Is "Noël" porn?

Is Noel Porn?

Since my most recent blog, I’ve been thinking about this.

David Foster finds this very shy, timid, deferential guy with a beautiful voice.  The guy is only 17.  He seems to come from a good family.  He does what he’s told.  He records Christian music, even though he’s not a traditional Christian, but doesn't dare say so.

Later, as the guy gets older, we start to see him a bit more clearly.  He grew up in an urban environment in L.A.  He may be spiritual, but is clearly not a conservative Christian. Rumors start flying that he’s not monogamous, that he’s kinky.  We don’t know whether those rumors are true, but we see more and more clearly that he’s an extremely sexual person.

But isn’t that common amongst religious people? Isn’t there a sexual intensity about charismatic Christians?

As a person who studied yoga, I became aware that mystics commonly advise celibacy, because physical sex weakens the mental orgasm that accompanies an intense mystical experience.  Mystics are people who value that mental experience enough that they happily forego the physical experience to get the mystical one.

I had a roommate in college who became a born again Christian who insisted that the relationship with God could be an erotic one.  I read an academic article once quoting the reported sensations that a nun felt while praying intensely.  The author opined that these sensations were in fact an orgasm.  At least one TV evangelist, recently, has been involved in a sex scandal.  One is loudly proclaiming that promiscuity is normal amongst straight men and should not be considered sinful or shocking.

So David Foster puts out this album, featuring this young man, who, as we now start to see, is in fact an intensely sexual being.  The passion in his voice hypnotizes us.  It intensifies our own spiritual experience in listening to religious music, because spirituality is in fact intensely wrapped up in sexuality.

Sex is never mentioned.  The album sounds pure as the driven snow, in a context where many traditional Christians, following the example of the staid St. Paul, believe that sex is dirty or evil.

And yet wasn’t sex the message that was both sent and received with Noël?

Is there not a kinky or even obscene aspect to an album, if that album is dishonestly sexual?  

Again, are we not hypocritical if we become shocked to consciously discover a sexual aspect of the singer, if we were subliminally enjoying it all along?

And, then, Josh complains of middle aged women fondling him when he goes into the audience during concerts.  Maybe he shouldn't be surprised.