it's important to remember that the ancients' view of sex was entirely opposite from ours today. sex begot new life -- the ultimate miracle -- and miracles could be performed only by a god. the ability of a woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred. a god. intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the human spirit -- male and female -- through which the male could find spiritual wholeness and communion with god. what you saw was not about sex, it was about spirituality. the hieros gamos ritual is not a perversion. it's a deeply sacrosanct ceremony.



for the early church mankind's use of sex to commune directly with god posed a serious threat to the catholic power base. it left the church out of the loop, undermining their self-proclaimed status as the sole conduit to god. for obvious reasons, they worked hard to demonize sex and recast it as a disgusting and sinful act. other major religions did the same.



is it surprising we feel conflicted about sex? our ancient heritage and our very physiologies tell us sex is natural -- a cherished route to spiritual fulfillment -- and yet modern religion decries it as shameful, teaching us to fear our sexual desire as the hand of the devil.

-the da vinci code-