Sex is great!

Sex isn’t bad. Sex is great! It is to be enjoyed, and can be enjoyed most fully, most deeply in the context of love. Christians (and non Christians) skip the guilt, discover love, and have some sex… well, have a lot of sex with one person. 

What’s so terrible about sex?
 
Maybe people are participating in a different physical coupling event than I am, but I happen to quite enjoy sex. Call me crazy!

From the amount of negative press sex receives from the Christian church you would think that sex is 1) Disgusting 2) Generally unenjoyable 3) Must always lead to pregnancy. If you think sex is disgusting, I suggest therapy or a partner with better hygiene. If you find sex generally unenjoyable, perhaps there is something amiss in your relationship with your lover or there is a physical problem that needs medical attention. If you think sex always ends in pregnancy, please go see your doctor. Birth control is plentiful in 2014. 

Sex receives other negative press for good reason. Historically, sex has been used to control, coerce, and degrade people. Sex can be distorted into a violent act that wreaks havoc on individuals and communities, sometimes for generations. Sex, intended as a blessing, can become a curse through rape or incest. Sex has often been used as a tool to subjugate and enslave women, the non-heterosexual population, and powerless men. I cannot even begin to touch upon the many ways sex has been distorted and turned into something totally other than the simple physical act between two people utterly attracted to one another. Sex has been distorted, all too often, into an act of selfishness, violence, and power. How could we turn something so good into something so bad?

While much attention (for which I am deeply grateful as a woman and mother) has been given recently to the horrors of rape, incest, sexually transmitted disease, heterosexism, and the sexual subjugation of women, there has been little positive attention given to sex, especially from the Christian church. The opposing conversations seem black and white:

Conversation #1
Main Stream Media’s over sexualized point of view: Have sex whenever and with whomever!
versus
The Christian Right’s abstinence rhetoric (especially for women: You’d better wear a promise ring!). If you have any sexual urges before marriage you are sinful!

Conversation #2
Main Stream Media’s disdain for sexual violence: Why are there so many the victims of sexual violence? (We have nothing to do with that, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The way we objectify, modify, debase, and degrade women in TV and film and advertising isn’t causing all this violence!)
versus
The Christian Right’s blame-the-victim approach: Sweep it under the carpet! Deny, deny, deny! (P.S. None of this would happen if women would just dress modestly and not walk alone at night and stop having sex out of wedlock!)

I would like to begin a totally new conversation about sex. We can call it conversation #3, but we can skip the “versus” clause. Instead just add your point of view to this blog. But before I begin conversation #3, I would like to thank the many scholars, activists, health care workers, and educators who haven’t participated in conversations #1 & #2, but have begun totally new and more productive conversations. I would like to thank them for distributing condoms, making sex-ed a priority in schools, enacting yes means yes sexual assault laws (Go California!), and writing scholarly works that shape the larger cultural conversation around sex.

Conversation #3: Don’t enjoy sex despite your Christianity! Enjoy sex because of your Christianity!
From the perspective of an ordained minister, progressive Christian, enjoyer of sex, and heterosexual feminist who loves to bake:

Sex is great. Sex gets better the older you get and the better you know your partner. Sex is best and most life-giving-enjoyable when you are deeply in love. Something that good has to be created by God and couldn’t possibly be sinful. And if it really was only for making babies, I am positive there would be no such thing as an orgasm for women (really, think about it).

I am praying my one day fifteen year old daughter or sons don’t ask me to take them to CVS so they can buy condoms. If they do, I’ll have to breathe deeply and make sure they have proper protection against STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The truth is, I want my children to wait until they are older (how about at least 18 please), more mature, more emotionally resilient, to sort through attraction, affection, lasting love, and plain old physical enjoyment. I want my children to have a smooth entrance into their first sexual encounter without pressure, without violence, and without just empty lust. But I cannot control my children’s futures, let alone their sexual urges. The only thing I can do is talk to them openly and honestly about the wonders of sex within committed, loving, and lasting relationships. I hope they will wait (how long, oh Lord? how long?) because I truly believe sex is best when it is shared in the context of love.

I am certain that whatever their first sexual encounter is like, God will be present, in whatever way they need God’s presence most. God will not be shaking a finger, not screaming judgment, not handing out guilt like an angry business card. Instead, God could be celebrating with them or calling them to ask the deeper questions about attraction and love or, in a worst-case scenario, lamenting with them.

What I will not hand down to my children, for I am certain it has nothing to do with God, is any notion that sex is inherently sinful. I hope not one ounce of their sexual encounters are mixed with guilt as they enjoy the bodies (their own and their partners) that God created!

Sex isn’t bad. Sex is great! It is to be enjoyed, and can be enjoyed most fully, most deeply in the context of love. Christians (and non Christians) skip the guilt, discover love, and have some sex… well, have a lot of sex with one person.

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