(A recent conversation between my wife Catherine ["Cat"] and me.)
Me: So I’m thinking about doing a blog post exploring the idea of Jesus on the one hand being fully man, but on the other hand not having a sex drive.
Cat: Oh?
Me: Yeah. Because how can Jesus be fully man, see, yet not have a sex drive? And if he does has a sex drive, then how can he be sinless? Matthew 5:27 says that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. But no man in the world (who isn’t gay) doesn’t look at at least some women lustfully.
Cat: Uh-huh.
Me: What? Don’t you think it’s interesting? That according to Christians Jesus has to be sinless—yet, by the Bible’s definition, can’t be, since being fully man means that he necessarily and regularly commits adultery? If Jesus was fully man, then he must have lusted. And if he lusted, then he couldn’t have been sinless. Don’t you think that’s at least vaguely interesting?
Cat: Not really.
Me: Of course it is! It’s core to the whole Christian conception of Jesus being fully man but without sin.
Cat: Look. You don’t lust after your sister, do you?
Me: Ew. No.
Cat: And you don’t lust after your mom, do you?
Me: No.
Cat: Because they’re not potential mates for you. That’s why you don’t have those feelings for them.
Me: True.
Cat: Well, that’s the same way Jesus saw all women. Just like no sane father can lust after his own daughter, Jesus couldn’t lust after any woman. Because to him every woman was his daughter. Literally.
Me: So there’s no psychological place for him to experience lust.
Cat: None. Plus, he’s God. All-knowing. All powerful. Immortal. The alpha and omega of all creation. Not exactly a suitable match for any woman. Talk about an unequal relationship.
John: So no mate for Jesus.
Cat: No mate for Jesus.
John: And he remains sinless.
Cat: Exactly.
Me: You know, I probably would have reached that same conclusion. I’m sure I would have thought of that myself.
Cat: I wonder if I should start my own blog?
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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Hm. I thought that was a completely brilliant and totally plausible interpretation of Jesus’s sexuality, although I agree with the commenters who point out that if Jesus never desired another sexually, then that sort of seems to take away something from his full humanity. If Jesus can understand and have compassion for all my frailties, including hunger and thirst and anger, then I want him to fully empathize with my adolescent crush too.
I think the issue might be, as some have already pointed out, with the distinction between God-given sexual desire and lust. I know from reading this blog previously that John doesn’t actually believe that sexuality is inherently sinful, but I can see how it might be inferred from this particular post. If Adam could say before the fall, “This then is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” to the naked woman set before him, and they were given to one another explicitly for union and communion, then sex is blessed and celebratory, and definitely a central part of the human experience. It celebrates our most intimate and committed connections.
I don’t think of Jesus as being asexual, but rather sort of super-sexual, able to desire really intimate connection with every individual person he encountered, but also able to refrain from objectifying any one of them, or using them for his own gratification, physical or otherwise. Look at his encounter with the Samaritan woman – he SAW her, right to her soul. It’s a very sexually charged conversation in my opinion, but he never takes advantage of her. And it says somewhere in Paul’s letters that husbands should love their wives “as Christ loved the church.” While it would be a little ridiculous to infer that that meant that Jesus had sex with all his followers, it does imply that he sought really intimate connection with people. And I’m not heavily invested in whether Jesus was or was not married, but I could see how if he were seeking connection and commitment with everybody, he might refrain from committing exclusively to one.
Perhaps calling Jesus super-sexual puts me way too far into the weird camp?
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