Again,
it's not about sex,
it's about being totally human.
Understand, I can't remember a day when I was a child that I didn't hear a bible verse....and I spent 9 years married to a priest....I have on my bookselves 3 bibles, the Suma theologica, and all of the writings of CS Lewis, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
Yet it always seemed that the definition of being totally human left out big chunks of humanity. That while Jesus could spend days, weeks, months, years being a 'human' man and hanging out with men, engaging in all kinds of normal 'male' activities...carpentry, fishing, weddings etc.
Even something as simple as dancing is ommited. Or being betrothed or courting someone. Or even having sisters he talked about.
Him having a relationship with a woman, even on a simple level was omitted.
The Bible was written by men, for men....there is no doubt in my mind about that. While the 'great' men of the bible could all be varied characters...from mumbling Moses to pissed off Paul...
Gods 'chosen' women were all perfect-- Esther, Mary, Elizabeth etc. I don't know what that says to you, but it says a great deal to me. Ishtar I've always liked because she told her drunk hubby who wanted her to dance nekkid to go jump. Yet, it was the submissive Esther that he saw as the perfect wife (thank goodness she showed spine by the end of her story or I would have had to change my name!)
Oh yeah, you have poor old Mary M. gets a bit of time, but talk about trying to minimize her. Yet, even as a kid, I saw with her a 'real' woman. Not perfect, not bland, not a doormat, but real.
So yeah, it's not about sex, but simply having a god who would give a woman like Mary M. as strong a role as he gave Paul. THEN I would believe....or at least find it easier to believe. Then I could read it as a real book instead of the book of angry voices....a male book, about a male god and his male son, constructed by men for men.