Lauren Winner, author of
Girl Meets God and recently,
Mudhouse Sabbath, put out a book in 2005 titled,
Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. And that’s exactly what Winner designs to do: talk about sex in a realistic fashion, from a biblical worldview, that allows us to get past various myths, including the highly eroticized and romanticized beliefs on sex we frequently absorb from both the world and the church.
You’re familiar, no doubt, with the statistics on Christian sexuality. We don’t stand out as very different in our sexual behavior, which means our basic beliefs and ideas about sex must not be that different either. If all those books in the “Christian living” section of the bookstore aren’t helping us develop ideas regarding our sexuality that differ from social norms; if they aren’t helping us believe that what the Bible has to say about sex is relevant and true, something isn’t right. So what makes Winner different?
Real Sex offers an alternative to the magazine-like “Seven Secrets to Sexual Purity” by stretching beyond spoon-fed “dos and don’ts” derived from proof-texting Scripture, and instead, presents the case for sex within marriage from a holistic, biblical view of who we are and how we relate in the world sexually.
From the creation-fall-redemption narrative presented in the Arc of the Gospel, Winner posits an important part of who we are is that we are embodied, and the main way in which we relate in the world sexually is communal. Chapter three is aptly titled, “Communal Sex:
Or, Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night,” and helps remind us that community is a part of the creational order; we were created in and for community. And though we have fallen from God’s original order for creation, he has, throughout history, made a way for his people to live redeemed, creational lives. When Jesus Christ came embodied to earth, he came as the Way, finally making it possible for those who believe to no longer live under compulsion of the fallen, distorted patterns of the flesh, but rather in habits redeemed and restored to God’s creational intent. Winner reminds us that Scripture flies in the face of our over-individualized, over-privatized American way, exhorting the community of the faith to be intimately involved in one another’s lives. She puts it this way:
… the Bible tells us to intrude – or rather, the Bible tells us that talking to one another about what is really going on in our lives is in fact not an intrusion at all, because what’s going on in my life is already your concern; by dint of the baptism that made me your sister, my joys are your joys and my crises are your crises. We are called to speak to one another lovingly, to be sure, and with edifying, rather than gossipy or hurtful, goals. But we are called nonetheless to transform seemingly private matters into communal matters. (53)
Already we’re presented with a meaty alternative to the false views of sex, or we could say, unreal sex propagated in force by our surrounding culture. The next two chapters speak truth against the lies about sex we hear both from our culture, and some of our churches. These chapters give readers an opportunity to take a step outside of their everyday, cultural surroundings and consider them. An interesting untruth presented to us by our culture we may not have yet considered is that “sex can be wholly separated from procreation” (64). Only a person living in a cave could miss the church’s view on abortion; however, the debate on contraception isn’t quite as clear-cut. Nonetheless, one issue concerning the topic that should be clear-cut is the issue of God’s ultimate control and our joyful, even if also painful, submission. Put more clearly,
…if contraception invites us to be carefree [a potential benefit], it also encourages us to be people who think we can control and schedule everything, including the creation of our families, down to the month, down to the week. And, most important, it invites us to be people who have utterly separated sex from procreation. (65)
Why is this a danger? Well, for one, the connection between sex and making babies keeps us from being wholly wrapped up in ourselves as lovers (66); it returns sex and marriage to its communal orientation. Real sex is always open, in a general sense, to the possibility of children (67), and understands that possibility as a part of God’s good creational plan.
Opening up the conversation of sex and our sexuality to the whole of Scripture and to our Christian communities is like opening the windows of a dark room. By this light we see other lies our culture tells about sex, and we can work together to begin rejecting such ideologies, establishing a core understanding of human sexuality that, in fact, stands apart; we can develop beliefs and habits of a sacred sexuality. Winner points out that society tells lies like cohabitation is a good practice-run (68), modesty doesn’t matter (71), and “good sex can’t happen in the humdrum routine of marriage” (77).
Of those three statements, which strikes you as most dangerous? We might think it’s the prolific idea of shacking up; and in fact, the church is usually pretty clear on its position regarding premarital sex and modest dress; however, I would like to suggest that a subtle distortion is always more dangerous than an obvious one. Winner agrees; she states,
Too often we assume that contemporary American sexual life is a one-dimensional world of licentious prurience. Yet it may be more important for contemporary Christian ethics to constructively engage secular romanticism than to righteously denounce sexual libertinism. It is, after all, pretty easy for us Christians to distinguish ourselves from the sex-is-recreation ethic. The real question is not whether we can counter the message that sex is just like racquetball, but whether we can also articulate a Christian alternative to the regnant ideal of sex as an otherworldly, illicit romance, an escape from quotidian, domestic life. (80)
Sex isn’t meaningful because it’s an erotic escape from everyday realities. Rather, sex is meaningful because it’s real (81). And while romance is certainly appropriate, even important, as part of sustaining love, if it serves merely to compartmentalize our lives rather than integrate them, our lives will be less, not more, fulfilling.
This next chapter is perhaps where we get a bit more personal: “Straight Talk II:
Lies the Church Tells about Sex.” In an effort to do right and protect the biblical ethic of sex within marriage, and with honorable intentions, “the church tells a few fibs of its own” (85). Winner chooses to discuss four of these fibs: “premarital sex is guaranteed to make you feel lousy” (85), “women don’t really want to have sex anyway” (90), “bodies (and sex) are gross, dirty, or just plain unimportant” (93), and finally, if we’ve gotten over Gnosticism, now we’re obsessed with technique (97), as obsessed as our secular counterparts.
I can’t talk about all of these ideas (and I wouldn’t want to give away the whole book!), but I want to address a couple of them. I’m sure some of you are thinking, “Doesn’t premarital sex make you feel lousy, full of guilt and regret? And if it doesn’t, shouldn’t it?” It’s possible there’s more truth in the second thought than the first one, because let’s face it, sex feels good, even sinful sex. If it didn’t, premarital sex would certainly be a lot easier to avoid. We wouldn’t need Winner’s book or any other book, not to mention the community of faith, the Bible, or the Holy Spirit for that matter –– at least, not insofar as we need them for our journey toward right-living (89). “What the church means to say,” posits Winner, “is that premarital sex
is bad for us, even if it happens to
feel great” (90).
But at least we’ve come to recognize that sex in marriage feels great and should feel great. And while it seems we may never be able to fully shake Gnostic parasites from the Gospel, I believe churches have generally come to embrace marital sex as good. However, the message from the pulpit can still be a bit confusing, especially for women. Winner notes a study of teenage girls which shows the “strongest predictor of teenage virginity” isn’t church involvement or the youth group, but team sports (18). That may seem obscure, but athletics teaches girls (and boys) something about bodies being good –– and useful for other purposes than sex. This is a message
we aren't communicating well.
So what should we do? Have more church sports leagues? Maybe... but perhaps not. We can, however, begin to change the way we talk about sex and modesty. Personally, as a woman who grew up constantly hearing from youth group and other para-church media that my body was the vehicle of lust and destruction for young men everywhere, it took lots of time to unlearn negative associations about my body and become comfortable in my own skin, though perhaps less time than others; I played sports. This language isn’t only damaging to women. To suggest that men simply can’t help themselves is to suggest that men are less than human, or that they can experience the fruit of the Spirit in all areas but lust. It is essentially degrading to men to imply that men are animals and women are angels, that somehow women are morally superior to men, and therefore responsible for them (73). Certainly we are responsible
to one another as brothers and sisters, but responsible
for is another thing entirely.
The last few chapters of Winner’s book touch on topics such as kissing, pornography, and masturbation, and dish out practical, and I think rather good and helpful, ideas to guide us in practicing chastity within our caring, Christian communities. Winner reunites chastity with the other spiritual disciplines, and talks about what marriage, children, sex, and singleness teach the church, why each is important in God’s economy, an economy of repentance and forgiveness. Placing sexual purity back within a story that’s bigger than itself makes the issue of chastity important, rather than indifferent, and gives it meaning by giving it context.
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