blog.postmodernvillage.com

When I think about the possibilities of sin and transgression, I often think of women’s underwear. Panties, to be exact, and generally not the sexy kind they sell at Frederick’s or Victoria’s Secret. I’m talking about good old fashioned white cotton ones, or maybe some sportier-looking Jockeys.

By the time we reach the level of Merry Widows and bustiers and garters and stockings and such, we’ve pretty much gone beyond everyday sin and gotten into the rarefied air of decadence, or, as likely, into the less frowned-upon regions of the middle-aged married trying to spice things up.

Maybe my fantasy life is just too darn practical, though that’s probably not the case: threesomes are generally not practical. But it seems to me that the chance encounter, the real, passionate, out-of-control sinnin’, is more likely to occur when “date” underwear is not planned for, when the black, lacy number is still in the bottom of the drawer.

Now, I like a fancy get-up as much as the next person, the four-or five-fold ramping up of desire as all the belts and straps are loosened, the sensual sound of silk or satin sliding free from flesh. I’m no Elvis in his later years, only able to get off by peeks of white-cotton beneath cheerleader outfits, fixated on bobby-sox and idealized nubility. I’m much more likely to get my nut off over a slightly zaftig secretary in her mid-30s than a pop-star Lolita.

But what secretary would wear her leopard-print bra to work unless she was expecting some action anyway – and where’s the fun in that?

Sin, I suppose, is over rated as an incentive just as much as it’s over rated as a disincentive. But we’ve always been of two collective minds about it. Part of the problem is, of course, Puritanism, which is hopelessly confused on its stance about sin, redemption, forgiveness, and faith, or at least faith as a means of salvation. Rejecting Catholicism, with its insistence on sacraments and confessions and, most importantly, 10% of your income, Protestant Puritans would seem to favor works; that is to say, they would seem to favor a metaphysics in which what one does to be holy and good (or doesn’t do in the case of sexual transgression) is more important than if one has grace or faith. The former is perfomative, the latter a state of being.

Catholicism allowed works to make up for a lack of grace. So if you went around sinning, you could confess to a priest and were given spiritual tasks like saying Hail Marys and praying the rosary to absolve yourself. Or back in the old days you were charged tithes or indulgences to pay your way out. Pretty slick: The Church gets the involvement of its members (and cash on the barrelhead) and the sinners get clean consciences.

Of course I’m way oversimplifying things, and of course you shouldn’t have been sinning in the first place. But when the Reformation threw that all into question, it also messed with our fundamental ideas about how you get to Heaven and how you get forgiven. The Puritans contended that that was all up to God: if you had grace, you were among The Elect, and if you were among The Elect, you would necessarily do good works. If you weren’t, you probably wouldn’t. Your best bet to save yourself was to repent and hope God had mercy on your poor, wretched, disgusting soul. There was no priest to absolve you of sin, no spiritual task to keep you out of Hell. It was all up to a God who in the Old Testament proved Himself to be wrathful and jealous beyond the norm.

There’s not much room here for screwing up, and certainly not much room for human frailty. Sin meant not just that you were human, but that you may not be among the Blessed, and if you slipped once or twice – well, what does that say about you?

The heavy Puritan influence on our culture has served to make temptation pretty honking problematic. Since we are all tempted, since we all sin in our hearts, the salvation of each of us is in our minds seriously in doubt. Our Quixotically human response is to either tie ourselves so tightly in the fetters of righteousness that our lives are pure misery or to just give up and be the sinners we know ourselves to be.

It’s no wonder, then, that here in the so-called “red” states we have a higher rate of divorce than in the more liberal “blue” states. The Bible-thumping inhabitants of America’s heartland are fundamentally (all puns intended) schizoid about their sexuality. Either redeemed or iniquitous, they can’t settle into the comfortable imperfection that goes with less rigid notions of sin; they can’t forgive themselves or their partners for a wandering eye, and they can’t deal with temptation honestly enough to not let it creep into married life.

In my secretary fantasy, part of the pleasure is in the social transgression of anonymous sex with a virtual stranger in an inappropriate setting. And part of the pleasure is the moral transgression of anonymous sex with a virtual stranger in an inappropriate setting. By allowing myself the fantasy and contending honestly with the guilt, I have, perhaps, a better chance of never actually acting on my impulses. And by understanding them as impulses, perhaps I am able to see myself as more fully human: flawed, yet capable and worthy of forgiveness.