America Is Ringing The Wrong Shame Bell

Op-Ed: Bridget Lewison

Since news of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s extracurricular activities surfaced, many Americans have been Googling “cuckolding” — but plenty others already know about it.

Kink transcends political, economical and social lines. You will find it in every town across America, although it’s obviously more celebrated and embraced in some places more than others. (See: Folsom Street Fair.)

My personal introduction to kink was the groundbreaking HBO series, “Real Sex” (1990-2009). Due to a strict Catholic upbringing and feelings of shame over anything sexual, I began watching the series in secret as a sophomore in college. It was my first exposure to people being celebrated for their many colorful kinks. I was equally fascinated and jealous by their freedom, but I kept my thoughts and desires to myself, even through the entirety of my first marriage.

Then, I finally began to explore.

I researched. I wrote. I even briefly appeared on an episode of “The New Ricki Lake Show” about people spicing up their love lives. I also came out as queer during all of this. Kink ultimately helped me shed a lot of the shame I had been carrying around for a lifetime.

 

 

As long as it’s consenting, safe, and legal, nobody should be shamed for what turns them on; not you, not me and not Jerry Falwell Jr. The only shame he should feel is for being a hypocrite. As an evangelical leader and president of one of the world’s largest non-profit universities, he made quite a nice living dictating what people could and could not do with their bodies, expressly prohibiting pornography, premarital sex, and homosexuality.

What Falwell allegedly participated in involved his wife. I’m no Biblical scholar, but I can find no mention of the Good Book speaking against sex between spouses. That it involved the presence of another man doesn’t necessarily mean there was any homosexual activity. In fact, much of the research I’ve done on cuckolding indicates it’s mostly heterosexual activity. The interaction also generally is defined by female domination. In my opinion, this is the biggest source of shaming. The word “cuck” is a common social media insult intended to emasculate its target. This pejorative only perpetuates the condemnation of female sexuality, and it needs to stop.

Cue John 8:7.