The Sex Life of Jesus

Jesus was a rent boy! What? What? What!!! Now I have heard everything and, if this is true, it turns the whole world, especially for Christians and Muslims on its head

“In a stunning discovery that archaeologists hope might shed light on the little-known years between Jesus Christ’s childhood and his ministry, the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered what they believe to be the site where, in the years before he began his itinerant preaching, a desperate, cash-strapped Christ briefly turned to tricks for money. Excavators working in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of Jerusalem unveiled fragments of several earthenware vessels, a public latrine hewn from stone and terra cotta piping dating to Jesus’ era, along with a curbed Roman road that served as a main artery of ancient Judea, where the fledgling, hard-up prophet is believed to have cruised for johns passing by. “It’s an incredible find, and one that confirms many of our long-held theories about Christ’s so-called lost years,” said the dig’s head archaeologist, Aviram Oshri, who went on to note that while Christ’s hooking is not referenced in the New Testament, suggestions that he resorted to the flesh trade abound in historical records of the period.” (Abounds? Where? Where?) “This intersection is an exact match for the area described in ancient texts, where Jesus is said to have flagged down lonely men traveling from Yafa and offered his services, this was before he had many followers, of course,” Oshri added. “Some of his earliest followers were clients, actually.” (Now how on earth would he know that?)

The young Christ, like many Hebrew males adrift, is believed to have turned to sex work around 19 A.D. helping to cope during a bout of homelessness. There is noting new under the sun, Though implicitly prohibited by Jewish law, prostitution was prevalent in ancient Judea, with sex workers trading their services for cloth, fowl, wine, and small coins, a transaction that Christ is believed to have executed hundreds of times during a short period of time in his 20s.

Christians never think of Jesus having sexual needs, I am not referring to what is written above, but as the man he was meant to be, he must have had a normal man’s urges.

In the sixties there was a lady by the name of Mary Whitehouse who had no time for “the Permissive Society” and formed what was called “The Viewers and Listeners Association” whose complaining members would endeavor to keep British broadcasting pure. Of course, as always, sex was at the bottom of it and when a Swedish film came out about Christ’s possible sexuality she hit the Richter scale at about 6.5. But that was as nothing compared to “The Romans In Britain” in which there was a certain amount of supposed sodomy or anal rape on stage which sent the scale up another couple of degrees and for which she sued The National Theatre, but withdrew her case seemingly happy with the waves she had made.

Anyway, I decided to write a satire about Mrs. Whitehouse in which though reference is made to Christ’s sexuality it would never have occurred to me in a thousand years to go so far as to suggest he was for a short period of his life a boy on the game.

The play is called “Twilight of Aunt Edna” an obvious pun on “Twilight of the Gods” and the destruction of Valhalla, and Edna being a character invented by the playwright Terrance Rattigan, a lady from the Home Counties who writes letters to the newspapers about plays she find objectionable. Well I reckon there would have been a hundred letters or more over “Twilight of Aunt Edna” which is why I suppose that it got very close to production a number of times and was then chickened out.

So here is an extract – Edna’s son Geoffrey who has a sexual hang-up over plastic macs, the more colourful the better, is smitten by Edna’s new secretary, a Pentecostal young lady who arrived wearing one and which he has stuffed beneath pillows on the couch, and this is the first opportunity he gets of being alone with her. Father, with a stack of porn and lengths of rope is tying himself into knots in the garden shed despite “being allergic to geraniums and turpentine.” And in answer to Hillary’s enquiry re Edna…

GEOFFREY:   No, she'll be ages too. She's at the police station.

HILARY opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

Malcolm's been a naughty boy.

HILARY:         Malcolm?

GEOFFREY:   Not that I'm surprised. That man's so false even his wig has dandruff.

HILARY:         Who is Malcolm?

GEOFFREY:   Secretary of the Holier Than Thou Society. He's gone and got himself sodomised in a sauna and he's up for it. She's gone to see what can be done to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. I know what his defense will be, the usual one about having too much to drink and not knowing what he was doing. Anyway, if they can get up to all these little pranks, why can't we? It's only a question of not being found out. Jesus got away with it.

HILARY:         Got away with what?

GEOFFREY:   His sex-life. Nobody knows anything about that.

HILARY:         That's because he never had one.

GEOFFREY:   Of course he had one.

HILARY:         That's blasphemy! Jesus was pure.

GEOFFREY:   On the contrary, if you deny Jesus had a sex life do you know what you are doing?

HILARY:         What?

GEOFFREY:   You're denying the Christian religion, that's what.

HILARY:         Never. He was God. What would God want with a sex-life?

GEOFFREY:   Ah, but the point is, he was God come to earth as Man. That is the whole point. When he died on the cross his suffering was supposed to wash away our sins. Now, if he didn't have a sex-life, who's to say he suffered at all? The trouble with you airy-fairy hymn-singing lot is that everything, including Jesus’ arse is up in the clouds. It's all gentle, meek, and mild. You forget that if  Joshua ben Joseph bled like us then, like us, he also had to shit, piss, burp and fart. But you don't like the idea of Jesus doing all that do you? He did it all the same. Does that somehow make him much more of a man and something less of a god? Gods somehow don't seem the same if they have jammy toes, right? And, if you deny his sex-life, you destroy the very cornerstone on which the whole Christian church is built, that God came to earth as one of us. It doesn't matter if his sex-life was simply wet dreams and water-stiffs first thing in the morning the fact remains, he had one. I mean, we know he had the equipment because we know about his circumcision. That's in the Bible. You can't have a penis and not have a sex-life, not unless you're completely impotent and completely innocent, a highly unlikely combination. But, if true, very unfair and a bit of a heavenly con-trick wouldn't you say?

HILARY:         You are the most awful person I have ever met.

GEOFFREY:   Oh? Why?

HILARY:         You have absolutely no respect for anything or anybody.

GEOFFREY:   I have every respect.

HILARY:         No you don't. You should consider feelings, other people's feelings. How do you suppose they feel when they hear you talking like that? And besides, you're supposed to worship and adore. There's no need to dwell on... other matters.

GEOFFREY:   You mean, if you thought Jesus had smelly feet that would automatically stop you worshiping and adoring? Is that how you treat your friends? You love them only when they smell of scented soap? Some love that is.

HILARY:         I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's wicked. And you can't hide from God. He is everywhere. He sees everything.

GEOFFREY:   He also understands everything. He'll know why you're doing it.

HILARY:         Yes he will. He sees right into your heart. He knows your true motives even when you try to hide them from yourself.

GEOFFREY:   That means you really want to.

HILARY:         Yes. No! Yes! But I can't!

GEOFFREY:   Yes but you can! (He produces her mac.) Put it on put it on!

HILARY:         Well... all right... Just for a moment and you're only to look at me.

He is helping her into the mac.

HILARY:         You are not to lose control, whatever…

But he already has. He grabs her and pushes her down behind the couch.

Oh, Geoffrey!

For a few moments nothing can be seen or heard from them then…

Extract from Twilight of Aunt Edna © Glyn Jones 2011.