Those of us raised in the Roman Catholic faith cannot discuss the defilement of the body by sexual intercourse without tracing the root of this 'mindset' in the teachings of the Fathers of the church, of whom the most notable is Augustine. The early Christians as they chose their canonical texts excluded all writings that conceived of God as both male and female. God is exclusively male. Eve is created from Adam's side for his fulfillment. This is translated in society into the domination of men over women as the proper God-given order for the human race and for the Christian church.
Woman is seen ethically as dangerous to the male.
Let me illustrate the persistence of this male suspicion of all women. At a meeting of older religious women in April, a letter was sent by the group to the Archbishop to protest the exclusion of women from a Synod on religious life. The exclusion of women from decision making in regard to their own lives continues in the church to this day and punctuates the failure of the hierarchy to acknowledge the full humanity and personhood of women, often recognized in society, but not in the Catholic Church, in this last decade of the twentieth century. As a counterpart to the debasing of women as an embodiment of the lower, or corporeal, nature, we must look to the exclusion of women in the perception of deity. To regard God in anthropomorphic terms as an elderly white male is detrimental not only to other races, but to all women.