Equally the onslaught of pornography has cheapened the act of sex by removing all emotional and spiritual elements to the act, leaving the dispossessed physical element vilified in much of Western religion.

In Wicca our connection of the flesh with divinity and honesty is a refreshing change for many people, but first comes the letting go of all of our misconceptions about our sexual selves and the nature of the sexual act.

Those with even the most passing knowledge of Wicca know the idea of polarity features strongly in our belief structure, and although I have stated elsewhere there are many levels to this polarity, its most commonly used manifestation is through the symbolism of sexual polarities.

Throughout our myths and seasonal celebrations this is expressed as the sexual consummation between the God and Goddess. This is our most fundamental expression of the sexual act, notably between the Gods themselves, making it a divine act by association.

There are many misconceptions about the nature of Wiccan celebration due to the fact we worship skyclad and celebrate the sacred nature of sex, and in the past sensationalist media often gave inaccurate reports of Wiccan “orgies”. Of course these days with religious rights such is no longer publishable, but these previous depictions are the one ingrained in the conscious mind of the world.

In terms of sexual ethics we are led by two primary statements: an it harm none, do what you will and all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. The first is our basic ethic- a statement of situational ethics dictating thought is put into our every day lives including our sexual lives. As such we abate and condemn all exploitative or abusive sexual acts that cause harm. The second tenet of our sexual ethic is derived from The Charge of The Goddess and represents the words of the Goddess on this matter. It states all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals and does not confine the nature of these acts to any particular sexual preference, naturally bar any harmful sexual expression where this love is not reciprocated.

The primary expression of sex in Wicca is in the ritual of the Great Rite. The Great Rite is the ritualised expression of polarity as manifest in our deities, God and Goddess. It is also a ritualised sex act.

As an expression of polarity, the ritualised sex act serves as an affirmation of both the poles, their interaction and their fundamental wholeness.

The ritualised sex act can be either symbolic or actual, the former seeming more common in modern day.

As an actual sexual act, it is performed privately, and if there is a coven involved, the group leave the ritual area. It occurs between a man and woman who have an established emotional and sexual relationship as a private act and does not in any way resemble an orgy.

As a literal act or as a symbolic act, it serves to affirm the sacred nature of the sex act, acknowledging the body as beautiful and as the focus of every temple.

Wiccans acknowledge the many temples and places of worship as establishments built upon mans sincere search for self knowledge and knowledge of his place in the universe. As such they serve as encasements of the true temple, the human body. In this society that frowns upon and rejects the body as a sexual object I am drawn to the mythologies of the building of the Temple of Solomon where the stone that was rejected for the temples building became the keystone and the dwelling place of the spirit of God. A shift is happening slowly in society that creates much potential for the restoration of the human body, the incarnate being as a focal point from which we can begin our search.

Many sexually and gender variant people are drawn to the religion of Wicca and when they begin to explore the theology of Wicca they often encounter personal difficulty with the deity structure in relation to their own sexual or gender identity.

Wicca is a growing and evolving tradition- it has roots in the early 20^th Century when these issues often remained unexplored, but has since moved on to an understanding that promotes inclusiveness.

The pillar deities, the God and Goddess, are often seen as a difficulty because of their definite gender roles, and the consistently heterosexual theme running throughout Wicca.

The God and Goddess are manifest deity and manifest as polarities, but rather than simply being God and Goddess they are the exoteric symbols for the esoteric nature of the manifest universe- manifestation in polarities. All of life is a series of such polarity- ebb and flow, give and take, force and form, mercy and severity, of which God and Goddess are the most commonly used.

Why so? Because our physical identities are the ones most easily accessible to us. God and Goddess are but one set of many polarities, and they represent all levels of these polarities which are equally true to all incarnate beings including the full spectrum of the GLBT community.

This heading is one of practicality in a world of ideals and these two opposing forces form a solid base for every thinking Witch.

Unfortunately in a world where Wicca is seeking recognition as a morally, socially and spiritually valid path this issue remains untouched and ignored by many writing on Wicca’s relation to sex.

In Wicca our stated ideal is an environment of love and trust, but it has been my experience these elements are earned, not a given right.

We must consider the repercussions of the expression of sex in Wicca when related to the very real dynamics of power and influence.

Within a ritual setting various elements are used which, whether correctly or not, are connected with our sexual selves and our personal comfort in that role.

In a coven setting skyclad worship may be used, but it is never enforced or demanded. Wicca seeks to foster an atmosphere of trust to establish and nurture a healthy group dynamic. Equally any use of ritualised sex is a private act when literally enacted between two established sexual partners, and it should not be made a spectators sport, nor is it an obligatory role to be engaged in.

It is a sad fact that as much as Wicca holds all sorts of wonderful ideals, its closed nature makes it a potential breeding ground for fringe individuals, and although I would like to establish its not a common occurrence, we must always be aware for this reason of our own personal comfort level.

Why is there nudity? Why is there sex? Am I being coerced into doing something I’m not comfortable with? All these questions are vital to the thinking Witch in an atmosphere where a lack of thought can hand all the power to another person who makes decisions for you.

Power in a situation of personal comfort is held by the person in control and as long as you continue to question, make your own conclusions and act on them you remain in control and in a comfortable place where you can foster a meaningful spiritual experience.

The religion of Wicca seeks to express the common experiences of human kind through its myths and rituals. As such it expresses the polarity of darkness and light, God and Goddess ect, all polar yet mutually complimentary forces we know in our daily lives.

In relation to our sexual selves we find a certain imbalance in Wicca as all of our mediums of sexual expression are wholly positive. In Wicca this is our stated ideal, but as a living tradition Wicca must also accommodate the realities of daily life. These realities include negative sexual experiences, various sexual abuses both self inflicted and inflicted by others.

As a form of self-abuse we question our sexual desirability, partially because of external conditioning, but also because of our innate search for our true selves, leading to self-doubt. We also commit abuses upon ourselves through acts of empty promiscuity or sexual avoidance, indulging the symptoms of our lack of cohesive wholeness rather than the root cause.

As abuse committed upon us as sexual beings we are constantly brainwashed into certain modes of thinking and association from the connection of sex and sin found in the Judeo-Christian structures to the tabooing of the subject by creating climates of silence surrounding this subject from childhood. Other abuses committed against many of us are the unrealistic expectations of a lover for us, either in terms of the negative reinforcement of our temples (bodies), to the attempt to constrict the expression of ourselves through sexual mediums. Lastly, and increasingly common are the abuses we traditionally relate to our sexual selves, from rape to child abuse.

It is unfortunate this is an issue, but although our ideals are of a positive sexual image and experience, that ideal needs to be reconciled with our real life experiences, and a bridge built to the positive expressions of sex.

As an initiatory tradition Wicca holds important the ideas of growth and personal transmutation, and this is achieved through self-knowledge and change growing from the understanding we have attained.

Wicca, as a growing tradition holds these principles to the fore, so Wicca must grow to incorporate the exploration of, expression of and the transmutation of our negative sexual experiences, so that we may grow and reconcile our life experiences with our ideals.

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Sex is a tricky concept because so much our identities are forged by our sexual linkages, our self-identity and our comfort in these roles. Wicca fosters a positive view of the sexual self as a part of the much larger whole being, the component parts of and the gestalt, and celebrates them as part of the sacred.