The humanizing effects of sex
In the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam and Eve, you can eat any fruit in this Garden, except the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
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In the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam and Eve, you can eat any fruit in this Garden, except the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
Throughout the entire Bible, one cannot keep but notice that to know someone ‘is to have sex with him or her.’
Photograph courtesy of unsplash/romina farias
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways of discussing the effects or consequences of sex on the human psyche. But, what we are going to talk about in this article is probably the least known or accepted belief.
One, which is not normally discussed, is the humanizing effects of sex. I mean, sex can and does make us more human, which is contrary to the common belief that sex dehumanizes an individual.
It struck me as quite interesting that from the very beginning of Creation, sex had always been associated with knowledge, the ability to discern good from bad, truth from falsehood.
In the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam and Eve, you can eat any fruit in this Garden, except the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Since that time, Bible scholars, theologians and thinkers have been debating what God meant that tree to be. Is it a real tree or is it merely symbolic? Obviously, it is symbolic because there is no such tree as the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Some Biblical scholars have argued that it referred to sex. Adam and Eve were not aware of good and evil until they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Here is, then, the first hint of the relationship between sex and knowledge.
Throughout the entire Bible, one cannot help but notice that “to know” someone “is to have sex with him or her.” “And he knew her” in the Bible meant he had sexual intercourse with her.
There is a strong belief among highly primitive people that to have sex is “to know” that person well. In some isolated societies, the traditional practice is to have a male visitor sleep with the wife of the chief or head of that society. To refuse was considered an insult.
The belief that having sex has a humanizing effect can be found in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, which is believed to have been written 1,500 years before Homer’s Odyssey.
Gilgamesh is described as being two-thirds divine and one-third human. He was also known as one of the Kings.
In the jungle, Gilgamesh met Enkidu, a wild man, who lived among the animals of the forest. He was hairy and acted like a wild animal.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu fought with each other to the death. And at last, was defeated by Gilgamesh. They brought a prostitute to Enkidu to sleep with him. After having sex with her, the animals avoided Enkidu and ran away from him when he approached them.
“Why do you still want to be with the animals?” asked the prostitute. “You are a man now.” They washed him, cut his hair from his body and showed him the way of humans.
Here is one classic example of the humanizing effect of having sex. He became a man. When he tried to approach his former animal friends, they ran away from him.
“Why do you still want to be with them?” asked the prostitute. “You are a man now.” And Enkidu understood what had happened to him. The humanizing effect of having sex is well-illustrated here.
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