While Muslim fanatics commit wholesale murder expecting Allah will reward them with a multitude of virgins, not a few Christians find fault with Jesus saying that those going to heaven will be like the angels of God where they “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” No sex; prompting not a few to take the view of Huckleberry Finn who decided if Tom Sawyer wasn’t going to heaven he would choose “that other place.”

Someone just sent me an email with an article proclaiming the health benefits to men gazing at pictures of beautiful nude young women. While I appreciated the thoughtfulness of this correspondent knowing there was no prurient motive involved, it did cause me to revisit some of my thoughts about the theology of “original sin,” something that motivated writers like Hawthorne and so many others.

Women often do, of course, trade on their sex in order to make a living, and in some cases a better living. One older woman, an ex-bartender, when I asked about the difficulties peculiar to women tending bar, told me she had discovered that her tips increased by at least ten per cent when she “flashed a little thigh” and wore a blouse which exposed a better view of her physical endowments. Being a normal man still in possession of an active libido and good eyesight, I haven’t failed to notice the enhancement of a bar’s atmosphere and income by attractive women bartenders using their own “equipment” to encourage the predisposition of us men in this regard.

I hasten to point out the fact that I have heard nothing in the bars that I haven’t heard in the churches or other more “respectable” environments. The only real difference is the descriptive language that often accompanies the speaker’s topic (And, of course, the churches lack the ambience of tobacco and alcohol fumes). Whether it be politics, religion, philosophy, men/women relationships the subject matter, regardless the environment in which it is discussed, has a general sameness. People are disgusted, angry and frustrated with the same things; the thoroughly corrupt political leadership, the way men and women treat each other, the failure of our courts and schools, etc., etc.

But there is a primary difference, apart from the language used, in the honesty of the discussions in the bars as opposed to those more respectable environs inhabited by religious people. People in the bars are far more transparent in their feelings about things, and not as guarded in trying to be something they are not (otherwise known as hypocrisy).

For all the Sunday School dropouts it is difficult in these “enlightened” times to understand how sex could have ever been construed as “original sin.” The church and artists having enshrined Eve and the apple as the progenitor of this, writers throughout history together with Hollywood have had a lot of fun parodying the concept; for example the film “Inherent the Wind” where Spencer Tracy is skewering Fredric March over all the “begetting” in the Bible equaling what “must have been a whole lot of sinning going on back then.” It was when Tracy asks March what he thought of sex and March replies “In what spirit is this question asked?” that, together with some of its other weaknesses, the film loses much of its credibility dealing with serious issues.

But when some theologians go on at length debating the kind of fruit on that tree with which the serpent tempted Eve, why take them seriously? What difference the kind of fruit? That isn’t the point of the story. The point of the story is that Eve succumbed to temptation and persuaded Adam to go along with her in disobedience to God. Then having eaten and their eyes opened as the serpent had said, they saw themselves naked. Ah, hah! Now we have sex as “original sin.” And from that time on there has been “a whole lot of sinning going on.” After all, Adam was a man and Eve was a woman; no amount of fig leaves or animal skins would suffice to obscure this.

Whatever the facts resulting in the story about that tree of knowledge, of Adam and Eve having once tasted its fruit and become as gods themselves, “enlightened” knowing both good and evil, the curse was pronounced and sex has been equated with it ever since. And as Thoreau said of economics, the subject of sex may lend itself to much levity but cannot so easily be disposed.

However, notwithstanding the many theologians and their view of the matter the point of equating sex with original sin does have real merit. Take away the pleasure men derive from looking at beautiful nude young women, the pleasure both men and women derive from sex, how women are forced to trade on their sex pandering to men, how the value of women has always been based on youth and beauty and perhaps wars would cease. Whatever it is that makes sex such a predominating factor in the suffering of humankind, it remains a predominating factor. Whatever lies behind the stories in Genesis including that of fallen angels, the very unfairness of life, that not all women are beautiful, not all men are handsome, that we grow old and wrinkled without losing the urge for sex with younger people is imminently unfair to our species, something that seems to lend truth to sex being a curse, of being original sin in some fashion beyond our understanding.

And there is the matter of lust, something easily equated with sin. While beautiful women have always been the inspiration of poets, artists, and writers, this very beauty is easily debased when romance turns to lust. After all, it wasn’t a first accidental glance at Bathsheba that resulted in adultery and murder on the part of David; it was the second, long and lingering look. And who knows but what Bathsheba planned it that way?

While I believe in Intelligent Design, I also believe there may be a pantheon of gods accounting for good and evil in conflict, that there may in fact be both children of God and children of the Devil and the Golden Rule distinguishes between them. But this is only a belief on my part, and one that considers there is no way of knowing what cannot be known. In the meantime, the Bible continues to be my primary textbook in attempts at making sense of so much prevailing evil in the world, including the many lunacies and evil connected with sex such as the monsters preying on children, and in far too many cases men being predators and women their prey. These in particular sure strike me as being “diabolical” both in origin and in practice, as well as the way religions, particularly that of Islam treat women as of little value compared to men.

However, that women suffer the most from their sex such as childbearing and a menstrual cycle, that men dominate women by physical strength and the making of wars is a reminder to me that apart from the failure of Adam and his blaming both Eve and God for his failure there may be some basis for the curse. In the meantime I’ll continue to suffer my part of the curse that comes with being a man trying to make sense of so much seeming lunacy.