Religion & Politics

[GrushaVashnadze]

The fact of the matter is that religion and politics are such huge parts of people's everyday lives, AND both are so deeply intertwined with the subject of sexuality, that to ban them from having a role in erotic stories is incredibly and unreasonably limiting, in a way that, IMO, excessively limits artistic and erotic expression.

Agree. Religion is complex: it is not just one thing. The more one learns about it, the more one baulks at one-sided depictions of it. I am deeply respectful of religion, but can be deeply critical of its practice as well. That is why I find that satire can be a good mode in which to write about religion, sex, and the interface between them.

Some of my stories featuring religion have been rejected by Lit - though they have been published elsewhere. But this one survives here, and I think it is damned (!) good: The Cursed Cunt. The main character is terribly flawed, but I respect him, and sympathise greatly with his predicament.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," said the girl, once they had both settled into their respective halves of the confessional.
"How long has --"
"Oh, over a year, Father," interrupted Bernie. "I've got a lot of catching up to do."
Fuck, thought Father Jim. But, because he was basically a kind-hearted man, he instead said: "Well, take your time. It is good that God has called you back to the Sacrament now."
"Thank you, Father." He heard Bernie take a deep breath. "I... I'm married..." she ventured cautiously. "But I've not been strictly... faithful..." There was a long pause.
Ho ho, I knew it, thought Jim. Another pretty young slut, got hitched too soon, screwing around behind her husband's back. Two a penny. Had one just last week, didn't I? But instead he said, "And how long have you been having this affair?"
"Oh, it's not an affair, Father," said the girl. "It's kind of a weird binge, a bit... perverted, if you know what I mean. On the rebound, I guess, because I walked in on my husband, you know -- with someone else..."
Oh shit, thought Father Jim. This'll take all morning. Web of adultery -- seen it all before. One fucks around, the other goes off the rails, and soon they're all crotch-deep in moral turpitude. Why do they even bother to get married if they've got no continence? Should try and be celibate -- then they'll learn how lucky they are... All that passed through his mind in an instant, but of course he voiced none of it.
"You see," continued Bernie, "we were married a year ago -- here, before you came: Father Peter married us -- and, well, I thought it was going so well. We... we were really good in bed, you know... I mean, we really liked the sex and everything."
Too much information! thought Jim to himself. But he did not say that either.

 

[alohadave]

There's a certain irony to all of that; those who denigrate in the name of Christianity seem to have fundamentally misunderstood one of the overarching messages of Christianity.

Some of the message from the New Testament is fine. The problem is that people still use the Old Testament as a cudgel against people they don't like and non-believers.

Then you have various denominations and institutions that have done absolutely unspeakable things in service to their religion. People denigrate Christianity because of what it has done, and continues to do bad things in the name of their chosen dogma.

Those who denigrate Christianity itself generally don't understand how much more humane it was than the systems that preceeded it.

It doesn't matter how much better it is than a previous religion if it still injures people. I don't really give a shit about religions prior to Christianity because they aren't around. The various sects and denominations have done plenty of evil on their own that I don't need to compare them to anyone else to see who is worse.

 

[Bramblethorn]

One thing my years in the financial industry taught me was when someone starts making a lot of noise about being Christian, I start checking to see if I've still got my wallet.

Funnily enough, Jesus said something similar about that kind of person. For some reason Matthew 6 isn't very popular with the megachurch crowd.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't think anyone has every climaxed thinking about he who walks with the oranges.

Oh, quite the contrary, I'm sure. I think "love" for Jesus can take many forms. Religious ecstasy is still ecstasy. I have no doubt that many women have pleasured themselves imagining that they are his lover.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I don't know if this is right or not but I've always assumed that time religion rule basically serves two purposes.

1. To prevent missionary types posting Road to Damascus bait and switch stories. I.E. 2k words about how Monique is going to become a stripper to pay her bills then, just as she's about to walk on stage for the first time, the Angel of the Lord appearing and saying 'Don't do that' and solving all her problems.

2. To prevent stories which cross or skirt the line into religious hatred. The interracial category is already fairly dodgy for some of it's portrayals without going into 'Mwa-ha-ha my religion allows me to do this to you, the poor helpless (presumably) white woman'

More nuanced critiques of religion are probably okay.

I'd argue that atheists can proselytize as much as the religious. The difference is that most religions have strictures about porn and sexual activity. Presumably it's possible and permissible for a Christian to write a nice story about a couple who wait for marriage before having sex for them first time and for whom this is a positive experience. The more liberal might have no problem writing a chikka-boom scene at the end, but those are, in my experience, the ones who are less likely be proselytizing in the first time. Take the sex scene out and it's probably looks a lot more like it doesn't belong here.
Whereas the typical atheist will have no problem giving the audience what it came for in between lectures.

If that’s the intention, it clearly doesn’t extend to politics. There was a story in LW a day or two ago that talked about the ANTIFA BLM (all caps, every time) thugs that wanted to hurt people and our brave men in blue that were also part of a motorcycle gang(?) that would protect us. It was pretty clearly a political screed with a cheating wife as window dressing.

It was fucking bizarre, and (unsurprisingly) by someone who does a lot of interracial stuff, too.

 

[NoTalentHack]

There's a certain irony to all of that; those who denigrate in the name of Christianity seem to have fundamentally misunderstood one of the overarching messages of Christianity.

Those who denigrate Christianity itself generally don't understand how much more humane it was than the systems that preceeded it.

The pain of reading a lot of history.... anyway....

Something can be better than what came before without being good, especially as the times change.

Imprisonment for minor crimes is better than maiming which was better than exile which was better than stoning. But that doesn't mean imprisonment for minor crimes is actually good. The same can be true of religions, political systems, economic systems, etc.

 

[djrip]

Something can be better than what came before without being good, especially as the times change.

Imprisonment for minor crimes is better than maiming which was better than exile which was better than stoning. But that doesn't mean imprisonment for minor crimes is actually good. The same can be true of religions, political systems, economic systems, etc.

Also it's certainly not beyond question that the system in question was better than all that preceded it. No one went on any crusades, or ran any inquisitions, over Apollo. Polytheistic religion is generally quite tolerant of other religions.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Also it's certainly not beyond question that the system in question was better than all that preceded it. No one went on any crusades, or ran any inquisitions, over Apollo. Polytheistic religion is generally quite tolerant of other religions.

Mmmm it is now. But in the Roman times, that tolerance was more about expanding empire than enlightenment. Int eh same way that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays, polytheistic cultures tended to co-opt the faiths of the people they conquered rather than exist side-by-side with them. And any "tolerance" tended to be more about the difficulties of forcing others to convert over a large area than any moral decency; it was just easier to have them pay tribute and let them worship their stupid pantheon than the clearly correct one.

 

[djrip]

Mmmm it is now. But in the Roman times, that tolerance was more about expanding empire than enlightenment. Int eh same way that Christianity co-opted pagan holidays, polytheistic cultures tended to co-opt the faiths of the people they conquered rather than exist side-by-side with them. And any "tolerance" tended to be more about the difficulties of forcing others to convert over a large area than any moral decency; it was just easier to have them pay tribute and let them worship their stupid pantheon than the clearly correct one.

Yes, it was practicality more than anything like enlightenment, of course. But the point is polytheism does not tend to create the overwhelming drive to convert or murder every infidel or heathen in the world that monotheism used to reliably produce before it mellowed a bit over the last few centuries.

 

[djrip]

Wait... did something happen to the Hindus? Judiaism got cancelled?

I'm teasing; excuse the pedantry




It matters a whole lot; it's how we stop ourselves going backwards and also allows us humility. Like yeah, there's some really nasty people who call themselves Christians, but the Christian ideas were revolutionary to western society (tolerance, freedom, sanctity of life) and so we must take those good ideas and maybe ditch some of the "not so great" ideas.

Every religion and culture has some good ideas, over time hopefully the good ones concentrate and the bad ones fall away. I think that is the general trend, usually.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If that’s the intention, it clearly doesn’t extend to politics. There was a story in LW a day or two ago that talked about the ANTIFA BLM (all caps, every time) thugs that wanted to hurt people and our brave men in blue that were also part of a motorcycle gang(?) that would protect us. It was pretty clearly a political screed with a cheating wife as window dressing.

It was fucking bizarre, and (unsurprisingly) by someone who does a lot of interracial stuff, too.

After searching on stories containing "antifa", the no-politics rule does seem to be a bit of a joke.

 

[Bramblethorn]

In the practical sense it's not worth making reference to R+P unless you're extremely popular with one side, otherwise you'll just lose favour with a significant portion of your clients (or readers, in this case)

That may be a good principle in business, but in fiction the small-target approach risks blandness. There are readers I'm happy to lose.

Wait... did something happen to the Hindus? Judiaism got cancelled?

I'm teasing; excuse the pedantry




It matters a whole lot; it's how we stop ourselves going backwards and also allows us humility. Like yeah, there's some really nasty people who call themselves Christians, but the Christian ideas were revolutionary to western society (tolerance, freedom, sanctity of life) and so we must take those good ideas and maybe ditch some of the "not so great" ideas.

I guess Judaism did get cancelled, if we're crediting Christianity with inventing pikuach nefesh.

 

[TheRedChamber]

If that’s the intention, it clearly doesn’t extend to politics. There was a story in LW a day or two ago that talked about the ANTIFA BLM (all caps, every time) thugs that wanted to hurt people and our brave men in blue that were also part of a motorcycle gang(?) that would protect us. It was pretty clearly a political screed with a cheating wife as window dressing.


It was fucking bizarre, and (unsurprisingly) by someone who does a lot of interracial stuff, too.

After searching on stories containing "antifa", the no-politics rule does seem to be a bit of a joke.

As always on Lit, I think the intention and the policing are not always in alignment. I just spent an bemused ten minutes skimming a story called "Schools and the Second" which should surely have gotten tossed on the title alone. The majority of the 70-odd results for 'antifa' seem to be from the same author who has an extensive portfolio and a following.

 

[ShandyLeer]

Very odd that people would be so taken up with some political obsession or other that it manifests itself in what they perceive to be horny/sexy or whatever.

It amounts to radicalisation imo.

 

[NoTalentHack]

As always on Lit, I think the intention and the policing are not always in alignment. I just spent an bemused ten minutes skimming a story called "Schools and the Second" which should surely have gotten tossed on the title alone. The majority of the 70-odd results for 'antifa' seem to be from the same author who has an extensive portfolio and a following.

That was hilarious. I was waiting for a warning on the dangers of reefer and jazz.

 

[Duleigh]

How have you handled similar issues?

I just think how embarrassed I would be when someone I admired proved me 100% wrong. I just down about 12 oz of STFU and press on with something else.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

As always on Lit, I think the intention and the policing are not always in alignment. I just spent an bemused ten minutes skimming a story called "Schools and the Second" which should surely have gotten tossed on the title alone. The majority of the 70-odd results for 'antifa' seem to be from the same author who has an extensive portfolio and a following.

Ah, pulp fiction full of Gary Stus is not dead after all!

I suspect Novels & Novellas and Non-Erotic get more of a pass to allow politics than other categories do. And that stories like this and the stories marked as 'gun fetish' or 'alpha male fetish' would have remarkably little crossover.

I guess Judaism did get cancelled, if we're crediting Christianity with inventing pikuach nefesh.

(Googles, learns) Most areas where Christianity spread to wouldn't have had any significant Jewish community in first, so from the point of view of the locals, Christianity was introducing the principle.

 

[Grendelpuppy]

My most recent story is currently being One Bombed because desperate circumstances are motivating the devoutly religious, FMC to engage in slutty behavior that she ordinarily would abstain from. The venue for the story is a city that has been so ravaged by rioting and rampant crime that unlikely vigilanties are the heros. The only difference between this fictional city and a real city is that the fire department failed to extinguish a couple of arson fires that would have destroyed the justice center (police headquarters, jail and courthouse combined in one tower) and the condominium tower that the mayor lived in. The FMC can still smell the corpses when she drives by.

My own personal politics is of course revealed by my fiction. To be blunt, I am amazed that anyone would be offended by opposition against rioting and arson that escalates to mass murder. It seems that everyone has forgotten the Happyland Social Club fire that remains the deadliest mass killing by a lone assailant in US history.

 

[djrip]

My most recent story is currently being One Bombed because desperate circumstances are motivating the devoutly religious, FMC to engage in slutty behavior that she ordinarily would abstain from. The venue for the story is a city that has been so ravaged by rioting and rampant crime that unlikely vigilanties are the heros. The only difference between this fictional city and a real city is that the fire department failed to extinguish a couple of arson fires that would have destroyed the justice center (police headquarters, jail and courthouse combined in one tower) and the condominium tower that the mayor lived in. The FMC can still smell the corpses when she drives by.

My own personal politics is of course revealed by my fiction. To be blunt, I am amazed that anyone would be offended by opposition against rioting and arson that escalates to mass murder. It seems that everyone has forgotten the Happyland Social Club fire that remains the deadliest mass killing by a lone assailant in US history.

I think most people would agree rioting and arson are bad. The problem may be that in depicting riots and arson in a story, some people might feel that you are making a commentary on events of the last few years. A point of contention regarding these recent events has been whether they were riots and lawlessness, or righteous protests. (Or both, but mostly one or the other.) Some readers might feel that you are taking a position in that debate by writing about a city overwhelmed by riots and lawlessness.

I haven't read your story, so I don't know if you've included any elements that would make it obvious to readers that such a statement about recent events was not your intent.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Religion or the lack thereof and politics are major drivers in many people's lives so depending on how you want to paint your characters, both have a place in erotica. It also depends upon the time.

I may note that a character attends church or whatever but generally don't get much into the religious aspects. However, I have one period romance (early 20th century), My Sister's Love, where a young Irish-American girl is, as was common at the time, religious and tries to adhere to the tenants of her faith despite a desire that she has trouble controlling.

Later in that story, there's an issue where church doctrine of the time prevented her from marrying her beloved and the story shows the couple's temptations and frustrations as they try to get the issue resolved*. So far, reception has been very good, with only one commenter saying it "spoiled the story" and one other who loved the story but noted that "the thing with the Church and getting permission to marry was a downer" (which was the whole point before the HEA).

* yes, church doctrine changed some years later due to the explanation noted in the story.

 

[gordo12]

There was no intent on this thread to get into political discussion about Antifa or BLM. Or what cities have the highest murder rates. The subject matter for discussion is including religion or politics in your writing and does it create problems. We don't need the thread locked down because it's getting out of control.

There has been some very thoughtful dialogue on this thread and I appreciate it. I wasn't sure the appetite for a discussion existed and have been pleasantly surprised. Let's not ruin it.

 

[gordo12]

Very odd that people would be so taken up with some political obsession or other that it manifests itself in what they perceive to be horny/sexy or whatever.

It amounts to radicalisation imo.

It's not that the subject itself is sexy. It's the tension it creates that adds to the story.

I thought back to my early years. My best friend was getting married to a Catholic girl. Talk about repressed.

We had a pool table in our rec room and were playing pool(4 some)

Her top button on her blouse came undone. She turned about 50 shares of red and insisted on leaving immediately, she was so embarrassed. Then refused to return for a couple of weeks because she was so embarrassed.

When he married her, she had to get married in the church. The church wouldn't accept him unless he converted to Catholicism, did their course on marriage, promise to bring up their kids as Catholics etc.

There's a potential tension there for a story. Although he went along with it all. (honestly didn't care) I could write a story about star-crossed lovers denied when he refused to surrender his family's religion and not let the C church dictate their futures. What would the bride and her family have done? Could it have split them up?

I'm not sure how you get radicalization out of something like that?

 

[dadadadiox]

I know the conventional wisdom is to avoid those subjects. Still, I have little patience with religious zealots and overbearing church organizations—especially the C church, where they've denigrated women/gays for hundreds of years. I was ready to drop a story, and when I started editing, I was shocked to see how many swipes I'd taken at religion initially. (church wedding scene) It doesn't last (contained within the first 300 words out of 22,000+), and I'm already doing ch2.

But I'm also aware of one sentence in another story where I referred to a certain orange-haired moron, how the comment section blew up, and the score suffered. However, similar religious swipes in other stories don't seem to evoke much blowback! In fact, some guy came back and asked if something I'd written was true because it would be cool if it were.

I think the beginning would suffer if I removed it all, but it does concern me.

How have you handled similar issues?

I enjoy taking shots at religion, especially the C-church I grew up in. Religious morality, an oxymoron if there ever was one, is a favorite conflict generator of mine. Having a character who struggles with their faith, and the rules that come with it, versus the sexual desires they have, is an easy way to create internal tension. Then you can bring in the judgment and manipulation from those around that character - on both sides, the churchies and the godless.

Mocking religion can be tricky - not that I care - but if you keep it personal between characters and not an overreaching indictment on faith you can get away with a lot.

Politics is an entirely different matter, especially these days, so I tend to keep political references light. The cult who went after you is crazier than the faithful, and they tend to be fake Christians. You cannot reason with those rubes.

dddd

 

[MrPixel]

I got a hate comment on one story about "politics" because I dared to go there in a short-paragraph mention about the misogyny becoming apparent in women's health care issues at the state legislative level. A FMC was compelled to terminate a pregnancy because contraception failed during casual sex with two guys. It was bad enough not knowing who "did it", but she also wanted nothing to do with them beyond that carnal moment. It forced her to travel out of state for the procedure and the story got very interesting from there with lots of discussion about consequential health issues and no further mention of the political side. This starts in Off Campus 04 Pt. 03.

Religious morality, an oxymoron if there ever was one, is a favorite conflict generator of mine.

In a future and the last installment of this multi-part story there's development around a minor F character who is noted to be conservatively religious, but tolerant of the main characters' sexual antics... until there was a sudden change of heart attributed to pressure from "her pastor", no denomination mentioned. Echoing real life to a degree, the MMC and his FMC lawyer did some digging and found the pastor was trying to deflect attention from his own very dirty laundry. The MC's were sympathetic to the church's frequent issues with pastoral leadership, as well as the minor character's concerns. MMC even quoted Scripture, to the F character's surprise, to impart learned knowledge and not knee-jerk ignorance. IOW, very gentle and understanding treatment, without passing judgment beyond the miscreant preacher.

The entire story has a light nondenominational spiritualism thread, the "spirit guide" a wise but horny bastard, asexual at that. It "likes to watch". LOL

 

[ChloeTzang]

So long as you don’t suggest that bitches who cheat on their abusive husbands shouldn’t be burnt, then you should be fine.

Em

Well, I burnt the abusive ex of the heroine's older sister once.....it was a lot of fun. Except for him, of course....
https://literotica.com/s/halloween-in-the-cemetery

And I go to politics now and then, but it's usually snide asides rather than anything overtly political. The same with politics. Where any of my heroines are religious, it's usually a veneer of Catholicism, that being my own background....