Perversion and Narnia? Oh my, C.S.Lewis!

by Coleen Singer at Sssh.com.

By now, most avid readers of books know that Lewis Carroll had the “fucked up kinky gene” as did many 19th and 20th century authors, but the big surprise to me, at least, came with learning that C.S. Lewis, author of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and Reagan-like favorite of the Christian religious community was into some serious kinky behavior. (hmm. Does having Lewis in your name have anything to do with this?)

His bio on his website tells us:

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement.

Lewis wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. C. S. Lewis’s most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics in The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Before getting too far into this, I have a confession to make, Gentle Readers.  Before I fell into the pit of porn as a pundit, producer and such, I was a choir director in at least a dozen Protestant Christian Churches throughout New England for about 20 years. It was a handy rent-payer for a music major grad, and I even went so far as to get ordained as a “Minister Of Music” from the Westminster Choir College.  Those creds played well on me working in paying gigs for many years in almost all branches of the Christian Church.

One of the benefits of being a choir director in churches is I got a lot of face time with the ministers and pastors.  And, relevant to this post, I can tell you that almost all of them REVERE C.S. Lewis as a Christian visionary author.

But, now, the odd news unfolds: C.S. Lewis was a kinky bugger!

CNN’s Religion Blog broke the story with this:

He looked like a “red-faced pork butcher in shabby tweeds,” lived secretly with a woman for years and was so turned on by S&M that he once asked people at a party whether he could spank them.

We’re talking, of course, about C.S. Lewis, the Christian icon and author of classics such as “Mere Christianity” and “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

It’s tempting to remember Lewis only as the self-assured defender of Christianity who never met an argument he couldn’t demolish. His death 50 years ago, on November 22, 1963, was overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He has since become a patron saint of American evangelicals.

But the actual man whom friends called “Jack” had a “horrible” personal life, thought he had failed as a defender of Christianity and spent so much time in pubs that his publishers initially struggled selling him to a religious audience, scholars say.

“American publishers worried about offending their more puritanical readers because it seemed impossible to get a dust jacket picture of Jack without a pint or a cigarette,” says Michael Tomko, a literature professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

Read on…

Okay. He was British.  They seem to have a time-honored tradition of wearing a proper powdered wig in parliament, and then taking it up the butt by a FemDom after hours. Or worse in the case of Lewis Carroll (Lutwidge Dodgson), author of “Alice In Wonderland” that seemed to have a thing for “little girls” after penning “The Jaberwocky“. What’s next? JK Rowling, after writing the prequel to Harry Potter, being outed as wearing fuzzy cosplay bunny costumes and being fond of enema play? At least in the US and Canada when some famous person gets bagged for indecent acts, it goes on CNN and Vivid offers them a zillion dollars to make a porno out of it.

But, back to C.S. Lewis……
Yep. He liked S&M after hours, even being a Christian Visionary.  I tend to think that’s a pretty cool thing.  Maybe the “New Wonderful Pope” will like it too on the other side of the ecumenical aisle!

For the majority of the population that has no idea of how the day-to-day planning inside most churches do their planning, here’s the inside scoop from my personal experience:

1) The pastor logs onto his favorite online database to figure out the suggested scripture readings to include in the coming months services;
2) After selection of one “old” and one “new” testament reading for the coming month, he/she sits down and drafts up a sermon that somehow deals with those messages from God;
3) Then the fun begins!  Once a month, the choir director (me, in years back) and the organist go into the sanctum sanctorum of the pastor for a planning meeting to try to figure out what music goes with the theme and message of each week.  Most ministers refer to the music department of their churches as the “War Room” and it was always fun to work through what Anthem and Offertory might kind-of go with the message of the week.

The only reason I just wrote that was to set up the following:
In one of my favorite pastor’s offices (this one Presbyterian), he had a little plaque on his desk that summed up his thoughts:
“I love humanity.  It’s the people I can’t stand!” 

So, there it is. Go “Team Christian” for the kinky exploration.  Just don’t share it much at the Friday night covered bean dish supper!

And, please be kind to Christians in this most wonderful time of the year.  A lot of them are pretty cool.

Not to leave this all on a bummer note, have a listen to one of my favorites, and maybe yours, for this time of the year that can really cover Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and Yule…..

Happy Holidays!
Coleen