While equality is a social good we all strive for, in the bedroom (or wherever you do it) playing with power dynamics makes for much more interesting fantasies…and realities.
And so we find fantasies about spanking, strong alpha males, werewolves, dominatrixes, BDSM, Daddies, etc… all play on feelings around authority and often use role reversal by bringing desire into a space where there is often fear.
Seemingly all corners of the erotic universe are being explored in print as authors are fearlessly shining erotic light into corners that probably needed it. Collectively these authors are making erotic energy normal and acceptable.
But one of the most impressive displays of social control is in religion, and in the Western world the Judeo-Christian expression especially. While an argument can be made about its net value, it is inarguably a tremendous motivating force for a huge number of people. And few would argue that while religion and love get along just fine, religion and sex are usually pitted against each other. And I think few would argue that that war leaves many with a mixed message about sex and its place in their lives and the world.
And yet beyond the stray priest fetish found among naughty Catholics I haven’t seen much erotica bringing sex and religion together for the sake of turn on and for the sake of a larger reconciliation between these two prime movers in our culture.
Enter my novel “Genesis Deflowered” which modifies the classic King James Bible’s version of Genesis, which is where our sexual theology springs from, by turning it into erotica. But this is erotica written in the same terse, poetic and chaste language as found in the Bible.
Making some of the nearly five hundred implied sexual acts in Genesis into much more suggestive and descriptive acts does indeed play with feelings around Biblical authority and by bringing sex into what has always been the hallmark of chastity.
But beyond that, writing erotica ,in super stylized Elizabethan English, to give a voice to sexually disempowered women in the Bible is another process of normalizing sexual desire. By giving names to the nameless women (Noah’s wife) and agency to those who seem to be on the cusp of showing it (Leah, the hated wife of Jacob) is critical to making the Bible a sexually empowering text as opposed to the traditionally received one.
“Genesis Deflowered” makes the characters who everyone has heard of into human beings because they actually show human desire. And now ,suddenly, the Bible, which most just pass over, can now be read for the sexy parts.
Never had that chance at Sunday School, did you?
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And Eliezer said unto Rebekah, Lo, ye are virgin, and must be kept such; and yet the angel of the LORD said I must taste thee for dates, and figs, and of milk, and of honey; so that thy sweetness may be a blessing unto Isaac, and Abraham, and the LORD. I pray thee let me taste of thy red secrets, so as a servant I may serve thee, and my master Abraham. And Rebekah did recline, and had the servant taste of her mouth; and of her red secrets did he taste her. And he did delight in the taste of figs and dates upon her; and he did rejoice in the flavour of her honey; and he did weep at her beauty. And the servant Eliezer brought Rebekah to the garden; and then he left her for sleep. And they rose up in the morning, and he said unto Laban and Bethuel; Send me away unto my master. And her brother and her mother said, Let the damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten; after that she shall go. And he said unto them, Hinder me not, seeing the LORD hath prospered my way; send me away that I may go to my master. And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire at her mouth. And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go; For Eliezer has been good to me, and brought joys to me. Thus such a man must serve a man who is even greater than he. Lo, that man who the servant serves must be of rare stature; and I will serve that greater man. And I will go indeed for an angel of the LORD said unto Eliezer that my red secrets must taste of dates and figs, and of milk and honey; and my secrets, by my troth, taste of dates and figs and of honey. And so shall my sweetness serve the sweetness unto the LORD and Abraham and Isaac. And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.
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Where many see the Bible as the pathway to Heaven, others say it should be covered in a brown paper bag because it is so, so filthy.
There are hundreds of sex acts implied in the first book of the bible (and sadly none initiated by a woman). How has nobody ever described how each of them would have played out in biblical language?
If the writers and translators of the Bible had been a little less prudish we might have an entirely different relationship between sex and religion than we have now. In Genesis there is sex before marriage, threesomes, incest, group sex, kinky fetish cuckolding, gay sex and more.
Isn’t it time that you read the Bible for the dirty parts?
Using the seminal King James Bible in its Elizabethan English as spring board,”Genesis Deflowered” makes the beginning of the Bible come out as a sexy, readable and fun erotic novel.
“Genesis Deflowered “: equal parts holy scripture and blaspheming scandal
Available from:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble
Kobobooks.com
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About the Author
Matthew Stillman is a born and bred New Yorker. With the exception of college he has always lived in Manhattan. After scoring a BA in Comparative Literature from SUNY Geneseo, he got into programming at Food Network and developed shows like Iron Chef, Good Eats and many, many others. He also started improvising with the Upright Citizens Brigade shortly after they first arrived in New York, and he still does.
“The End of Poverty?” was his first film. He conceived of it, wrote the first treatment, co-produced it and spoke at the UN four times about it after it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and went to 40 festivals around the world.
After a lifetime of a making out with literature, inner spiritual work from different traditions, creativity and play. He has written “Genesis Deflowered”. It is his first full length book. And, of course, he started with a genre that he may well have just made up – Biblical Erotica written in Elizabethan English.
He is married to an exceptional woman from Sheffield in the North of England. He blogs at stillmansays.com where he writes about his ongoing creativity experiment in Union Square. And you can find him on twitter at @stillmansays
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free ebook to the person in the comments who confesses their greatest blasphemy.
Lucy Felthouse is the judge.