This week, many in the feminist blogosphere have been addressing the subject of date rape and sex education, primarily in response to this article in the American Prospect that ran a couple of days ago. The point of Courtney Martin’s piece is that an absence of sex education (particularly in the age of an abstinence-only message) increases the possibility that acquaintance rapes will happen on college campuses:
The lack of public, comprehensive, and complex sex education in this country contributes to this toxic sexual culture on most college campuses. The abstinence-only sex education that most young men and women receive does not teach them how to articulate their own sexual needs and respect those articulated by their partners. Teens who are merely told “Just don’t do it” are lacking more than an anatomy lesson or information on contraceptive choices. They are also missing out on essential communication skills and life-saving knowledge about sex and power. Which is bad news for teenagers in our paradoxically hyper-sexual and hyper-conservative contemporary America who are in desperate need of wise mentorship.
Though many feminists have responded and responded well, I wanted to write today as both a feminist and an evangelical. My faith tells me that sexuality is one of God’s great gifts; my own experience tells me that it can bring joy and heartbreak; my pro-feminism is keenly aware of how easily it can be misused. And as a Christian feminist, I am grieved that the unwillingness of the church (I use the term in its broadest sense) to talk frankly about sexuality has unwittingly created an environment that threatens the safety and the dignity of our young people.
The contemporary evangelical movement is rightly critical of many aspects of our hyper-sexuaalized culture. Christians are right to be troubled by the crass commercialization of sex, and they are right to speak out against the severing of sexual activity from loving, enduring relationships. Most serious and thoughtful Christians respect the tremendous power of sex: we honor the pleasure it brings, and we are awed by its power to overwhelm our senses and fill us with physical, emotional, even spiritual delight. It is no accident that even the unbelievers among us cry out “Oh God!” so often at orgasm; it’s a recognition of an transcendent quality of sex at its best.
But too often, Christians, particularly evangelicals, have been more concerned with preventing pre-marital sexual activity than we have been with encouraging honest and open dialogue. We imagine that if we can somehow keep our boys and girls in a sexual deep freeze until their wedding nights, the sex that follows will be mutually satisfying, blissful, and honoring to God. Too often, we assume that issues of consent are only important for the “sinfully promiscuous”, rather than for believers as well. But as we all know, marriage is no guarantor of mutuality, and the “Yes!” of the wedding day is not a “Yes” to every future sexual act that a spouse might want.
Christians are divided about pre-marital sex, of course. The mainstream evangelical position is that genital sexual activity is to be saved for heterosexual marriage, though substantial minorities of serious, devout Christians argue for a more inclusive understanding. But we ought not to continue to make the mistake that we have been making, which is to see all pre-marital sex as equally sinful and thus equally worthy of condemnation.
Surely, from the standpoint of a youth pastor or a loving parent, God’s “best” for their son or daughter might be that they wait until marriage to have intercourse. But as we’re told over and over again, we ought never let the “best be the enemy of the good.” From that same standpoint of pastor or parent, assume your child is having sex before marriage. Wouldn’t we all want our son or daughter in a safe, loving relationship rather than in an abusive one? Wherever there is love and mutuality, there is at least some reflection of God, even if it isn’t the best; wherever there is abuse and violation, there is surely profound sin.
The tragedy of abstinence-only education is that it fails to draw meaningful distinctions about non-marital sexual activity. It lumps together acquaintance rape with a loving, consensual relationship. It obstinately refuses to distinguish between random promiscuity and a committed, monogamous dating relationship. The abstinence-only crowd simply cries “all sin is equally sinful”, which grossly distorts theology. While it is true that all sin represents “separation from God”, not all sins separate us an equal distance away. Sins of malice, according to church tradition, are always worse than sins of desire (see our old boy Aquinas for that!) Sins that deny the dignity of the other (which is what rape always does) are inherently malicious; sins that honor that dignity (and honor can exist in a pre-marital relationship) are at worst sins of concupiscence, which is not nearly as serious a sign of separation from God.
In my circle of Christian friends, many of whom are youth leaders, we have a widely divergent set of views on sexuality. Some insist that sex is rightly only confined to the marriage bed; others (such as myself) believe in a more inclusive, broader understanding of sexual possibility outside of heterosexual marriage. But those of us who love young people, who work to feed them as Christ asked us to, who dream dreams for them and wrap our arms around them and worry about them even as we know that they aren’t really ours at all — for us, to a man and a woman, we want them to have joy. We want them to be safe. And we acknowledge that simply teaching kids to “wait” or “just say no” doesn’t do anything to equip them to cope with their own sexual desires and those of their peers.
When I first blogged about teaching sex ed at All Saints Church, I got an angry email from a conservative Christan reader. He quoted that passage that shows up in all the synoptic gospels about what ought to happen to those who cause the little ones to stumble. And I said to him, as charitably as I could, what I say to my “abstinence-only” friends: It is you who are causing the young to stumble. By refusing to acknowledge any possibility for healthy, blessed sexual expression outside of marriage, by refusing to equip our precious young people with the tools to talk about their hopes, fears, and desires, you teach them shame. You teach them silence. And you make them vulnerable, both before and after marriage, to abuse. Better the millstone for you indeed, my friends.
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I absolutely agree. I touched on this subject with my post on the purity and integrity balls. Those pledges aren’t going to any good if they don’t teach their kids the things you’re teaching your teens. Teens need instructions on boundaries and setting limits and being guided in how to decide how far is too far for them.
And that was a great post, Shawna, one I recommend enthusiastically.
What I don’t get, Hugo, is that sex is the only subject where adults throw the old “Stop complaining, you’ll need [subject] someday and then you’ll be glad you learned about it now!” lecture out the window. Why can’t Christians who do believe in abstinence until marriage teach about sexuality at the same time as they teach that this is a wonderful thing that belongs within marriage?
Hugo,
It’s one thing to present a “just say no,” and only a “just say no,” message. I know that there are some evangelicals who do this, but the number appears to me to have greatly decreased over the past two decades.
It’s another thing to teach kids how to deal with their sexual temptations and say, “don’t have sex before marriage — and here are the positive reasons why.” For many Christians, that’s as far as they can go. Needling them as you do in your last paragraph won’t accomplish anything.
You chide your more conservative readers for “refusing to acknowledge any possibility for healthy, blessed sexual expression outside of marriage.” Newsflash, Hugo: That’s what it means to believe that God really does desire for sex to be reserved for marriage. Those with such a conviction (and I am one of them) cannot “acknowledge any [such] possibility.”
We can acknowledge that some people experience strong, wonderful emotions from such relationships. We cannot equate that with a blessing from God, however. Sure, people often experience happiness, joy, strength, or other positive characteristics from premarital relationships. That’s a no-brainer. But all of those positive characteristics are not signs of God’s blessing. Our hearts are too deceitful, Hugo. It’s normal for us to delight in things that are against God’s will for us.
We do not hold that those in premarital relationships are to be condemned. It’s far too normal for all of us to fall in a myriad of ways, and our God does not condemn us. Rather, he works for our repentance and, afterwards, restoration. But we cannot, still, declare premarital relations to be in accordance with God’s will for people. The Scriptures do not give us ground for doing so. If I had a child in a premarital relationship, I would urge him or her to leave it — and unapologetically so. I would not condemn him or her, but I would work as much as I could for his or her repentance and restoration. (A side point: Shame is not necessarily bad, Hugo. God often uses shame as an aid in our repentance.)
So talk about sex, relationships, and temptation with teens? Absolutely! There’s no good sweeping it under the rug; you’re perfectly right to point this out. The subject matter needs to be discussed before things happen — and afterward.
My wife and I both were abstinent until we were married, Hugo. I was 39 years old at the time of our wedding, and my wife is a bit older than me. We do not regret our wait for one minute. While we both did so in order to be faithful to God, we also sincerely believed that it was best to do so. We knew during our years of singleness that premarital relationships don’t make anyone a pariah or beyond the reach of God’s love. We weren’t abstinent out of fear. We also didn’t get married to have sex; we did so because we loved each other.
And speaking personally, I can tell you that I stayed abstinent due to several reasons: most fundamentally, because it’s God’s desire for human beings; because I respected God’s intention for marriage and saw sex outside of marriage as being a negative reflection on Christ and the church; and because I believed that sex was too intimate and personal to ever share with more than a spouse. There were other reasons, but those were the strongest ones.
God always blesses us — all human beings — despite our sinfulness, Hugo. That’s what’s frequently called “common grace.” But we cannot confuse that with his “blessing sexual expression outside of marriage,” or his will for our lives.
Peace of Christ,
Chip
those of us who love young people, who work to feed them as Christ asked us to, who dream dreams for them and wrap our arms around them and worry about them even as we know that they aren’t really ours at all — for us, to a man and a woman, we want them to have joy. We want them to be safe.
Thank you for that – I found it very moving, and it perfectly crystalises much of what I think about Christianity and sex. Joy is a wonderful word.
Chip,
Shame is not necessarily bad, Hugo. God often uses shame as an aid in our repentance.
As I understand it – maybe because I’ve arrived here via a number of feminist blogs discussing the issue in those terms – “shame” here refers to the specific context of abuse. That is, the silencing effect of the teaching that sex outside of marriage is in itself sinful; and sinful, in particular, for women.
I think that’s an important distinction. Christian shame – or guilt, or whatever you want to call it – is productive, reflective, and ultimately positive, leading to repentance. Whereas the kind of ignorant, reflexive shame associated with sexuality by young people who have been taught nothing except that sex is for marriage alone, and who’ve abandoned that teaching, is destructive. It doesn’t lead to repentance because it isn’t reasoned, but rather a conditioned reflex; and it’s terribly easily exploited. If you believe on some level that you are doing something disgusting, that you are disgusting, it translates to a profound lack of self-respect, a lack of (respect for) personal boundaries. If sex is an area of moral absolutes and you’ve already transgressed, what right do you have to claim that this is the line you won’t cross? If you’ve had sex with a boyfriend once, how can you say that today you don’t feel like it? If you went and got drunk and let this particular man touch you, what right do you have to stop someone else from touching you the same way? You’ve already committed the sin. What else is there? Unless you drastically act to repent, refuse to have sex ever again until you marry, the whole area is one of non-differentiated sin and you have no moral compass to negotiate it. I don’t think I have to spell out how obviously and dangerously open to exploitation that approach to your own sexuality is.
And even if there’s no exploitation, no actual rape or abuse, there’s bound to be great unhappiness – it’s a very toxic way to think about your body, your relationships, and your rights. And the only way to fight it is with clear teaching. About the ordinariness of basic sexual desire, for both men and women – to get rid of his sense that a lot of conservative girls have, that they are the only women ever to want sex (not just love and touch and commitment but sex) and that there’s something wrong with them because they do. About respect for others and their own moral agency, and respect for yourself and your own moral agency. About the different shades of sexual relationships, not just marriage and not-marriage – that is, what abuse is, what freedom and self-determination are, how to negotiate sensibly about sex and sexual boundaries.
That teaching is necessary even if you believe, generally, that extra-marital sex is sinful. You can teach people, in the Christian context, that chastity is the right way to live – an ideal, a spiritual goal. Personally, I don’t think that that teaching should associate itself with shame and silence and disenguousness about female sexuality and female identity. I don’t think that’s what chastity means. But in any case abstinence-only education, which teaches only a single difficult ideal and doesn’t deal with the issues most people are going to run up against in the real world, is dangerous.
First, I’m not a Christian, nor do I think that the only good sex (in the philosopher’s very thick sense of `good’) takes place within a loving, monogamous, medium-term relationship and as an expression of that love. I do, however, think that many or most people would have much better sex lives (in that same broad sense as `good’) if they only had sex as an expression of the love shared within a monogamous relationship with at least some degree of implicit commitment. (`We’ve been dating for two months and want to be together for at least another ten’ is my personal rule of thumb, but I’m not going to say that this is the absolutely best standard for everyone.)
Now, I’m very interested in finding ways that folks like myself can come together with folks like Chip — is there a way we can all agree that teenagers should be taught about things like protection, the pill, and talking about sex frankly and openly with one’s partner in a way that doesn’t presume traditional gender roles? Maybe Chip (and others who believe that premarital sex is a grave sin) does already think that teenagers should be taught these sorts of things, but at least the abstinence-only sex ed curricula I’ve read and heard about don’t seem to.
So, how can I convince folks like Chip (or, possibly, my mental stereotype) to ditch the abstinence-only curriculum in favour of something closer to, say, something you might find recommended by Planned Parenthood? One thing I’d like to suggest is that, for most people, the skills students are taught in the sorts of curricula I like are skills that all sexually active people need to have a good sex life, whether they are completely unattached, unmarried but in a monogamous relationship, or married for thirty years. Unless you believe that the use of contraception is deeply wrong in and of itself, all sexually active couples need to know how to use birth control, what constitutes consent, and how to talk with your partner about what you like and don’t like in bed. (Yes, that was rather heterosexist, but I’d like to think that working out our differences with respect to straight couples paves the way for eventually working them out with respect to queer couples, etc., as well. It’s not justice delayed, it’s justice as an ongoing process.) Think of it as a very strong double effect argument: Presenting these skills as things teenagers will need once they get married is totally consistent with a strong and explicit pro-abstinence message, helps out those young people who end up not waiting until marriage, and never amounts to an even implicit endorsement of premarital sex. Indeed (to jump back to the very top of Hugo’s post), teaching teenagers these skills might even make them better able to hold on to a commitment to remain abstinent: they’ll know how to talk to their boyfriend/girlfriend about why they want to wait, better able to dump a boyfriend/girlfriend who’s trying to pressure them, better able to avoid putting inappropriate pressure on their boyfriend/girlfriend, better able to avoid dangerous situations (binge drinking!), and so on.
Wow, that was quite long. I’ve put the key idea in bold, so you don’t have to wade through it all to get the gist. Chris, and like-minded folks, what do you think of my proposal?
D’oh, it should be ‘Chip’ throughout, not ‘Chris’! I’m terribly sorry about that.
Chip, rather than a negative, shaming “Don’t have sex before marriage” message, why not a positive, affirming “save sex for marriage” message? I’m thinking of one of Hugo’s old posts where he recounted a Christian youth leader telling a group of teens about his impending marriage, and how he was looking forward to having a lifetime of sex with his wife.
Chip , I honor your experience, and I honor your extraordinary commitment that allowed you to stay abstinent for so very, very long. While I celebrate your sacrifice, I do believe that it is possible to interpret Scripture in a way that permits pre-marital sexual intercourse while remaining faithful. I also wish to make clear that even if the church accepts a “no-intercourse” position before marriage, the “everything-but” notion could easily be seen as congruent with biblical values. The exact definition of abstinence is largely arbitrary, depending on which particular conservative Christian you happen to be talking to. There’s little biblical basis for permitting French kissing, say, but prohibiting petting!
I agree that it is possible to teach an abstinence message in a Christian context. But the victims of the abstinence message are those kids who have gone to public schools and been taught abstinence only without a concurrent Christian theological idea. “Just say no” might make sense in a Christian context, but it is hopelessly ineffective when shorn of its Scriptural underpinnings. And that’s what the Courtney Martin article was really about.
Lastly, Chip, I draw a clear distinction between shame and guilt. The former, as John Bradshaw says, is never healthy. Shame says to us “I am bad”. Guilt says “I have done something bad.” The former is about identity, the latter about actions. I think it’s worth drawing that distinction. You and I both would surely agree that guilt can be healthy; where we break is on whether pre-marital sex ought to be cause for that guilt.
In our Father’s house, there are many rooms. And different messages are taught in that vast and rambling mansion. But we’re in the same house, Chip, and I am glad you’re in it with me.
Chip,
Thanks for bringing some sanity and eloquence to this blog. Sadly, your well-stated insight was met with just more left-wing ideology and doublespeak that presents a “gospel” so watered down that it borders on being meaningless.
Tom, you’re not likely to shame Hugo into either giving up his blog or voting Republican, so why bother to post?
Oh, I have voted Republican in the past: http://hugoschwyzer.net/2006/11/05/final-endorsements/
And I confess to having some fondness for Olympia Snowe.
Well, sure, but you’re not going to do it because somebody scolds you into repenting of your liberal SoCal ways.
That’s for darn tootin’! And as for giving up the blog, not a chance.
It’s taken a while, but as of the last two days I’m FINALLY back to the number of hits and visitors I was getting before I left Typepad. It’s been a while, but it seems to be working out.
Noumena, your comment was wonderful and insightful. I think your suggestions within a Christian theological framework would be a great way to teach and train teens in both sexuality and sexual actions.
Tom, you’re not likely to shame Hugo into either giving up his blog or voting Republican, so why bother to post?
Duh, reread my words. It’s not about you and it’s really not about Hugo either.
It’s not about you and it’s really not about Hugo either.
I know, Tom; it’s all about you.
Hugo,
Coming roundabout circuit, I’m finding this phrase most helpful, indeed I’m savouring it: “The enemy of the best is not the good.” It reminds me of what Gareth Moore, OP wrote often in discussing homosexual sex: “Just because heterosexual sex may be best doesn’t mean that homosexual sex isn’t a good.”
I would still encourage teens to wait until commitment, irrespective of orientation, for reasons of emotional development, for reasons of developing one’s sense of what good relationships are, but I’m also not a fool to think that will always be the case, so talking about what makes for good, godly relationships is necessary. And looking at most adults in matters of sex, it seems we’re not necessarily more developed emotionally, muchless morally on such matters. Indeed, there seems to be a tendency in this day and age to move to “anything goes” or to a black and white “married sex is the only sinless option.” Both of these strike me as morally theologically unconvincing, and lead to a lot of debauchery and self-righteousness. It’s not that there are no moral lines, but much of our “messy incarnating” with regard to sex and sexuality has shades of color, grades of learning and mistakes, and needs to be handled with pastoral sensitivity for the most part rather than with the sharp knives of surgeons who are more likely to shut down hearts.
And why is it that this is framed only in terms of sinful or not sinful and not best/good?: Married sex is pure, unsinful, licit, non-married sex is impure, sinful, illicit? Any theological understanding of Original Sin doesn’t allow for such an interpretation, for at heart it says to us that none of us is scott free and without sin and sins even in married sex, even in celibacy. Augustine at his best reminds us that because of concupiscence even married sex participates in the sin of lust (domination/possessiveness) even as it participates in love and leads to fruits or goods. And cannot help but do so as this in intertwined with the push to “preserve life”. The point for me is bridling. The 11th century monastics who opened way in the West to make marriage a sacrament did so by writing that the love, the character building and virtue building, discipleship aspects cover the multitude of sins in the marriage bed. Cranmer’s argumentativeness in his rite of matrimony in the BCP stems from his knowing he is innovating in placing marriage on par with celibacy. Married sex is not sin free, and rather than fret about that, get focused on the participation in sin, I would rather take the moderate position of say, a St. Gregory of Nyssa, and see the overall relationship as a rule of life and ask is it growing into the Sacrament (marriage, but chiefly its fundament, Eucharist) in compassion, service to others, etc. We should be able to ask similar questions of non-marital sex, given that being married does not put one in a place to automatically judge sinfulness of those in non-marital relationships (that’s the whole point of Original Sin that no one’s moral judgment is sin free and therefore without biases and bits of wood.) We may continue to encourage marriage as the best, as a way of public promises and participation in God’s promises of Self: faithful, one, goes out of self for the other, without condemning other relationships carte blanche. Honey or vinegar?
I also know that what begins as good may lead to the best, certainly, that is the direction my own relationship took, as the best I can do is committed relationship, which to my mind is a sacramental participation in Christ’s friendship with the disciples, indeed most gay relationships take this course, and so do many marriages. That we cannot think in terms of process, by which through conversation, support, questioning, and reliance on grace to see things through to promises, which only God can fulfill. This type of pastoral particularity is out of sync with a blanket approach, and requires quite a lot more discernment and listening.
I point you to some essays that have lately sparked my thinking and said some things better than I have been trying to say for some time as I tend toward a discipleship understanding of these matters, that this is about ascesis:
https://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/bulletin_mag/articles/33-2_coakley.html
http://www.arasite.org/ATwebsite/Myarticles/
Thanks so much, Christopher; some wonderful points about “good”
and “best” that are salient and vital.