So it is currently the start of two holy months if not more which begs the question? how people do who follow religious beliefs work the fetish into their daily lives. Ramadan which is currently happening right now forbidden sexual practises of any kind for the duration unless it is involuntarily but with burping being a part of natural life would such practises not just from Muslims but other groups that see self-pleasure as sinful also have issues with such sexual deviations. For context I am a former catholic
1 Like
I don’t know. To be honest, this fetish was one of the (but not the only) reasons I left my faith. Because having this fetish within a religious framework meant one of two things, either a). the fetish is a positive trait given by God as an element of the self or b). this fetish is a negative trait given by Satan to tempt one into sexual deviancy. These answers confused me, and neither of them particular made sense to me in a larger picture scenario. And since the Bible doesn’t really ever given advice tied to these niche sexualities, it can be tough for religious folk to reckon with fetishes. I’ll say that if you are religious that’s a conversation you need to have with your God. I don’t know how one would apply this on a larger scale since organized religion is kind of a scam. But with that being said, it really is just a person to person question for know until churches at large develop concrete positions on it. I would agree that the perspective of a religious person with the fetish on this issue would definitely be interesting.
7 Likes
All right, you asked for it, so you’re going to get a lengthy response, haha. Let’s see.
God gives us free will, our perceived blessings or curses are no more His fault than a parent can be blamed for their child developing into a criminal despite nothing but love and care being the foundation of the family’s upbringing. Exceptions to every rule, sure, but … I digress.
Think of it this way, if you’ll allow some further digression, a gross over simplification and an all-too brief history lesson, but hear me out. The Western world got a raw deal with the fallout and the fragmentation of the Roman Catholic church, its stranglehold of power on the Empire, its corruption, the onset of the Crusades, justified or not, etc. And then the further fragmentation of the Anglican and Protestant denominations, themselves fragments, were also raw deals, down into the puritanical pioneers that founded the US and, fast-forwarded to present day, the most fragmented sects; practices as questionable and varied as Mormonism, dubious at best, all the way to straight “speaking-in-tongues-and-flailing-about-preaching-are-you-sure-this-isn’t-demonic-possession”-style southern bible belt shenanigans.
Long story short, people’s perception of what religion even is or isn’t has been radically warped beyond all recognition from the original intent, but this happens with everything. Things are entropic, the universe degrades, etc. Perhaps this, too, is a mercy, in the long run.
Throughout each of these spiritual “games of telephone”, things would be lost, as in Chinese whispers (that’s the other name of the aforementioned children’s game). The message might gradually morph, or, accidentally, be completely different. People would often disagree on how morality could best be practised, how life could best be lived, the nature of faith or the truth, what whole swathes of scripture even mean, attributing too much importance on some things, but not enough on others, the list goes on and on. The obsession with an empirical worldview didn’t help matters, but that’s beyond the purview of what you asked.
The importance attached to chastity is one such aspect that, I believe, is wildly misconstrued, not in the sense that it isn’t important, but in that its importance is misunderstood on a fundamental level. The saying about throwing stones in glass houses comes to mind. Consider that no one is free from lust; that should be wildly apparent if you look outside your home or engage in any public venue for any length of time, this forum especially, haha. But plenty of people can and do finger wag all the same, often belligerently, to the point of the criticism meaning nothing because they themselves don’t fully understand why the opposite of lustfulness, chastity, is such a virtue, they only know to criticize its perceived absence. Hypocrisy is a whole other realm of discussion, however, and Christ makes it clear how harshly you’ll be judged if you push anyone away from Him.
If you consider that the highest form of love is self-sacrificial love, then abstaining from self-gratification, pleasure, is a demonstration of self-sacrifice, and therefore, God’s love. That’s it. No more, no less. But that’s a pretty massive rabbithole too. Is it nearly impossible to do for most people? Absolutely. But that’s why it’s a virtue. It’s why Mary, the mother of God, is the queen of all saints, she was a virgin. It’s emblematic of purity, innocence, discipline; essentially, maintaining the pureness of childhood while exemplifying the wisdom of adulthood. A symbol, an ideal.
If you consider that monks or nuns and other such ascetics, saints or not, are required to take vows of chastity, their desire to be more like the mother of God should be plain, but also consider what this implies.
You are sacrificing your ability to have children by being a monk. There is a nobility to that, at least in the sense that you are giving up your potential future happiness of having a family. But having a family is in itself another kind of sacrifice, of course, one that comes with its own unique responsibilities and difficulties. The reasons for complete chastity being considered purer or “higher” than bringing more life into the world might seem strange initially, but for one, it’s probably harder, and for two, through the lens of life being characterized by suffering, consider the following:
If you’re not careful or a poor parent, your child could bring about more undue suffering than is absolutely necessary, “necessary” suffering in this case I suppose meaning being finite and mortal in the physical universe.
To this end, marriage is often also misconstrued as being merely a legal union, but it’s a sacrament, and a sacrament is an agreement between you and God. Marriage’s primary aim is to sanctify the “base human animal”, if you will; to fuse two incomplete people into something better than either of them alone and to solidify a foundation to have a family within.
Anyway, these are all lofty ideals that very few of us observe properly or attend to with sufficient care, as evidenced by the state of the world at any given moment throughout history, haha.
Now, to your question, I don’t “work the fetish” into my daily life. It simply is a part of who I am, and my unique brand of nature/nurture brought me to where I stand with it. Remember, “to sin” is an archery term that simply means “to miss”. It’s not nearly so readily dichotomized or black and white as people often make these difficult subjects to be. But such is life! You have to make your own peace with whether you think the fundamental nature of the universe is good or bad, or whether the immaterial begets the material, because that’s the Word of God, that’s what faith is.
I choose to believe that said fundamental nature is good, despite its hardships, and despite any cruelty you might perceive as being slighted in your direction, it’s all just going toward your salvation.
My fetish isn’t inherently positive, it’s just a quirk of who I am, and an awfully small part in the grand scheme. My fetish isn’t inherently negative because only I can fail to be all that I can be, chaste, in the case of masturbation, and it actually does seemingly provide some level of libido placidity that I don’t notice my peers are able to tap in to or otherwise enjoy. I mean, I like tits and ass and basic female sex traits as much as the next guy, but having my absolute kryptonite being something so silly, so innocuous as belching is actually kind of liberating in the sense that typical displays of sexuality or gratuitous marketing don’t have nearly as much an effect on me as they might if I didn’t have a fetish. Or maybe that’s just some undiagnosed 'tism, who knows, haha.
The few people I’ve confided to that I have the fetish in my day-to-day life always laugh, not meanly or out of spite, but just because it is just that funny. I always say, “It’s proof God has a good sense of humour”.
“Churches at large” don’t need to develop concrete positions on it, it’s pretty clear why you ought to try your best not to just, y’know, do the sexual equivalent of spoon-feeding yourself soft-serve ice cream for hours on end. Too much of anything is bad for you, the internet only exacerbates, well, how often a motherfucker can masturbate.
And to your comment of organized religion being a scam, “organized religion” is a bit of a tautology. It’s redundant. Religion is really any organized human activity at all, it’s usually just a matter of what you put in the highest place and whether you’re being honest with yourself or not.
tl;dr
Don’t blame a parent (God) for the poor behaviour of the parent’s children (us) once they’re of voting age and “sound” mind, haha.