MATH#8

Letter from the Editor

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

Psalm 34:4-5 New International Version

My first love was a skater boy named Billy. He was artistic, funny, and Mormon. I remember sneaking touches under a blanket while pretending to watch a movie with his parents. And despite my awkward but earnest attempts at seduction, Billy was steadfast in his chastity. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to have desire and faith pulling him in opposite directions.

At one point in my multi-pronged campaign of romance and seduction, I visited the library in search of something about love in the Book of Mormon. I thought if I could find a few sentences validating how we felt about each other, acting on our desires would be permissible. No such luck.

As a headstrong teen from an Agnostic household I had some shame around sex yet privacy was paramount. Everything back then seemed so ambiguous and openness wasn’t an option. I didn’t totally understand what sex would be, but I knew I wanted it. I had discovered how to masturbate and enjoyed it a lot. It was very important for me to keep that part of myself private even though I didn’t think it was wrong.

Sexuality is so often associated with vice, lust, obscenity, and indecency. It’s unfortunate that the flesh is vilified. With guilt-inducing judgments of “sexually impure thoughts,” and paranoia-inducing images like “God cries when you masturbate,” we are conditioned to carry the weight of judgment and discouraged from developing an essential part of our humanity. In sexuality, institutions perceive a threat; an unmanageable desire that pulls us toward disorder. Yet denial of these parts of ourselves leaves us broken and vulnerable to exploitation. Churches, governments, and corporations channel and redirect sexual desire to support their interests at the expense of the individual.

These last few months, I’ve watched as presidential candidates reimagine how we govern. Some of the ideas presented on the national stage would be unimaginable just a few years ago. And I am reminded that we are forever shaping our society and the rules by which we live. We’ve outgrown many of the organizing codes of the past. Yet many of these old ideas are carrying over into new spaces like social media where some nipples are permitted while others are not.

So what about the individuals that make up governing institutions that established and enforce these oppressive values? Or let’s look even further back to 300 AD. Can you imagine what life was like then? Do you think they could imagine what our world would be like today? St. Augustine was influential then, and his views continue to shape our ideas of sex and shame 1,719 years later. In his time, Aurelius Augustinus had a rich and varied sex life. But he was conflicted over it. His inability to quash his sexual desire and dedicate himself fully to his monastic pursuits enraged him. As a solution, he committed to the notion that sex is a dangerous thing to be suppressed and controlled. In response to his inability to master his sexual desire, he went against conventional wisdom and successfully transformed the story of Adam, Eve, and Original Sin into a literal recounting for which we must all repent.

How would the world be different if St. Augustine, and those who continue his legacy, could embrace sex as an essential aspect of who we are and recognize that pleasure is good for us? Extensive research confirms that sex–including erotic touch, masturbation, ejaculation, and orgasm–is nourishing. Maintaining an intimate knowledge of our bodies and remaining receptive
to the types of pleasure we long for is essential for a complete understanding of ourselves.

Wherever we land on the spectrum from highly sexual to not super interested in sex, sexual energy is a powerful current running through all of us. It connects us from birth, creating and animating everyone. Within the mystery, power, and depth of our sexuality is a better understanding of who we are. Through it we can live more authentically, enacting a positive influence on how we treat one another, and ultimately shaping the social norms we live by. Conversely, pushing sexual pleasure away, into obscurity and shame, will allow for more exploitation and violence to thrive. Repression of something so essential is dangerous. Leaving it unexplored and misrepresented will do no good. Bringing sex into the light of day as an indelible aspect of life is how we can grow together.

MacKenzie Peck
Founder & Editor in Chief
Math Magazine