If there was ever a year when we need to celebrate sexuality at Beltane it’s this year. Not because that’s how our pre-Christian ancestors celebrated it, but because it’s what we need here and now.
For our ancestors, Beltane was one of the four fire festivals. The emphasis was on driving livestock between two fires for cleansing and protection. In this post from 2019, Jason Mankey outlines how Beltane became a celebration of sex and sexuality in the mid-20th century.
In short, blame it on Robert Graves and his problematic work The White Goddess, first published in 1948.
That it was ahistorical doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful and helpful. That’s how myths work. Sometimes they’re based on historical truth. Other times they’re based on something we need to be true and telling stories about it helps make it true.
The escape from the repressive sexual mores of the Victorian Era that began in the early 1900s was put on hold by the Great Depression and World War II. Graves’ work was one part of what restarted that movement and led to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. It helped establish Paganism as a sex-positive religion. In the words of “The Charge of the Goddess” (which has many authors – Doreen Valiente deserves the bulk of the credit for the version we have today) “all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.”
Sex is good. Not just because it can be procreative, but because it brings pleasure, and pleasure is good and helpful and necessary. And so Beltane became the preeminent time to celebrate sex and its pleasures.
“Sex positive” requires consent culture
As happens with anything pleasurable, some people took things too far.
“Sex positive” means that everyone should have the types and quantities of sex that are right for them, with other consenting adults who want the same things. More than a few people (some Pagan, some not) twisted that into “everybody should have more sex, and everybody should have more sex with me.”
We are in the early stages of building a true consent culture. In a consent culture, an enthusiastic “yes” means “yes” and anything else means “no.” Consent culture is built on a foundation of respect, where we view everyone first as a sovereign person and not as a potential sex partner.
[For more on this, read Pagan Consent Culture – Building Communities of Empathy and Autonomy, edited by Christine Hoff Kraemer and Yvonne Aburrow. I have an essay in it, but I get no royalties – just the satisfaction of knowing some good ideas are being read.]
Additionally, much of the sex being celebrated at Beltane – mostly symbolically – has been cisgender, heteronormative, and binary. The chalice-and-blade Great Rite is beautiful and powerful, but what does it mean to a gay couple? Or a polyamorous triad? Where do trans people fit into all this? What about asexual and demisexual people? The Pagan community has finally begun to address this with books such as Outside the Charmed Circle: Exploring Gender & Sexuality in Magical Practice by Misha Magdalene, but we still have a long way to go.
I was wrong in 2020
Three years ago – at the beginning of the pandemic, at the strictest of the lockdowns – I wrote The End of Beltane as “The Sexy Holiday”. I covered the problems described above, and pointed out that the idea of Beltane as a time of massive orgies in the woods is almost entirely fantasy – a fantasy that sets unrealistic expectations and pushes people into sex they don’t really want.
All that was true then and it’s still true now.
But then I wrote:
The war on “sex is natural and good” is over and we won.
I was wrong.
This war is nowhere near over.
We’re fighting battles for reproductive rights we thought were settled 50 years ago. We’re fighting for the rights of trans people to simply exist. We’re fighting to keep authoritarian fundamentalists from outlawing drag and other expressions of gender non-conformity.
Think they’re going to stop there? Think you’re safe because you’re cis and straight and use protection every time? Guess again.
Democrats took control of the Michigan state legislature last year, and they’re cleaning up some old laws. The Michigan Senate just voted to repeal a 1931 law that criminalized men and women living together if they’re not married. The law is unenforceable, so you’d think removing it would be uncontroversial. Still, 9 Senators (out of 38) voted to retain it. All of them were Republicans. One of them said “This law … was passed because it was better for society, and particularly for children.”
Prior to Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, oral sex between straight couples was illegal in 18 states. Prior to Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, birth control was illegal in 26 states. In his Dobbs concurrence, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called for these rulings to be overturned.
The anti-sex fundamentalists will not stop until they control every aspect of sexuality and gender expression in this country.
“But what about the children?”
Every time someone attempts to push a cultural boundary, someone who’s afraid of change screams “but what about the children?” Every time.
When we see someone arrested for molesting children, many times it’s a pastor or a priest or a politician. It’s never a drag queen. But nobody’s trying to outlaw Sunday School, because it’s not really about the children. “Protect the children” attempts to manipulate people’s innate sense of protectiveness toward the most vulnerable members of our society into maintaining the status quo at any expense.
Which is not to say that everything is suitable for everyone. It isn’t. But protecting the innocence of young children is one thing – denying teenagers the information they need to deal with life is quite another. And acknowledging the existence and affirming the dignity of LGBTQ people and relationships is appropriate and necessary at every age. Ron DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” law is insulting and harmful.
What age boundaries are appropriate is a complicated question and one that varies among individual young people. Using the law to set the same boundaries for everyone needlessly restricts the many for the preferences of a few. The same people who are whining about “parental rights” need to exercise some parental responsibility. If you take your kids to the Folsom Street Fair, don’t be surprised when they ask some uncomfortable questions. That doesn’t mean the Folsom Street Fair shouldn’t exist.
To be clear: I affirm and support maintaining the age of consent at 18, with appropriate exceptions to prevent criminalizing teenagers being teenagers. But the answer to “what about the children?” is “take care of your own children and stay out of other people’s business.”
So, what do we do now?
I’m not scheduling an orgy for May 1 and I’m not suggesting you do either. Though if you can and want to do it, great.
I’m less concerned with creating a spectacle and more concerned with affirming what we know is good and true and right, in our celebrations, in our rituals, and in our conversations.
Affirm that sex is good. Sex isn’t wicked or sinful or shameful. Sex is good and right and healthy. Yes, sex is Nature’s way of tricking us into reproducing but that’s not all it’s good for, any more than we should shun delicious and varied foods because they’re not necessary to keep us alive.
Celebrate consensual sex. The only ethical sex is consensual sex, and the only consensual sex is sex that begins with a clear, unambiguous, fully-informed, enthusiastic “yes!” Anything that involves coercion, manipulation, or force is unethical and should not be done. This isn’t complicated – it’s just not what those who think they’re entitled to other people’s bodies and intimacy want to hear.
Affirm trans and gender non-conforming people. Trans and gender-nonconforming people are on the front lines right now. They need and deserve the support of every person of good will. If you don’t want to support them because it’s the right thing to do, support them because the Ron DeSantises of the world will be coming for you sooner or later.
Include sexual minorities. Whatever you do, include your lesbian, gay, and bisexual friends and neighbors. Include demisexuals and asexuals/aromantics. Include the polyamorous and those who are “temporarily unpartnered.” Make sure your celebrations are more than just cisgender and heteronormative.
Resacralizing sex
We live in a much more accepting and inclusive time than most of our ancestors, even though we are still fighting battles we thought were over (or at least, I thought they were over). But for all that we’ve gained and learned over the past century or so, sex remains mysterious. It’s more than evolution’s way of getting us to reproduce. It’s more than simple pleasure. Sex forces us to expose our vulnerabilities in order to manifest our desires.
Sex is sacred and holy. Not in some evangelicals-lecturing-to-teenagers “save yourself for marriage” way, but in a way that quite literally produces ecstasy. Sex is worthy of myths and rituals and celebrations.
As with all that is sacred and holy, you have to experience it for yourself, in the ways that are right for you. Those who experience it differently from you aren’t wrong, they’re just different.
So this Beltane, I hope you can celebrate sex in whatever way is right for you, with as many (or as few) people as is right for you – and for them. Remind yourself and everyone else that sex is good and holy, and that the authoritarians who want to control it are fighting against the fundamental rights of people, and they’re fighting against Nature.
Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices, for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
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