Sacramental sex

Sexual union may be experienced as a sacrament or as an acting out of a spiritual belief. Relations between the gods or god and mankind are frequently described in sexual terms and thus copulation may be an experience of this relationship. Many ancient religious ceremonies involved physical sex as an enactment of the fertile union of sky father with earth mother, and although the barbarity of some such ceremonies was a prime reason for the strict separation of the Jewish people from their pagan neighbours, the imagery occurs again, but under the authority of the law, when Israel is described as the bride of Yahweh. Later, in Christian terms, the Church is seen as the bride of Christ and also the husband as head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, in a mysterious way sanctifying and cleansing her through the relationship (St Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5). This is seen as a restoration of wholeness, of completeness, and the same is described in the tantric observance of ritualized sexual union, celebrating the feminine aspect of God, as also in the Taoist alchemical system.