The History of Sex: South of France -- A Fundamental Itch -- (Chap. III, Pt. 3)

Whether it's ancient pagans or modern eco-puritans trying to purge the planet of humanity, virtually every social system has tried to control people's bedroom behavior in one way or another.

Conspiracy theorists argue that this is a plot by The Man to harness the Life Force, but I reckon the urge to regulate sexuality is a fundamental itch.

By definition, intercourse is one area of life where the private affects the public: sexual unions and the children they produce (or don't) inevitably have an impact on their communities.

THE STICKING POINT

As a high-concept religion with the celibate son of a virgin as its role model, Christianity was always going to have a hard time reconciling the physical and the spiritual.

And all too often sex was the literal sticking point.

A zealot could give up all his earthly possessions and go live in the desert for fifteen years just like the founder of Christian monasticism (and possibly the first eco-warrior) but, being a social animal, he would still crave carnal companionship: 'He who wishes to live in solitude is delivered from three conflicts: hearing, speech and sight,' concluded St. Anthony of the Desert after his years in the wilderness.

'There is only one conflict for him, and that is with fornication.'

The reclusive Father of All Monks diligently battled 'the itch of youth' and 'the demon of fornication' for decades; for his troubles, he somehow wound up being named the patron saint of infectious diseases. 

The Temptation of St. Anthony by Hieronymous Bosch...

... and Salvador Dali's take on the theme

However, St. Anthony's ascetic example did spread to other young men; most notably, a wild child who, for better or worse, became one of Christianity's most influential thinkers on sex.

Though he was always religiously inclined, the early years of St. Augustine were anything but saintly.

Born into a Christian family in North Africa during the decline of the Roman Empire, the young scholar fell in with the Manicheans, members of an Eastern sect who believed that the human body and the material world were innately evil, having been created by a god of darkness to imprison the spiritual god of light.

For the Manichean Elect, celibacy was the way to salvation—the idea being that they would abstain from condemning other unborn souls to flesh-and-blood prisons.

As much as he liked what he heard, though, Augustine couldn't bring himself to practice what they preached: 'Lord, give me chastity and continence,' he prayed, 'but not yet.'