So you might wonder why a sex and relationships blogger would spend so much time thinking about the origins and stipulations of celibacy and abstinence in western and middle-eastern civilization. The short answer, of course, is no further away than your nearest “just say no” poster.

To find the long answer, however, we have to first start asking what leads to those posters in the first place. Which is just one reason why I’m interested.

You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn it all goes back to ancient and near-universal beliefs that when it comes to sex men are weak while women are strong. You probably would be surprised to learn that men’s sex drives were believed to be weaker than womens — that while sexual self-restraint was believed to be difficult for men it was considered impossible for women!

Elizabeth Abbott, in A History of Celibacy posits why early Christians encouraged women to cloister themselves:

When early Christianity urged its women to pledge perpetual virginity, it had a more compelling motive than their spiritual righteousness. What was also at stake was the shaky spiritual righteousness of Christian males, who would otherwise succumb to mortal temptation in the face of the burning female eroticism that had so fatally tempted males ever since Adam. The solution, obviously, was female chastity, though it required enormous personal sacrifices from all women, including childlessness.

...

Except for St. Augustine, whose heavy personal baggage included his decades-long indulgence in sexual liaisons, the Church Fathers believed women were lustier than men. From this premise (shared by most cultures from the Aztec to the Chinese), it followed that a woman who successfully repressed her innately lascivious nature was holy indeed. Furthermore, her steadfast celibacy protected men from temptation, making female virgins literally God-sent.

pg. 92. (Emphasis mine)

As Abbott dryly puts it, the contemporaries of early nuns who cloistered themselves (or as in the case of one Alexandra actually buried herself in a tomb where she was fed by friends and family) were encouraged to do so because…

[their] contemporaries considered men to be the victims of women’s wiles and so applauded Alexandra’s solution as admirably correct rather than — as we might consider it today — neurotically self-effacing.

...

Alexandra went further, sacrificing her life to a religiously inspired, altruistic zeal to save lustful young men by removing the object of temptation — herself.

Yes, yes, of course it’s all blaming the victims but look at how completely reversed the blame has become! Way back then? Folks blamed ordinary women for not only cheerfully having sex with anyone they could get their hands on but for actively seducing them — a blind animal enthusiasm role modern stereotype assigns to men. Today? Folks no longer blame women for active enticement but for failing to tame the animal enthuisams of modern men.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, sure, but definitely worth thinking. Next time someone uses claims about “traditional religious values” to upbraid you about your animal enthuisasms ask them to tell you exactly which values they have in mind.