Aug 10 2008
RP) Those Perverted Petunias: Reflections on Flowers, Sex and the Church
Many church-goers claim that non-procreative sex is a sin, yet readily include flowers in their rituals and place of worship. Are they aware that to love flowers is to engage in inter-species pornography?
I admit it: I am a man who loves buds and blossoms of all varieties. And why not? Men are supposedly the over-sexed sex. That’s why we need women to cover their bodies ankle to eyebrow. Otherwise — Watch out! — we’re likely to get aroused. So why wouldn’t I, a man, show interest in gorgeous, albeit vegetative, sex parts?
That’s what flowers are: the genitalia of plants. And get this: flowers, those kinky queens of “god’s kingdom” are hermaphrodites. They go both ways.
Anther is to penis as pollen is sperm as stigma is to vagina as ovule is to ovum. Large petals flamboyantly infused with a rainbow of hues? The flowers’ labia and scrotum.
Don’t tell the fundamentalists. They’ll want to cover all blossoms with fig leaves.
I did a brief stint as an altar boy many years ago. I consider it appropriate that at the Catholic weddings I served, the church was decked-out in flowers. One memorable wedding had the aisles and altar adorned with two dozen huge vases, each crammed full with bright gladiolas. What better to have silently and stunningly screamed at a ceremony about love and mating than SEX!
During the ceremony the groom winked at me, as if I were in on his secret. The secret? He was getting hitched to a pretty woman adorned in white lace. She looked like a daisy in a cloud of baby’s breath. Maybe the groom was signaling me, guess what — little future-groom — there’s going to be some deflowering going on tonight!
Why funerals, too, brazenly display these flashy sexual organs is a bit strange. But only when you think about it. Even after thinking about it, I have no qualms with it. As far as I’m concerned, sex is a beautiful thing, whatever the occasion.
While on the subject of my Catholic upbringing, here’s another confession: Forgive me reader, for I once had a manage-a-trois with a pair of apricot trees. What can I say — it was spring. Although bees and other insects are customarily enticed into playing the role of floral gigolo, I was seduced into it. On a neighborhood stroll years ago my eyes were directed to the small, delicate white flowers of an apricot tree. The whole tree was frosted and smelled honey-sweet. I placed my face within the tree’s branches and inhaled deeply. Three mailboxes further down the street my nose led me around a corner and to another blooming apricot. I admired it as I approached, then promptly pressed my proboscis into it. When I returned home, rather than finding lipstick on my collar, in the mirror I spied a nose-tip speckled with orange pollen.
It was good for me. Was it good for them?
Why are so many people uptight about sex? Talk about a natural activity. Without it, there is no nature. Sure, go ahead and get your undies in a bunch over marital infidelity or unsafe intercourse, like doing it atop a card table. (Or, more importantly, like doing it without protection when protection is called for. And it’s called for most of the time.)
Some people even get wigged-out about spying a body in-the-raw. What’s so dirty about wearing your birthday suit? When it comes to simple nudity, perversion is certainly in the eyes of the beholder.
Why are religions so often anti-sex? Is it because sexual urges and activity strongly remind us of our animal nature? The old school of theology places the “spiritual self” at one end of the spectrum, and the carnal, animalistic self at the other. The old school urges people to deny the real while striving for the imaginary.
Let’s be real. Sex can be fun and satisfying. It can also result in a packaged delivered via UPS (uterine pediatric services). Which is good. But not all the time. As long as people have sufficient intelligence and impulse control so that they don’t do something for short-term pleasure that results in long-term pain, old-school believers should quit flagellating the issue. It’s not going to go away.
Just look around you: birds do it, bees do it, snakes and beavers do it, even trees do it. Nature is an orgy of sexual energy.
And it’s all part of “God’s” creation. That pervert.
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[a version of this post fist appeared in one of my previous blogs, "A Daily Dose of Doubt"]
[...] up, Andrew Bernardin of The Evolving Mind asks: Many church-goers claim that non-procreative sex is a sin, yet readily include flowers in their [...]
The old school urges people to deny the real while striving for the imaginary.
Yes, exactly. I think you’re on to part of it when you talk about creating a spectrum with the animalistic at one end and the civilized/spiritual at the other. I think another component of it has to do with suppressing one’s instincts and desires in favor of following externally decreed rules. What you want is evil, and you should feel guilty about wanting it. If you listen to what we say (and give us your money, sometimes) then maybe you can cleanse yourself of some of that evil. There’s an endless supply of evil to feel guilty about, that way, and it’s a solid mechanism for keeping people in line.