Picking up that one that I skipped, I'll be blogging about this post. It's kind of the continuation of what Lalaith was talking about a few posts previously, so if you haven't read that (or my response to it), I would encourage you to do so before diving into these.
I take issue with the first quote right off the bat - not because a sense of indecency comes from religion, but rather because indecency, used without any qualifiers like that, can refer to anything from what a person considers to be profanity or immodesty or something as serious and socially agreed upon as rape or child molestation. In which case, a sense of indecency is absolutely NECESSARY to the continuation of any kind of ordered society. There MUST be rules. Rules are based upon the sense of indecency of those with the power to do something about it.
For a moment, imagine that you are a woman living in a Middle Eastern country where the king has NO sense of indecency and there is no law, no rule, no punishment for rapists. If religion is what will bring a sense of decency to your country, you are going to be profusely blessing any missionaries you meet and begging them to talk to your king. A sense of indecency is necessary. In which case, religion (or the effects of it) all also necessary.
What should be addressed is not whether or not you need a sense of what is decent and what isn't, but rather where those lines are.
The second quote: I'm not sure where this comes from. I don't know anybody, Christian or otherwise, who thinks their body is evil, or a part of their body is evil. It's not a body that is evil; it's what you choose to do with your body that is either good or evil. If I choose to go around killing people, it's not my body that is wicked; it's me. If I choose to go have an affair, it's not my body that's cheating, it's me. If I choose to snatch a little kid out of the way of a car, it's not my body that saved him; it's me.
The post: Honestly, I don't think this is a huge deal. People teach their kids different things at different ages and I don't think there's a line about when a kid needs to know (or shouldn't know) all the ins and outs of their body. If you want to start teaching them everything when you do the normal "eyes" and "ears," I have no reason to think there's anything wrong with that. I would encourage you to teach them to be careful about how open they are with it though, else you may end up needlessly angering your neighbors when your kid starts sharing their knowledge.
As for the Celts and their way of doing things - that's very wrong. Sex was created within a specific framework, the framework of marriage. It is ONLY for marriage; and since God made it and us, He gets to set those kinds of rules. And they're not just rules in order to bother us and make us frustrated. It's for our good, our benefit. Like when our mothers used to say, "No, you can't have candy right now. Dinner is almost ready." We were told to wait because something better for us was coming. So God tells us to wait because it's better if we do. Also, any sexual relationship outside of marriage, whether it's agree upon or not, is adulterous. I'm not the one that made the rule that my husband can only have sex with me; God is; therefore, only God could grant that kind of freedom. And He hasn't.
People wait for a lot of things, and often it happens that waiting for it makes it more enjoyable. Christmas is more fun because we wait for it. Birthday parties and family reunions are more exciting because we wait for them - we look forward to them. But for some reason, people have it in their heads that waiting for sex is just TOO FAR! How dare you make my body wait for something it wants! Oh, wait. We make our bodies wait for things they NEED - like food, water, bathroom breaks, sleep, etc. It will not damage you to never have sex. It just won't. But how many people starve their bodies of sleep?
I Corinthians 7: The reason Paul says that it's better not to be married does not have ANYTHING to do with sex. It's because, as a wife, I now have to think about my husband. It is my duty and responsibility and joy to be his helper, to be his confidant, to go through life with him and support him and care for him. It's because he now takes up a good portion of my thoughts and time and properly so. A non-married person does not have that. They can devote all that straight to God. That's why it's better not to be married; not because there's something wrong with marriage or sex; but rather because it's BETTER to not have distractions from God. And for some (probably for most) it's NOT better to be single, because most people have a huge desire to have a partner through life, to be intimate in every sense with that person. Not just physically, but emotionally and intellectually and spiritually. And so, Paul says it's better to marry than to burn - to burn with desire.
Paul wasn't advocating indefinitely repressing your desires; just the opposite. Paul was saying, for the few people like him out there, if you don't HAVE a great desire for marriage and sex, don't worry about it. You're actually better off because you're less distracted. You will have fewer cares and less drama in your life. That's why he says multiple times to continue in the way that God called you. Don't feel you have to change your marital status because you're a Christian now. If you don't need to get married, if you don't feel a great desire to get married - don't get married! If, however, you do, don't try to repress it - just get married! "Better to marry than to burn."
I don't know anyone who advocates putting off sexual desires for an inordinate amount of time. People joke that their kids won't be allowed to get married until they're 26 or 42 or whatever, but it's a joke. Then they're kids end up getting married at 20. Sex is not necessary for us to function. Yes, the desire for it is natural. So is being hungry. That doesn't mean you SHOULD eat every time you are hungry. In fact, that leads to other problems for many people. Sexual desires should not be put off indefinitely; they should be put off until the proper time. Just like when it would be four o'clock and I would be hungry, but my host wasn't serving dinner until five. It was not the proper time for me to go looking for food.
I also don't know any responsible person who thinks that kids should be having sex as soon as they first want it. Children - kids eleven and twelve - should NOT be having sex. But obviously, they want it. So why is it okay for you to require them to put it off for five years, but not eight years or ten years? There is no line that way. If you shouldn't repress your desire for sex any more than you should repress your need to use the restroom, then there will be a great many pre-teens having a LOT of sex. If you can put it off for 3-5 years without doing any harm, then you can put it off for MORE years, until you get married, without doing any harm.
I really don't think the question is whether or not sexual desires need to be put off; the only debate is on how long and for what reasons. Practically EVERYONE agrees that sexual desires should be repressed - because there is something inherently saddening about a girl only eleven years old having to go through the process of giving birth.
The body being bad probably stems from some diluted form of Gnosticism which said that the flesh was bad and thus that Christ didn't come in the flesh. Same thing John wrote against in 1 John. Completely different outcome today, but still perverting Christianity. People tend to fall into the same things thinking that the body and pleasure is bad. Just like a monk living in misery is supposed to be more pious than someone living comfortably.
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