Do you believe sexy nuns are inherently problematic? If so, you’d find yourself right at home on ex-Twitter. An artist made the following provocative tweet, and the Discourse took it from there.

I honestly mostly like this artwork. The colors are nice, the poses and expression are drawn well, and it’s got an effective simple art style that conveys a lot without being overly elaborate. I’m not sure what that arrow she’s holding in the second pose is supposed to mean, but whatever. Her expression says enough. That being said, I take issue with the words attached to it. I don’t want to attack the artist here too much. I checked their page, I think they got pretty good art and some cognitive dissonance. I hope they grow into an amazing artist with better takes. In the meantime I want to focus less on the person saying it and more on the idea of sexualizing nuns.

One song frequently came to my mind when I looked at tweets relating to this art: “Sister” by She Wants Revenge. An all time great song about a man’s sexually charged encounter with a religious woman. I love this song, it’s my favorite one off the album and there’s some tough competition. Yet if I were to fully subscribe to the above take loving it would be wrong. The title “Sister” is meant to allude to nuns in the Catholic tradition. If we want to get technical there is a difference between a sister and a nun, but it’s not an important distinction for our purposes. I am quite confident the OP wouldn’t want you to sexualize sisters either. In this song titled “Sister” the woman offers kinky sex to the man. It’s an entire song about sexualizing nuns, GASP! Does that mean loving this song makes me a bad person???? You can come to your own conclusions, but I don’t think so. I’ll explain what I love about this song and my position on the issue writ large.

1. What does sexualization mean?
2. The Song in Question
3. My Verdict on Sexy Nuns

What does sexualization mean?

Before I discuss the song at hand I’d like to establish what is meant by “sexualization.” If you ask the American Psychological Association it occurs “when a person’s value comes only from her/his sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified, e.g., made into a thing for another’s sexual use.” That does sound pretty bad right? Humans are more than their sexuality, but culture and media can often indicate otherwise. According to the APA widespread sexualization can have negative effects on women and girl’s self-image and healthy sexual development. Those very much sound like things that are not good. People who commonly use the term sexualization tend to agree. When the word “sexualization” is used, that usually indicates a bad thing.

I do not dispute that seeing people solely as sexual objects to be used and abused is Not Good. I think most people with a moral compass would agree with that in abstract even if that’s not always consistent with their actions. However, the way the term is used often goes beyond the definition the APA provided. For an example let’s look no further than the ex-Twitter post I discussed earlier. They say “stop sexualizing nuns” accompanied with a drawing of a nun. The implication is that an artist depicting a nun in a sexual manner sexualizes nuns.

Is that really true though? This may come as a shock to some people, but a drawing of a nun is not actually a person. They may be a representation of a person, but they generally don’t correspond to any specific real person. How do we reconcile that with the APA definition? I suppose you can say sexy nun art make nuns “into a thing for another’s sexual use” but again, the drawings were never people in the first place. They may be inspired by people, but the drawing itself was never anything besides an object. Wouldn’t an object be objectified by default? So I don’t think sexual nun art neatly falls into the definition APA provides. That doesn’t stop people from claiming it is sexualiziation though. And remember, sexualization is supposed to be bad! Well shit, does that mean sexual nun art is bad? Hmmm…

This is all to say I don’t think the term “sexualized” is well defined in popular use. Instead of having a specific agreed upon meaning its popular use conflates a lot of different things under the same umbrella. It feels like some people literally just use sexualization to mean: “when anything is presented sexually in any capacity.” This definition can apply to a real person, a drawing, an animal, an object, or anything else humans have ever concieved as sexual at any point (read: damn near everything). And remember, sexualization is bad mm’kay.

Suffice to say, I’m not a fan of using the term. It’s quite vague and I don’t like how a lot of people use it. For instance if by “sexualizing nuns” you mean “doing sexual harassment or worse to a practicing nun” then sure that’s wrong. Obviously. Don’t sexually harass anyone, period. However, if you consider “sexualizing nuns” to include a couple’s roleplay, artwork depicting a nun sexually, or anything along those lines then that’s a different story. Those two meanings are not morally equivalent in the slightest, but it seems like a lot of people think they are. Such as the artist that kickstarted this discourse and the thousands of people that liked their tweet. I don’t think the song I’m about to analyze sexualizes nuns by APA standards, but it most likely does by pykle standards. So let’s see how evil “Sister” possibly could be.

The Song in Question

“Sister” sounds dark from the moment it kicks off. This band has been described as gothic rock, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s difficult for me to explain why the song has goth energy to it, but it sure does. The kinda sound that takes you to hell but makes sure you have fun along the way. It sure ain’t wholesome, I can tell you that much.

Many people have compared She Want Revenge’s sound to that of Joy Division and Interpol. Too similar if you ask some of the band’s biggest haters. She Wants Revenge certainly has a similar atmosphere to those two bands. Justin Warfield’s deadpan monotone sounds reminiscent of those other bands’ lead singers as well. There’s almost certainly some inspiration there. However, there’s plenty of other stuff like Suicide mixed in too. She Wants Revenge sounds kind of like a lot of things, but there’s truly nothing that sounds exactly like this. You generally won’t hear Interpol or Joy Division at a party. You might hear She Wants Revenge.

I could say more, but honestly, Justin Warfield’s quote in this Chicago Tribune article says it best:

“People have said we sound like other bands?” he asks without emotion. “Wow.”

He’s heard it before, and he couldn’t give less of a shit. Why should we? Have any of the bands people compare to She Wants Revenge tried to sue them? Have any of them spoken negatively about She Wants Revenge in any capacity? To my knowledge the answer to that question is no. Why get so bothered on their behalf?

Regardless of whether SWR sounds similar to other bands, nobody’s arguing that their lyrics rip those bands off. Their lyrics are the reason why I want to discuss this song in the first place. They tell a story that some people don’t want told.

She smelled like 2 am
Took him back to her place
Where all the saints adorn the walls
Delivering her from grace

That is an incredible opening line, sets the scene with excellence. Its been a long night and there’s almost certainly alcohol involved. The unnamed woman invites the unnamed man over, where he notices an abundance of religious imagery. She’s not exactly behaving like a woman of God’s supposed to, but she definitely got faith. This tension between religious devotion and sexual pleasure pervades the entire song.

He knew he should leave
That this could only turn cold
She was a bad, bad girl
So he told her so

Things have barely gotten started and the dude’s already getting cold feet. Something about saints all over the walls is a bit of a turn off apparently. Who knew? Even so, he wasn’t completely turned off. He admonished her in one of the horniest ways possible. Calling her a “bad, bad girl” sounds like foreplay more than anything else.

Under the shadows engulfed
He had the whisper of lust
He said ‘no touching tonight’
She closed her eyes in his trust

The man is feeling the temptation. Even when he tries to push back he concedes something. After all, “no touching tonight” doesn’t rule out doing so another time. She’s not impressed.

She said, ‘Tuck me in’
He knew his judgment was sound
Still he pulled back the sheets

And said, ‘You better lie down, cause the angels are watching,’
She closed her eyes and said, ‘Quit the talking
You can hurt me, do whatever you like,’

The woman’s not discouraged by his weak objections, so she invites him to get closer. The man knows full well what she’s trying to do, but he goes along with it any way. After all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with tucking a lady in for the night. It’s a rather gentlemanly thing to do.

That brings us to the chorus, which I’m quite fond of. It’s the best kind of brainworm. A catchy chorus that I actually like. First the man invokes the watchful eyes of the angels, and in effect God. He’s religious as well and he’s nervous about doing something that would go against God’s will. You’re not supposed to have sex with a nun. He may be in a position where he’s not not supposed to have sex either. Either way a good Christian’s not supposed to have sex before marriage. He’s afraid of God’s watchful eye if he breaks those rules. So he tells her to stay down.

In effect the man’s doing almost exactly what the uhhh… wait, what should I call the people that hate sexy nuns? It’s not exactly a fully coherent group under the hood. It’s mostly religious conservatives and left leaning people with radfem tendencies. A depressingly powerful alliance that’s pervasive on quite a few issues. I don’t know of a good word to describe that alliance, someone should come up with it. In the meantime I’ll just call them sexy nun haters.

In effect the man’s doing almost exactly what the sexy nun haters want. He’s trying to avoid sexualizing the nun. He’s doing a shitty job at it, but he’s holding himself back. Does it matter that this imaginary nun wants to have sex? Nope! Because that’s an insult to all the real nuns that don’t want to have sex! Good lord the sexy nun haters are tedious.

This song is fictional, but the reality is there’s plenty of variance among nuns. Not every nun is there because they want to be. Not every nun has followed their vows consistently. I guarantee you there’s some shit real nuns have done that’s way freakier than anything found in this song. A large chunk of it ain’t heterosexual either. It may not be common, but kinky lesbian nun sex is definitely a thing that has happened before. We don’t hear about it much because they have every incentive to hide it. Nevertheless, I promise you that it happens sometimes. Sexy nun haters demand fiction adhere far more strictly to their sense of morality than reality does. I am afraid of how stifled art would become if they attained a complete victory.

This sister isn’t too worried about what God thinks about her sex life. Perhaps she believes God’s forgiving enough to tolerate her having a fun night. She invites the man to do whatever he pleases with her. She says he’s allowed to hurt her, which speaks to how far she’s willing to go. This doesn’t mean she’s cool with being seriously injured or killed. Some people seem to equate kinky stuff with abuse. As if a few slaps on the ass that she asked for is equivalent to those horrors. Sure kink is more intense than that sometimes, but if there’s consent it ain’t anyone else’s business. It doesn’t degrade a woman to have the kind of sex she wants. This sexy nun wants to experience the man letting his desires loose.

Her every word was in italics
As it would fall from her lips
The walls made of broken promises
He hoped this wouldn’t be his

It appears that the man folded and started having sex with her. She has an allure to her voice as she breaks her vow. The man still worries about what the angels think while he bangs her. He hopes what he’s doing won’t reflect on him too poorly.

She said, ‘Tell me what to do,’
He knew right then he was done
Feeling lonely and confused

He said, ‘You better lie down, ’cause the angels are watching,’
She closed her eyes and said, ‘Quit the talking
You can hurt me, do whatever you like,’

So he said, ‘Shut your mouth, girl, the angels are listening,’
She crossed herself, now, the moments are missing
‘You can hurt me, do whatever you like,’

The man decides to cut things off midway through the session. I imagine they were having vanilla sex up until that point, and she invited him to do something further. Unfortunately, kink is an affront to God or whatever so that’s where things ended. This takes us to the chorus again, which now includes a second stanza. In this one the man explicitly tells her to shut up. To stop breaking her godly image. The nun doesn’t seem to care much, but he cares so she should shut her mouth. Funny how that works. Do you guys see the issue here? This man’s prioritizing what a nun’s supposed to be over the woman’s feelings in the matter.

To be fair, we can’t forget who’s singing this song. Justin Warfield is a dude. This song is a male fantasy by definition. GASP! How dare a MAN fantasize about a woman wanting to be hurt! What depravity! What- Eh I’ll stop there. I can’t keep doing it. A lot of people unironically think this way. It’s so fucking exhausting. Yes men do terrible shit way too often. Even so, people that think along these lines don’t give a shit what women, trauma survivors, queer people, or anyone else say either. If your view of sexuality doesn’t conform to what a sexy nun hater deems appropriate, you’re going to hell regardless.

Glancing through the curtains
Questions on her tongue
She spoke in third person
And he had seen every one

Awkward and embittered
Said, ‘Shut the door when you go,’
Perhaps he should have reconsidered (oh, no)

Now the fun’s over and they’re both dealing with the aftermath. The man’s guilt rubbed off on her. Now she’s worried about people finding out. She’s not feeling good any more, and she probably doesn’t want to see him again. Maybe he’ll feel better in front of God, but he hurt a woman’s feelings in the process. If he really wanted to be virtuous he shouldn’t have slept with her at all. Instead he stopped things halfway through leaving absolutely nobody happy. Perhaps he should have reconsidered indeed.

At this point the only lyrics left are repetitions of the chorus. So that’s the story folks. Some religious dude hitches it with a horny nun, then backs out because Jesus or whatever. What can we learn from this tale? It doesn’t exactly have a satisfying ending. How did it go so wrong? If you ask me the dude got hung up over shit that didn’t really matter. All religion’s doing here is making them miserable. They feel like they’re being watched with judgemental eyes when they’re alone together in a room. They could have had a fun night and felt better about themselves the next day. Instead the reverse happened. Is this what we want? Do we need to control sexuality this much?

Look, if you’re somehow still reading this as a sexy nun hater just know this: your position is a kin to the man in this story, mine is more like the nun’s. This is a fictional story, but I would not be surprised if something similar happened in real life. Do you want to be like that man? Do you want to make yourself and others miserable? What are you really protecting?

My Verdict on Sexy Nuns

So if it wasn’t already apparent I am fine with sexy nuns. Be respectful towards real nuns, don’t force anyone into your fantasies. However, getting turned on by a drawing of a nun with her tits out is not a crime nor should it be. It’s not everyone’s responsibility to uphold the image of the church. If sexy nun art helps people through some trauma, dope. If sexy nuns make people happy then that’s cool with me. That seems harmless in the vast majority of cases, and when it’s actually not we can handle it appropriately.

For the record I’m not even into sexy nuns much personally. I don’t hate seeing it, but I don’t seek it out. Nuns have no special appeal to me. Unless they’re named Yuuko Amamiya. Even then, she’s not actually a nun.

Although I don’t have an affinity for sexy nuns, I do have interests the sexy nun haters don’t approve of either. If you have any sexual proclivities beyond heterosexual sex after marriage in the missionary position for the sole purpose of procreation you are not exempt. Sure, maybe some individual sexy nun haters are not that extreme, but the core of the movement is.

The impact of sexy nun hating ideology is not hypothetical, we’re already seeing it play out. When sites like Gumroad are forced by payment processors to severely restrict their NSFW content, that’s the belief in action. It’s not 15 year olds on Twitter and/or radfems making this happen, it’s religious conservative rich people flexing their power. Meanwhile ostensibly left leaning dumbasses cheer them on. They won’t just stop with porn you don’t like. Any deviant sexuality is porn as far as those fuckwads are concerned. If you have any love for queer people this is not the path you want to go down. Even if you do believe NSFW content should be banned or restricted, why are we letting credit card companies make these decisions? Why are they allowed this much power to destroy people’s livelihoods?

It’s not just sexual art under attack either. Religious conservatives try to shove a lot more restrictions than that into our throats. Noticed the backslide in abortion rights we’ve seen lately? How about all the laws red states pass to make gay and trans people’s lives more difficult? They won’t stop here, they want more control. This sounds conspiratorial, but it’s literally just things that have happened and Republicans have said they want to happen. Just look at some of the shit in Project 2025.

This is where sexy nun hating ideology goes. Teachers and librarians in prison. We have a crisis in education and their solution is to make teachers more afraid. Kids will be raised with no understanding of their own sexuality. When they discover it themselves it will come out in completely unpredictable ways. This is part of the conservative promise. If they get enough power what they want to happen will. They’re not unstoppable, but they are powerful.

I’ve mostly been focusing on these issues in the American context, but this is a world wide challenge. Certain countries have already restricted sexy nun content, along with all other pornographic material. Look at all the countries that have banned porn already. Such bastions of feminism like Afghanistan, Iran, and South Korea. Shockingly, misogyny still exists in these countries even after porn got banned. How strange! If porn was truly at the root of all evil these would be amazing places for women to live. Reality has a different story.

This is not to say that pornography is completely fine as is, it’s not. Most of the reasons people provide to support banning porn are true to some extent. Yet all of the biggest problems you see in porn have roots elsewhere. Recording people fucking is not inherently misogynistic. It may play out like that in practice very often, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Just as drawing a nun in a sexual situation does not have to affect a real nun. A drawing cannot do a single thing by itself, it requires people to respond to it. So don’t make lewd comments or have sex with a nun unless she wants you to. What you do on paper is none of my business. Religious conservatives can enjoy their sisters, and we can enjoy ours.

That brings me back to the artist that kickstarted this discourse. After their sexualized nun post got some pushback they had some choice words for naysayers. Essentially they called everyone who disagrees with them a shitty person. How nice.

Thanks for the concern, but my folks are fine. I’d worry more about the people surrounding your judgemental ass bud. I’m serious.