"How did sex come to be thought of as dirty in the first place? God must have been a Republican"

Will Durst’s line, “How did sex come to be thought of as dirty in the first place? God must have been a Republican,” uses humor and irony to expose the cultural contradictions and hypocrisies that often surround conversations about sex, morality, and politics. The remark plays on the stereotype that conservative ideologies, often associated in American culture with the Republican Party, frame sex, particularly outside certain boundaries, as shameful or morally suspect. The allusion to God as a “Republican” mocks the tendency in some religiously conservative circles to conflate divine authority with their own social values and political stances.

At the core of Durst’s satire is a question about how natural human desires and activities became loaded with taboo and guilt. By suggesting that sex “came to be thought of as dirty,” Durst acknowledges a historical shift: across civilizations and epochs, human sexuality has often moved from being celebrated or seen as a normal aspect of life to being policed, stigmatized, or repressed. Religions have played a significant role in this process, sometimes teaching that sexual activity, pleasure, or even desire ought to be hidden, controlled, or cleansed, except under narrow conditions.

By linking God with the partisan label “Republican,” Durst is not making a theological claim but instead lampooning the idea that powerful moral judgments about sex stem from an alignment of religious doctrine with cultural or political conservatism. The joke lies in the absurdity: imagining the divine as a figure enforcing political orthodoxy, concerned with legislating personal behavior. Durst cleverly critiques how social attitudes and policies can transform private acts into matters of public shame, suggesting that what is portrayed as divinely ordained is often more a product of cultural and political agendas. The humor thus unmasks how notions of “dirtiness” are not inherent, but constructed, and often wielded by power structures for their own ends.