Masaccio, Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise, 1427

Creation, sex, shame, and sin in Milton’s Paradise Lost:

In refusing to recognize the Son as their own creative principle, then, the devils are closing the gate of their own origin.  This theme of closing the gate of origin recurs all through the epic, and is the basis of the feeling which later appears in humanity as what Milton calls shame.  Shame to Milton is something deeper and more sinister in human emotion than simply the instinctive desire to cover the genital organs.  It is rather a state of mind which is the fall itself: it might be described as the emotional response to the state of pride.

Frye, The Return of Eden (University of Toronto, 37)

Update: Andrew Sullivan has been running a discussion on Christ and sexuality at his blog; you can pick up the thread here.