Sex is incredible.

I am thankful for and amazed by your stories of religious sex education*. Some lived through laughably awkward programs (I laughed out loud at Mrs. Cheeky’s story of the three-foot penis!), others of you went through the type of instruction I did, and some of you escaped unscathed, with or without religious influence. Ash’s experiences of hearing youth pastors discuss their sex lives or asking teens to talk about theirs are horrific. I don’t recall a single place in the Bible where Jesus dealt with sin by asking for a detailed account from the sinner. Several people both on the blog and in emails to me mentioned birthing videos. I think that is what I found saddest: churches—historically composed of pro-lifers!—recasting a private, divine moment into a scare tactic. What a heartbreaking approach. And on the other end of the spectrum from these experiences, there is complete silence. Lisa summed it up well, saying that in the opinion of many churches, “everything is about sex, so nothing should be about sex.” An anonymous commenter agreed in a way I found beautiful: “A church that is totally silent on sex will also be oppressive and damaging to people striving to be sexually mature and whole.” I so agree with Karisa and Cheryl who argue that if the church teaches about sex, it should focus on the magnificence of it in its proper place, not the problems its misuse can cause. Karisa likens this kind of sex-ed to preaching only about the evils of hell without mentioning the wonders of heaven.

However, wildly varying opinions surfaced about the church’s place in sex education, and I must admit that I don’t yet have a fixed opinion. What I can say with complete assurance is that in my case, all that religious sex-ed did for me was cause me to feel shame and guilt every time I kissed a boyfriend, awakened from a sex dream, or had sex with my husband. I felt dirty for having sexual feelings, and consequently I shoved them deep into the recesses of my mind. I was so successful that, as I mentioned before, I completely cured myself of my sex drive and ended up needing counseling to get it back. As Dr. B and I slogged through the messages I’d received about sex, I set out to destroy them. I prayed that God would give me truth with which I could replace the garbage. Here are some of the conclusions I came to:

1.              Sex is a spiritually beautiful thing. Let’s be honest: it’s not physically beautiful. Nothing about two sweaty, naked bodies rubbing and panting on each other is aesthetically pleasing. Every body on the planet has its eccentricities, and very few of us are “tens” anyway. Besides, the men I find attractive, my best friend doesn’t necessarily and vice versa. I’ve never cared much about muscular definition, abs, or a chiseled face; she sighs when she sees Hugh Laurie. But somewhere in all the scars, love handles, and inconveniently hairy moles, there is something spiritually beautiful about making love. For just a moment (well, hopefully longer than a “moment,” haha), the lonely condition of humanness melts away into the other person’s complete acceptance of you. You are held, clung to, and enjoyed by a fellow wanderer. Nothing on the earth can match it. In the Book of Genesis God claims that it is not good for man to be alone, and while I believe this has much to do with community, it is also applicable to sex. Certainly it is possible to live without it, but it’s beautiful that we don’t have to.

2.              Sex is a vital component of marriage. As I have already said, not being able to have sex with my husband made me feel incredibly distant from him. He didn’t cause this, but it was still a strong, heart-wrenching sensation. In my opinion, in the sexless days of our marriage, our relationship with each other felt no different than our relationships with others. Sure, we shared the minutiae of our lives in a way that we didn’t with anyone else and we looked primarily to each other for emotional support, but that most intimate act that is meant to reaffirm unity, cut through feelings of loneliness and inadequacy, and bring sheer pleasure and excitement into a committed relationship wasn’t there. Our relationship was missing the vitality that a vibrant romance and sex life lends. Book after book I read and person after person I talked to insisted that making love produces in a woman, among other things, a reassurance of closeness. A man who routinely makes love to his sweetheart receives, again among many other things, a bolstered self-confidence. (Forgive me for so ludicrously oversimplifying the issue, but I don’t have the space to get into the grit.) Without these needs being met, a woman is likely to feel detached and withdrawn, and her man may feel superfluous to her and others. It is difficult to cultivate genuine emotional closeness in a marriage without the presence of physical closeness. Of course, the reverse is also true.

3.              Sex is a gift from God. And gifts from God are never one-dimensional. The plan is for it to be mind-blowingly fantastic, and for that reason sex is perfect on several levels. Consider the obvious physical nature of the gift: certain components of our anatomies exist for the sole purpose of ensuring that sex and sexual activity feels good. Really good. Because of sex, we experience this delicious physical hunger for another human. An urgency pulls us to the other person and finds its ultimate satisfaction in pleasing his or her body. We can literally hold onto someone else, and as best as I can tell, that is a nearly universal desire. Then, there is the emotional component to sex that I’ve already discussed somewhat. Sex allows us to be vulnerable with another human and experience the consequent acceptance he or she shows us. What a gift, to be naked with another and mutually pleased by what the two of you see. Such a soul-deep beauty springs from that, from knowing that you are loved and desired, from knowing that someone else on the planet wants you close and wants to trust you with his or her vulnerability. God wants us to discover all of this and more. He wants us to explore our bodies and the bodies of our mates. He wants us to have playful sex, urgent sex, passionate sex…any kind of sex that brings us closer to the lover we have chosen. He has never once turned his face in embarrassment when I’ve had sex with my husband. Sex in its proper place is powerful and generates so much life, excitement, intimacy, and fun in a relationship.

I believe that youth group attendees should know these things, that we should teach them with as much fervor as we have taught STDs and pregnancy. More than anything I wish that someone had given me the information—the positives of sex where it belongs and the negatives of sex used to fill a void—and allowed me to make decisions for myself. Discussing why it is important to treat sexuality with respect is a stark contrast to, “Don’t do it because God will punish you.” This is why I loved Erin’s comment that there are plenty of non-religious reasons to be discriminating with sexual partners. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs or lack thereof, sex is a part of life that everyone reckons with, so considering the emotional and physical ramifications of sex is not an inherently religious exercise. For those who do profess a particular faith, spiritual ramifications like two of the ones I mentioned are just added on. If young people were presented with all this information, they would be empowered to make their own decisions without having to be “put in line” by their youth pastors. Of course, we are all imperfect and we all make mistakes. But I think that respecting students enough to give them a fuller picture of sexuality can only help matters.

*I refer exclusively to comments on the last post.