Morality is for Mortals

BY Kathleen Bradean

Egads. Another Thumper topic. (If you don’t have anything nice to say…) I can imagine what many of my co-bloggers will say about the way religion uses sex and shame to control people, so I’ll leave that in their able hands.

I was raised in a very religious household, but even my parents teased me about how serious I was about religion compared to them. That should tell you how deeply wrapped I was in matters of faith. On my tenth birthday, I faced a moment that forever destroyed my relationship with god, but it didn’t change the fact that I was a believer. I’ve struggled with this ever since.

A couple weeks ago, a fellow writer had a several hours to kill between flights, so I picked him up at the airport. Among the things we talked about as we walked along the beach was god. He told me that he wrote a story about how utterly frightening it would be if there really was a god. I had to agree. And yet…

Rational me says, “You know better than to believe.” Spiritual me just can’t let it go. If anything, I’m just as deeply wrapped around matters of faith as I was when I was young, it’s just that I understand now that it’s an unhealthy relationship of unrequited love. I know I really need to stop this, but I can’t. God will bedevil me until the day I die.

Spirituality, gods and goddesses, and the relationship between humans and gods are recurring themes in my work because I can’t let it go. In my Chaos Magic series, the main characters are gods. In Piquant (Hearteater anthology, not yet released) the narrator regrets his affair with a goddess or she might be a demon. The mistress in She Comes Stars is divine. With all the gods and godesses I've written though, I’ve never equated sex with sin. If anything, the gods I write about are into sex for the pure pleasure of it. They aren’t monogamous. They don’t wait for marriage. They fuck whoever they want to, however they want to. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with their actions, because they’re gods, and gods do whatever the hell they want to. Morality doesn’t even enter their minds.


SHE COMES STARS (Garden of the Perverse) by Kathleen Bradean

I want to worship at the feet of a Goddess.

The ad I posted was that direct.

Her reply was also to the point: “You may bow to Me.”

She stoops to conquer. To her, I’m not subhuman; I’m human. That’s low enough.
She’s divine.

~~

To my eternal damnation, I’ve learned that the catch when it comes to a Goddess is that she is absolutely inhuman, meaning that she is not human and she doesn’t give a damn if I am. So what if it makes me catatonic to leapfrog through human history in search of abasement? If I curl up in a fetal position after she sells my body to the Marquis de Sade, does she care? Oh no. She revives me, pokes me, prods me. She demands, as her green convertible Jaguar roars down the wrong side of the autobahn at three hundred miles per hour, “just what the fuck is your problem anyway?”

You wanted this.

Sure. I wanted this, but I wanted it different, somehow. I wanted to be in control of my domination. I wanted it to be like my jerk-off fantasies. This… This constantly defies my desires, and yet, reveals them in stunning clarity. My Goddess cuts to the heart of my libido, guts it, tacks it up for everyone to see, dissects it, splices, and wallows in it.

~~

“Don’t do it,” she mumbles. “Mistake.”

Mistake? I am the King of Mistakes. I gave my soul to a Goddess.

No one can imagine what it’s like to be so addicted to humiliation that I sob when she chooses to romance with coos and kisses instead of pain. I suffer horrible nagging doubts as her attention wanders away to the pretty boys dancing together in clubs. I have sweating nightmares about boring her. When I sulk, she doesn’t bother to ask what’s wrong, because she doesn’t care. Or maybe it’s just another of her exquisite cruelties. Fear and hope make for tortured nights. Then, as I’m sure it’s over, and I’m hoping she’ll allow me to go mad again rather than exist in sanity without her, she’s inspired to create a fresh hell. She takes me lower, lower, but I’m so relieved that she still wants to test my limits that I kiss her feet and praise her name even when she brands me a heretic and hands me over to the Inquisition.

Don’t tell me about mistakes.
~~