners start is by saying, “Okay, let’s come together and create connection.” This is where, for example, authentic relating practices are really great. These are simple exercises where you talk about feelings and learn to express them. Suddenly, you feel a lot closer to other human beings. You feel a lot more intimate and real. You take off the masks you’re used to wearing in a capitalist world, where you’re always presenting your best foot forward because it’s all competitive. In these practices, you realize, “Wow, I can actually be my real self and connect with others.”

Very simple, specific practices help with this. Nonviolent communication is another practice that addresses conflicts. If you’re in a competitive dynamic—where you’re both after the same apple—nonviolent communication helps you connect to your deeper, truer selves. You realize that what you care about is being fed and happy, and also that others are fed and happy. Suddenly, you’re aligned on your basic needs, and you can work together to grow an apple orchard instead of fighting over the same apple. It’s about changing your level of awareness. You move from focusing on surface-level desires to asking, “Why do I want this?” You keep asking “why” until both conflicting sides converge at some deeper level.

The next step is going into that deeper level. To do that, you need to feel your emotions, your connection, and your deeper needs. This requires the ability to feel your body. It’s about moving from living in the mind—thinking “I am the brain, and therefore I am my mental constructs”—to really feeling your entire body. This is where starting meditations, like Vipassana, come in. For example, in a 10-day silent retreat, you sit for 11 hours a day and learn to feel your body. The idea is to develop sensitivity to any cubic centimeter of your body, whether inside or on the surface. You should be able to feel the sensations in that part immediately. It’s surprisingly hard at first, but it’s also a clear and achievable goal. These practices help you get more in touch with your feelings and access deeper levels of awareness.

From there, you move into Tantra. I’m talking about westernized neo-Tantra, which combines similar practices but starts to incorporate spirituality. Once you’ve developed a connection with people and awareness of your body, it leads into trauma healing and psychotherapeutic work. This involves addressing emotions that have been repressed for years or feelings you were never allowed to experience as a child. That takes work, but once you’ve done it, you move beyond Western-specific problems. At this point, especially after working through trauma, you start to realize that individuality is an illusion. You’re not as separate from everything and everyone as you thought. There’s an ultimate sense of unity and communion.

But these paths don’t go all the way to the top of the mountain. They get you started, but at some point, you need to either extend these paths yourself—which is a long journey—or find a way to connect to millennia-old traditions that have already shown people how to reach the top. These traditions have exemplars—people who have gone all the way—proving that their path works. It seems more pragmatic to connect to one of these established roads rather than forging your own path all the way up the mountain. The question becomes: once you’ve done all this prep-work, how do you connect to these more traditional systems? That’s the challenge I’m currently working on and trying to understand personally. At this stage, we come to major religions. For example, the setup you’re talking about becomes more relevant. What is the core problem we’re still left with after addressing the immediate issues? 

In Hinduism, for example, and similarly in Buddhism, the main problem is suffering. Suffering comes from clinging and attachment, particularly attachment to the sense of self. Buddhism approaches this from a slightly different angle because it doesn’t have God as a central figure. In traditional Tantra, or at least the Hindu aspect of it, the idea is that everything is a dream or an illusion. Our brain creates the reality we live in, like a brain-in-a-vat scenario. Understanding this helps us escape suffering by realizing the illusory nature of reality.

This ties into what you’re saying about losing faith in God. But there’s also the step of identifying that God is me. My brain creates this reality, so my brain is somehow channeling or creating everything. Losing faith in the creator is also losing faith in myself or my higher self. I’m still exploring this narrative because I haven’t fully delved into it myself. The issue is: how do you wake yourself up from a dream if you’re fully in it? If someone outside the dream rings an alarm, that’s great. But if you’re in the dream, no action within it will wake you up—except maybe dying. But in Hinduism, dying doesn’t help because you’re reborn immediately. It doesn’t work. There are variations in how reincarnation is understood – if you’re reborn, what is the “you” that is reborn? But the question of what secret ingredient can break the cycle or wake you from the dream remains open. 

Part 3: sexual morality as test case

P: Okay. So where does chastity fit into all this?

R: I guess we can start from the polemical space of people within this westernized Eastern Philosophy world – how one of their criticisms about the Catholic Church is its stance on sexual morality.

P: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you started from this kind of rational, more materialist, abstract perspective: it's like, okay, sex feels good. Why not just have it? If everybody is in consent, especially now we have contraception. If it's safe, if it feels good, why not just like have sex with everybody? F**k the world, as they say. I would get started there just as a simple "straw man" starting point. I feel like I could answer that myself, but want to see what you think.

R: Yeah, to me feels like one of these “base of the mountain” questions.

 The first step is that making decisions based on pleasure-pain calculus is just a bad idea. That always ends badly. The first thing is to somehow get your consciousness out of pleasure-pain calculus as your way of decision making. And then you can differ about the further paths. But it seems like no one who's thought about this like more than two seconds deeply, would think it's a good idea to operate on pleasure-pain calculus.

P: So I guess to push back on that, there’s hedonism, like the original version of hedonism that was the ancient Greek version of hedonism, right? Which was basically a spiritual path. They said, “no, the pleasure-pain calculus is the right one.” As long as you really think deeply about it. Not what's pleasurable just on the surface level, but on all levels. What is fulfilling on a life purpose level? That I feel like I'm contributing to the outside world and I'm making others happy, what is pleasurable for myself,...  And I really need to account for all those levels and then do the most pleasurable thing.

So I don't know. I feel like, at least to me, the answer of why not have sex with everybody, within the sort of things I've experienced and learned was reasonably subtle. The way I would phrase it is that sex is a very powerful, energetic practice and it's very impactful psychologically on a deep level, more than you might notice on a kind of daily or experience level. That it hits something. On a surface level, it feels nice, but it also hits some other evolutionary bonding things that then start to boil up. 

So because it's such an energetically powerful tool, as any powerful tool, you need to be careful with how you use it. So using it kind of indiscriminately can be destructive. Again, that doesn't lead to, like, “you need to be monogamous,” “you need to be in a committed relationship” or something. It just means, like, okay, you need to be aware of a lot of dimensions of this thing in order to decide how to use it.

Then I guess the way in neo-Tantra they use it as a introspection tool effectively. In neo-Tantra it's not like you have a lot of sex, it's more that you use sexual energy and sexual-like interactions. Like just looking into the eyes of a woman, for example. And just as you're meditating and looking at each other, you're noticing what energies and what processes come up. Because all of a sudden, I'm worried how I look, I'm worried what they think about me, all of these things. And I can observe that. 

So it gives me material for introspection and material for trauma healing. Because again, it's such a potent, energetic thing, it brings up all of these things. So they use it as a tool to learn. Somehow it's still a bit of a "base of the mountain" territory, but it's not entirely surface level. 

And so, yeah, the usual narrative that is spoken of the Catholic Church is, like, no sex before marriage, and no masturbation before marriage. And then, maybe if you get married at 13, that's fine. As was the case back in the day at some point. But now that people are getting married at 30 or whatever, after they got their PhDs and built their careers. What are you supposed to do from 13 until you're 30 if you're not supposed to masturbate and that sort of thing? And especially if it's taken kind of as a dogmatic thing. So, I mean, I guess that would be a question to you.

R: I think there are also kind of two levels. The first level, still at the base of the mountain, would be this sort of confidence in creation and the belief that God positively wills this whole concrete material existence and this whole history. Part of this is a kind of confidence that biological processes generally work well, as part of God’s creation. This translates into confidence in biological antifragility—the resilience of these processes. 

So then the first answer to the big question of how to use this extremely potent force of sexuality becomes: "Well, I’m going to direct it as precisely as possible to the thing it actually does biologically." This means always connecting sexual practice to the possibility of childbirth, the possibility of generating new life. That prevents you from getting into vicious cycles or self-referential loops because you’re always pointing the power of sexuality toward its potential for giving life, which is the whole reason it has so much power in the first place.

But we’re not actually in the depths of spiritual practice yet. At this stage, it’s more about having basic confidence in nature as God’s creation. The normal way to use this extremely powerful force is in service of the role it plays in biology, as observed in your body. But then this immediately involves questions of justice and interpersonal relationships. If I’m always trying to use sex in connection with generating life, then the context in which that life is generated becomes super important. 

Especially in a world where every single person is distinct and has independent, infinite value, I want to make sure that the children generated by this act are born into a context that permits them to flourish and grow. That would mean a monogamous, stable family setting. But all of this reasoning still takes place at the level of having confidence in nature. 

Where the spiritual dimension comes in is with the idea of faith. The whole problem we’re in is the suspicion of God, and the thing we’re trying to get to is a totally radical trust in God’s power and participation in His plan. The way a woman turns herself over to a man in the sexual act, when practiced in its most original and pure form, is exactly what human beings are called to do toward God in order to fully realize an act of faith. That’s the goal of spiritual practice. 

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini: One of the most discussed works in art history for its blending of the sacred and sensual, embodying the Counter-Reformation's emphasis on emotionally engaging religious art.

The highest meaning of the sexual act within Christianity is as a symbol of what every human being and all of humanity are called to do toward God. This gives even more weight to sexual morality. Sexual morality in Christianity goes beyond the practical principle that "You should try to have sex within families because that’s the best place for children." Instead, if you’re really trying to take the spiritual path seriously, and are called by God to a vocation that involves sexual activity, you’re trying to make every single one of those acts as pure as possible—a symbol – and concrete manifestation – of the relationship between God and the Church.

This means you’re going to take very good care of the whole context of that act, in the same way you take care of the context of the liturgical action of the Eucharist. It has that same sacramental character. All the regulations about sex, then, become like cultic regulations in the sense that you’re very strict about how you take care of your act of worship. 

But misunderstandings arise when these rules are removed from their full context, and reduced to mere criteria for classifying people as sinners or righteous. In fact, the whole point is to start with an initial act of faith that gradually permeates everything, including your sexual activity. That doesn’t mean you’re going to immediately change or immediately live your sexuality in a way that’s a pure symbol of the relationship between God and His Church. You might actually have a long way to go before you get there. The important thing is to be on that path.

What’s not compatible with Christianity is accepting that you can just live your sexuality in a superficial, banal way—like masturbating for pleasure—and think there’s no problem with that, or that it has nothing to do with your spiritual life. No, your faith needs to get there, and you need to be trying to make progress toward that. But that doesn’t mean you’re immediately condemned because you haven’t gotten there yet.

P: Yeah. Curiously even on the biological aspect, your first level, I know some tantrics that are particularly deep in the tantra scene, who refuse to use contraception. Precisely because that is somehow unnatural and goes against God's plan. They use energetic practices to avoid ejaculating, but at the same time acknowledge that if pregnancy does happen, then that was God's plan and the highest good for everyone is to take responsibility for the consequences. Of course there are still subtleties around ethics there, since this isn't necessarily practiced within monogamous relationships. It still seems a bit extreme to me, but I appreciate the parallel to the Christian view there.

But on the deeper, second level – that goes back to this path of, like, "Okay, I want to get somewhere." This is why, for example, in a lot of esoteric traditions, there are these secrets. Neophytes—or what's that word? Neophytes, the newly initiated, right?—or the general public are not told about certain secret rites, rituals, or even theories because they can be misunderstood or co-opted in ways that are harmful. If you're not at a certain level yet, doing those sorts of practices can actually harm you. Like just creating sexual shame through celibacy. But at a certain higher level, those practices can be beneficial.

So, I guess I’d like to chime in on what you’re saying about sex as a devotional or worship practice. It’s symbolic of the relationship between God and man, which is quite aligned with at least the Neo-Tantra perspective. On one hand, you use sexual practices as a way for inner self-exploration. On the other hand, if God is me and my higher self, then self-exploration is actually a process of getting closer to God. At some point, this ties into higher, more esoteric tantric ceremonies involving actual sexual practices. These are very ritualistic and often involve many elements. They’re only meant to be carried out by people who have been practicing for a long time.

Tantric Buddhism yab-yum thangka painting: a common image representing the union of compassionate action (male) with wisdom of emptiness (female), leading to awakening to non-dual truth

At least in that aspect, I really like the parallel you’re drawing. A lot of times, there’s this image of Christianity as a shaming mechanism for sexuality. But actually, just acknowledging that sexuality is very sacred—and that it’s one of the closest ways we can experience devotion to God—flips that shaming narrative around. 

For me personally, I don’t know where I got all that shame from. Maybe society or something, because my parents never really shamed me for it. But, yeah, I had a lot of sexual shame—around being a man, around masturbation, around desire. It seemed like my desire as a man was itself a threat to women’s integrity or safety. There was a lot of that to heal and face.

I remember during those times, I sometimes tried celibacy periods where I forced myself not to masturbate. It was extremely painful. It was the hardest thing, and I couldn’t even do it for very long. Even less than a month was basically impossible. After a few weeks, it got to the point where it was the only thing occupying my mind. I couldn’t work or do absolutely anything. It was just completely debilitating.

But after discovering these energetic practices and realizing the sacredness and beauty of sexuality, I’m now doing 6 months of celibacy with a completely different mindset. Now, I think of it like this: "This is the most beautiful thing I do, and by not doing it, I’m making a sacrifice to God." It’s like sacrificing my best cow to God. It’s not the cow I’m ashamed of that I’m sacrificing—it’s the one I’m most proud of. That’s a completely different attitude. It’s not about thinking, "Oh, this is shameful, and I should practice my willpower to not do this dirty thing." Instead, it’s a celebration. I’m excited to be celibate now! 

It’s been, what, two months now? And it’s not difficult for the most part. I mean, a little bit. But even when it’s difficult, it feels like growth. It feels interesting. There are introspective processes, and I’m learning things. It’s a completely different experience. Now that I’m doing it, I also have certain specific practices and exercises—both physical and energetic—that help me deal with arousal. When I get turned on, I know what to do with that energy if I can’t masturbate.

It almost feels like there needs to be different steps or an order to this process of spiritual seeking. Doing it too early can turn you off from the whole thing, or doing it too harshly can backfire. 

So in trauma-healing world, they say that in every experience, you have your comfort zone, where the experiences inside it are comfortable and easy. Then you have the growth edge, which is the edge of your comfort zone. And then everything outside is this trauma zone. So if you jump right into things that are really far outside, you get traumatized, and then you never want to go back there. Then maybe it'll be years before you try it again. So you want to find that sweet spot on the edge. So I feel like it really depends on where you are in terms of mental discipline or understanding of whether you're even able to see those challenging experiences as something you can observe and devote to God. And the point is, if you're not at a point where you can, then that could just be traumatizing. And then you shouldn't go there.

Conclusions on freedom and consent

R: Yeah. I still feel like I need to think more about the exact way of describing that and framing that. Because if someone's already in this kind of cycle where they're just avoiding these kinds of sins just out of an extreme sense of shame or rigid obligation, then it also isn't helpful to just tell them, “no, actually, this is fine, you should just do it.” Because there's a reason why that shame is there. Because there actually is something problematic about this. And I can't just affirm that it's good. 

But I also want to shift their attention away from it because their attention should not be obsessing about this thing right now. We actually have to pay attention to building up the core first. And so trying to explain things in that way, where I'm not seeming to affirm that there's no problem with this – because it actually is problematic – but I don't want to bring attention to that, because it's actually harmful to pay too much attention to it right now. I want them to pay attention to this other thing that's prior.

P: At least for me, I think it worked well to be told that it's not a problem at all for a while – that it's totally fine, I can do whatever I want. It's not that I immediately just started, like, masturbating a lot more. It's the forbidden fruit effect, right. If it's no longer forbidden then you're like, yeah, I'll have it next week, whatever, I don't really care. But at the same time just being told that it's okay, if there is already a lot of shame built up, is just such a relieving experience of feeling accepted and loved. Just that experience of being told that can be really healing in itself and valuable.

R: The trickiest part for me is that especially with the context of modern pornography and how optimized it is for addiction. So someone is at risk of being addicted to alcohol, and you say, “well, it's actually fine – go drink as much alcohol as you want,” you’re going to create a physical dependence that is going to be very hard for the person to get out of. But I also see exactly your point that there's a lot of ways to explain that badly, that are actually going to lead to exactly the same place – that are going to predictably lead the person to be just as damaged and addicted as if you had said the opposite.

P: Yeah. I think the other point about faith and religion and also especially about celibacy or chastity to me, is that it needs to be voluntary and consensual. Because I think that that's a big piece of it. 

Like when I was trying to bring some authentic relating kind of practices as a team building activity at General Motors: we have this group of data scientists, and we have this meeting once a week to do team building, connect, hang out. And coming from all these practices that I love, I'm like, “okay, I know how to do this – let me structure it.” Rather than all of us introverts, you know, nerds sitting in front of a board and being like, “okay, what are we doing now? What do we talk about?” It's just super awkward. I was like, “okay, no, let's do these very specific structured exercises.” 

And it didn't work. It didn't hit. People were not really engaged and not really excited about it. And it just made me realize that the reason why it works in the workshops I go to is because people pay money to go there. Whereas at work, they're getting paid to be there, so they don't really want to be there, but they kind of have to. 

A core thing at the workshops, I think, is that people go there with a desire to be vulnerable, to explore, to learn about themselves. Things like that. With chastity and with celibacy, that's also a core aspect of it for me this time around. I was just like, “no, I think this would be a fun thing to try.” And so now I'm trying it. And I can stop anytime I want to. That sort of aspect of agency, I guess.

R: Yeah. Because that's something that's always pretty fundamental to how Christians conceive their identity: as specifically called by God to engage in this new way of living. And so it's your free response to this invitation from God to embark on this project. 

And so from the very beginning, you are living it with that sense that this isn't just something that's imposed on you artificially, but it’s this definite project, and there are even certain requirements you have to meet in order to participate. At least the way it was lived in the first centuries of Christianity: someone decides, “I want to embark on this project,” and there's this whole period of testing to see whether you actually are serious about wanting to do this. And it's only if you show that you're serious, they let you in.

P: Yeah. That's maybe a piece that's often maybe missing in modern church, where it becomes this, “no, no, you have to do this.” Right. Like, it loses this part of whether it's consensual.

R: I think that's one of these problems that is “self-healing” in the long term, in the sense that with secularization, you now are at this point where Christianity is increasingly seeming like this sort of radical life choice, and people who still continue to identify as Christians are only the people who have like decided that “Okay, God is calling me to this project of returning the world to faith in him – and so that's what I want my life to be about.”

P: Huh, yes I see that. There is still the question of parents trying to force their children into their religion – but that's not specific to Christianity, and may be more about the parents than the religion. But this feels like enough material for one post – and we have a lot more to dig into next time.