There was only one thing that made John harder than playing Christian rock — the keyboard player in the worship band he led at an Illinois church. They had known each other for years, as their spouses were first cousins, but it wasn’t until they were constantly jamming in the church’s band practice room that John felt the desire to fill her with his holy spirit.
Furtive looks during practice escalated to kissing in private alcoves and sexting during church services. Eventually, the pair got to third base in a church closet next to Bibles and other religious stuff. Along those lines, he named his acoustic guitar “Rachel” after his lusty lady, and while onstage, he would often slip his finger into the sound hole — a secret message to her hinting as to what would come later.
Things went next level, however, when the devilish duo decided to consummate their sinful affair. As a church leader, John had a key to the private chapel. “Long story short,” he tells me, “she laid down, and I made love to her on the floor of the baptismal pool.” Fifteen minutes later, they were back rehearsing again. “It was our little secret,” he says. “I still smile when I think about it.”
In a world where almost nothing is off limits anymore and kink shaming is taboo, it’s getting harder and harder to do something truly shameful. Is desecrating a house of worship, then, the final horny frontier?
This question has been on my mind ever since a Louisiana priest was busted in September for having a threesome on the altar of a Roman Catholic Church (he was arrested on obscenity charges and ultimately suspended from his priestly duties). Church law says that when a sacred space has been violated in such a manner, they must be “repaired by penitential rite.” As such, Gregory Aymond, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, performed a cleansing so that the altar was once again pure enough to be used.
The thing is, based on my research, religious leaders better stock up on ritual cleansing solutions because there seems to be a lot more fucking and sucking in houses of worship than we could have ever imagined.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, though, it’s worth noting that despite the fact that I asked for stories from people who fucked in mosques or synagogues as well, I only heard from those who had defiled churches, which kinda makes sense. Seventy percent of Americans identify as Christian, and about 30 percent of Christians identify as Evangelical, or “born again.” Clearly the puritanical beliefs our country was founded upon are still wreaking havoc today, and there’s no better illustration of sexual hypocrisy than the modern Christian Conservative movement. (See: Jerry Falwell Jr., who got cucked by his wife before getting screwed by Liberty University, the Christian college founded by his dad and infamous for its moral code, which forbids sexual relations outside of marriage.)
In other words, although conservativism obviously exists in Judaism and Islam, in America, Christianity is the primary driver of sexual shame. And what better way to rebel than by unloading all of that shame in the pew where you were beaten into chaste submission?
To that end, quite a few people had their first sexual experiences in a church, mostly out of convenience. Mike was homeschooled and only able to see the girlfriend he had in seventh grade at the Southern Baptist church they both attended three times a week. “My girlfriend and I sat next to each other in [the Sunday School class taught by her mom], and I would sit with my arms crossed and slip a hand into her dress and feel her up right there in class with her mom teaching,” he confides. “As far as I know, nobody ever caught on.”
Emboldened by their Bible-study fondling, they moved things over to the main church hall. “She had me finger her during a sermon once,” he recalls. “She held her hymnal on her lap so the people on the other side of her hopefully wouldn’t see. Sadly, I didn’t know where the clit was at the time, so I can’t say the risk was worth the reward for her.”
Rebecca, a 31-year-old in Canada, also got fingered at a church service, and because of it, she gained a reputation amongst her youth group for being a ho. Her Sunday School teacher must have taken notice because she started dating him when she turned 18. “He told me he had dreamt about me sexually when I was 13,” she says. “We would be going hot and heavy, and he’d stop and look at me, and say, ‘If only I knew your mouth could do this when we were in Sunday School.’ I didn’t even like him that much or think he was funny or cute, but him being older and my ‘spiritual leader’ was a turn-on.”
That said, the majority of people I interviewed were adults who knew damn well that they were going to hell for fornicating in a holy space, and yet, they didn’t fucking care. In fact, that only made things hotter. Ashes in Portland, who is now 41, was doing it for stress relief when he and his partner fucked in a hospital church chapel while his dad was undergoing open-heart surgery. According to him, soon after they entered the empty chapel, they began to make out. Things took off from there. “In the back of the chapel, there was a hanging velvet cloth that covered a wall but there was room in between. So behind the cloth we went and banged it out,” he says. “When we finished, we exited the cloth to find several people in the chapel, luckily facing the opposite direction.”
He looks back on the whole experience fondly: “I really needed a distraction since there was nothing I could do but worry. It was super hot and a really thoughtful thing for my partner to have done with me.”
Eric, a 53-year-old in New England, had a horny church experience as a child and as an adult, both involving preacher’s daughters. The first featured wine coolers and a hand job, but he went full-on church fuck as an adult, when he was in his 20s and engaged to the daughter of a Methodist preacher. According to Eric, they fucked in every nook and cranny of her dad’s church, even the large closet beside the pipe organ, atop a pile of old hymnals. “Our ruse was to practice our upcoming duet,” he tells me. “She told her mom and dad that we wanted to rehearse together in the huge sanctuary to figure out the ‘balance.’”
The most daring act committed by the duo, however, was during a Christmas concert, where they had to run the light board. “During Leroy Anderson’s ‘Sleigh Ride,’ we fucked standing up in the spotlight room. Hand to God, I nutted on the final note. We both found it intense and kinda hilarious.”
Lest you think he might feel guilty, quite the opposite. Eric is keeping the faith that it might happen again in the future. “I feel crazy admitting it but, yes, I’d do it again. I’ve been with a couple dozen people — mostly women, but guys too — and I can’t think of anything I’ve done that I regret now, other than a couple of missed opportunities.”
As the old saying (more or less) goes, in the end, we only regret the fucks we didn’t take. Especially when they involve a mortal sin.
Desi Jedeikin
Desi Jedeikin is a writer living in Los Angeles. She co-hosts the podcast Hollywood Crime Scene and has lots of things in development that will probably never happen. She wastes a lot of time on Twitter @desijed.
