What Is Her.meneutics?

The Christianity Today women's blog provides news and analysis from the perspective of evangelical women. We cover news stories and books related to international justice and evangelism, pregnancy and sexual ethics, marriage, parenting, and celibacy, pop culture, health and body image, raising girls, and women in the church and parachurch.

Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

Free Newsletters

books we're reading



« 'When Gender-Based Parenting Goes Too Far': Author Response | Main | Facebook Envy on Valentine's Day »

February 11, 2011

The State of Sex

For one writer, porn is simply a representation of sex: a brutal, male-dominated, and harmful act. Sign me up for lifelong virginity.

Amy Julia Becker

When it comes to attitudes about sex in America, I often find myself somewhere between cynical and hopeless. I read statistics about 95 percent of adults losing their virginity before marriage. I look at the magazine rack in the grocery store and the headlines that encourage promiscuity and multiple sexual partners. And I tend to conclude that Christians who believe God intended sex to be a joyful, mutually edifying expression of commitment and love, a mirror of God’s love for his church, a gift that binds a wife to her husband and a husband to his wife — I tend to conclude that such Christians (myself included) have lost not only the battle but also the war. As cynical or hopeless as I might become, two recent articles have inspired me to try to articulate a view of sex that counters the mainstream assumptions and calls individuals to a different way.

0211AdultMovies.jpg

Both articles appeared in The Atlantic, a publication that routinely engages topics such as marriage, divorce, sex, and pornography in a thoughtful and even-handed way. For instance, there was the essay in which Ross Douthat argued that viewing pornography could be considered adultery, and the blogpost about Hephzibah Anderson, who decided to abstain from sex for a year. So when the January/February issue arrived, with two articles about sex and porn in the United States, I was looking forward to reading them.

The first, “The Hazards of Duke,” by Caitlin Flanagan, analyzes a PowerPoint presentation created by Karen Owen, a recent Duke graduate. This slide show details Owen’s sexual escapades with 13 campus athletes. Flanagan concludes that despite Owen’s bravado, crudity, and “desire to recount her sexual experiences in a hyper-masculine way,” she is really just a girl wanting affection from boys. Flanagan laments the culture of random hookups on college campuses: “We’ve made a culture for our college women in which they have been liberated from the curfews and parietals that were once the bane of co-eds, but one in which they have also shaken off the general suspicion of male sexuality . . . Maybe they’re all the better for it. Or maybe an awful lot of these young women at our very best colleges are being traumatized by what takes place during so much of this mindless, drunken partying…” Flanagan has no answer for the problem Karen Owen represents. But at least she understands that there’s a problem.

The next article, “Hard Core” by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, explores the world of Internet porn and what it tells us about our humanity. I have chosen not to link to it because I cannot recommend reading it due to its depraved view of men, women, and sex.

Despite its content, the article deserves comment. In fact, it deserves rebuttal. Its subheading reads, “The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women.” According to Vargas-Cooper, the sexual acts portrayed on many porn websites merely reflect natural human, or rather, natural male, desire: “porn doesn’t plant [ideas] in men’s minds; instead, porn puts the power of a mass medium behind ancient male desires.”

Men, she argues, are violent creatures. Sex is a sometimes pleasurable experience “largely driven by brute male desire and therefore not at all free of violent, even cruel, urges.” Furthermore, she suggests that women are complicit in this “truth” about sex. Even for women, the “best sex” comes “where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist.”

Despite the many false premises Vargas-Cooper asserts, in the end she too identifies a problem with no solution. Although porn divorces the physical act of sex from the emotional connection of a man and a woman coming together, and although Vargas-Cooper’s own claims support that divide, she concludes, “The most frightening truths about sex rarely exist in the physical, but instead live in the intangible yet indelible wounds created in the psyche.”

For Flanagan, the new sexual mores take away women’s needed protection. For Vargas-Cooper, porn is simply a representation of sex: a brutal, male-dominated, and harmful act. If either of these women is right, then sign me up for lifelong virginity.

The Biblical perspective on human sexuality offers a counter-narrative, a counter-narrative of faithfulness, hope, and love. Jesus quoted Genesis 2 when the Pharisees asked him about divorce: “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:4-5). The eternal truth about sex, according to the Bible, begins with Adam and Eve, whose union reflects the image of God. God intends sex to be a physical expression of an emotional and spiritual reality, an expression of love protected by the vows of marriage. Furthermore, sex, in contrast to Vargas-Cooper’s argument, is about mutual giving and receiving. Paul writes, “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Cor. 7:4). Sex in marriage, in other words, is an expression of self-sacrifice and submission for both the man and the woman. Sex involves pleasure, of course, but receiving the physical pleasure of sex is intimately related to giving of oneself—giving oneself to the other and also giving oneself to the possibility of bringing life into the world.

Secular culture assumes that a Christian view of sex is repressive and boring, not to mention virtually impossible to achieve. And yet the options offered by the secular culture lead to subjugation of women, violence, and despair. It is up to Christians to hold forth a radically hopeful alternative to the porn industry and hookup culture. It is up to Christians to articulate the eternal truth about sex as a gift from God intended to bring life, freedom, and joy.

 

Share |

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey on February 11, 2011 9:00 AM

Comments

There are many Christians lately that I have known who promote living together before marriage and sleeping around and viewing pornography to enhance their relationships and it all leaves me feeling so very sad to read how abused the original perspective of God for sex is. It's dead almost. I run a modesty/purity ministry and these are things that we often discuss or make a note of. I think in reality people not only are searching for love without going to LOVE (the creator of it who IS it), but power. Pornography sometimes applauds brutality and definitely makes an issue since so many who are recorded are in sexual bondage through means of human trafficking. For a moment's time it makes a man feel like they are in control to choose who and what they want to do in the comforts of their own home. I like to say that the world glorifies sinning while watching others sin.

This article you have written is so true and reminds us that we need to focus on the prize which is to establish our relationships and personal lives on the foundation of what matters - based on God. If we don't, then our relationships are going to fail bitterly.

Posted By: Victoria / Justice Pirate | February 11, 2011 2:28 PM

YES, YES, YES, YES, YES ALREADY. Porn exists, easy to find and look at, clothing has changed, or, in this case, men's response to clothing, etc...etc...etc. If one looks, there are plenty of articles that "rebut" debate and argue what porn has and is doing to our society. Heaven forbid, even "women's libbers" oppose the way women are shown on TV and movies. Does living together == watching porn. No. Let me say it again...not. Sorry, that equation flat out does not work. Then again, perhaps going to church every Sunday leads us to personal Bible study every day? Am I giving porn the "OK", or supporting it. Of course not, it is a pit that many men fall into and sruggle to get out of. Sex, and aritcles about sex, porn and the like sell magazines, newspapers and web pages. Let's occasionally try talking about the decent (no one is perfect) men who don't chase women, support their families, respect their neighbors, help co-workers, cut the lawn and wash the car. Perhaps we can invite those guys to church. Cause there is a huge majority of them --- and they may not even been to church for while.

Posted By: Anonymous | February 11, 2011 6:16 PM

You needn't be surprised by your observation that Vargas-Cooper "identifies a problem with no solution". This is the classic Post-Modernist trope of cutting everything apart and then announcing that its parts are no different from the whole- nevertheless, the patient still died.

Posted By: HenryS | February 11, 2011 9:17 PM

An interesting article.

In fact, it is a revelation of another step down the ladder of human destruction.

It acknowledges the sexual relationship (hooking up) between humans (whether homo or natural) is approaching animalistic activity (like watching a in-heat female dog leading a parade of male dogs around the neighborhood).

This ain't what God intended and participants failing to repent and ask for forgiveness will eventually suffer His consequences.

Pray for them.

Don W., Sr.

Posted By: Don W. Veatch, Sr. | February 12, 2011 10:13 AM

Great great article, well written. I admit I rolled my eye's when I read the title assuming some "Christianese" attempt at condemning sex.........I was wrong. I will not attempt to add anything to the validity of this article from my own life experiences and insecurities. Shelly Lubben, a former porn actress has a ministry that is affecting big Christ influenced change in the "Sex Industry" and California legislation regarding the Porn Business. I do believe we as readers should pass this article along to others.

Posted By: Kirk Morris | February 12, 2011 11:47 AM

North American culture seems to be driven by one predominant value, money. Have it and everyone "respects" you, have none or little and no one cares.

So you can be the publisher of playboy, or even a drug pusher; just make sure you are wealthy and America does not seem to know what to do with you.

Take the entertainment business for example. There are dozens of young females running around exposing themselves and making salacious videos. Who is speaking about the morality of what these females are doing? What we are hearing is that there is a "market" for it. In other words if it sells it is okay.

A female "entertainer" who exposes her body but does not gain wealth as a result is a "slut", one who makes millions is a "star".

Until North America takes the dollar sign off the end of value$, it makes little sense bothering about other issues.

American culture can be summed up in the words of a very popular song "I want money lots and lots of money; because after that is accomplished nothing else seems to matter to American society.

The mission in North America is simple: "And with all thy getting, get rich".

Posted By: Steve Skeete | February 13, 2011 6:44 AM

Good Article,I just want to encourage you and every Christian that it fighting for morality to keep the faith.
And keep fighting the good fight until we reach the finish line and receive our crowns of gold.

Posted By: S.E.Gregg | February 13, 2011 7:15 PM

@ Steve Skeete Well said. Thus one of the 10 Commandments of our American culture is "You can't argue with success".

Posted By: Basil | February 14, 2011 1:17 PM

Great thoughts. If you haven't, consider reading Lauren F. Winner's book Real Sex and Lewis B. Smedes' book Sex for Christians. They seem to further explore the thoughts you've presented. These are excellent, thought-provoking books that have raised and engaged difficult questions. They have managed to progress beyond the simple, trite, pat Christian answers that are failing to help young people maintain purity, and they have done so, generally speaking, without compromising traditional values. I highly recommend them as books that engage theology, the Church, modern culture, and human experience well.

Posted By: Ben | February 14, 2011 5:56 PM

Parents are the key to helping their teens remain virgins until marriage.And to teach them God's view of sex.
I have listed several ways in this article:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7687340/parents_funding_abstinenceonly_sex.html
S.E.Gregg

Posted By: Anonymous | February 14, 2011 7:56 PM

What "Christians" are promoting porn or living together? Not any worth the name. Why repeat that as fact? No orthodox Christian recommends thus. Even suggesting it is bad

Posted By: Shawn | February 18, 2011 4:02 PM

Post a comment:





Verification (needed to reduce spam):

tags

May 2012
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31