Sexuality

Might religion—and, in particular, the religions that have fostered and flourish in the United States—participate in the constructions of sexual arousal or physical desire? On the one hand, this seems a question with an obviously affirmative answer. Certain sects prescribe erotic formulae for holy relations, and seemingly secular notions of sex are frequently sourced in Puritan origins or Tantric texts. Erotics may be found in American religion, and American religion seems to be ostensible in erotics. Yet this paper considers the sexuality of American religions, the way the specific patterns of religious development in the U.S. may themselves be usefully observed through a theorization of eros. With a focus on denominational competition, charismatic authority, and the thoroughgoing commodity within U.S. religious expansionism, this paper observes the sexuality of certain narrative junctures, ritual proliferations, and ideological climaxes in U.S. religion.