The fat of the land...

Your stories

Anyone who has ever worked with me, or perhaps even just passed me on the street, will know that there’s a fat person in me just waiting to get out. I like to eat. To this end, work life is proving rewarding on so many levels. People book meetings and they book catering. Do they eat it? No they don’t. Fear not, the fox is here. My new life is an endless round of sandwiches, cakes, sushi and pleasingly crunchy Japanese rice crackers. Lucky for me, I have the metabolism of a whippet with which to take this extra ballast on board.

Of course, this is nothing to do with anything in particular, it is merely the gentle runway into a post about something that people frequently relate to food - sex. Earlier in the week, we heard from Sally, a Roman Catholic from New England who was lamenting the loss of her ‘connection to Christ’. Despite being uplifted at the loss of her virginity and the subsequent beginning of her sex life, she had felt unable to return to church since the deed had been done. Needless to say, Sally is not married.

In reply, I am posting an email sent to me recently from a lady in Australia. This is not a direct response to Sally’s plight, but she makes some salient points about the issues with which Sally is wrestling. To my mind, she delivers her sharpest punch with this line. Sexuality begins long before intercourse.

Toni. Born 1988. Not yet lost virginity.

I have problems with the focus on virginity in discourse about sexuality, particularly in religious discourse. How is it more holy to be at any stage of sexual intimacy? Where do you draw the line? What is a ‘sexual relationship’ anyway? I'm coming to the conclusion that any romantic relationship between adults, and most between adolescents, will be a sexual relationship. It doesn't have to be an intimate one.

I was at a conference last weekend where we had several really good and practical conversations about premarital sex and sex in general. It was all unplanned - the conference was a ‘radical discipleship’ conference. We talked about social justice, faith communities and political activism, but at the end of the weekend, we were also very concerned about sex.

I don't think it's something we talk about enough in the church. So I'm going to do my bit for open conversation, and write something for The Virginity Project.

To begin with, me. I'm nineteen, I live in Australia and I'm a Christian. I went to a small community Christian school where the dominant Christian culture is politically and socially conservative. I consider myself a virgin, although I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with the term. I have chosen in my relationships not to have sexual intercourse, and also not to engage in some of the more intimate forms of, ‘outer course’, (what a great word!). I intend to continue in, ‘abstinence’, (also a problem word for me), perhaps until marriage and certainly not until I find myself in a committed adult relationship with a long-term future.

My choices about sex are religious choices. However, it's important to understand that I don't make a distinction between ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ choices. To live as a person of faith requires that you live your whole life as a religious choice. My choices about sex are also personal, emotional and practical. They aren't made simply because "the bible tells me so". And they aren't made because my school showed a video of an American prancing around and screaming about teenage pregnancy and sticky-tape .

I handed my virginity pledge in blank, because I object to that sort of manipulation and I didn't feel like I was in any position to make that decision as a never-been-kissed-before, fourteen year old. Most importantly, they're not choices made by my Religious Brain repressing other parts of me.

I don't remember reading much about sex which can be attributed to Jesus himself. He told an adulterous woman not to sin again, but it's worth noting that on that occasion, he was the dangerous liberal, preventing the ‘religious right’ of the day from stoning her. I don't think we can know Jesus' mind on sex quite as easily as some people say we can. The greatest commandment, he said, is to ‘love one another as I have loved you.’ It's a useful line. The Christian life must be loving. To me, that means more than just being in love with your partner. It means engaging in sexual relationships which enrich you as individuals and your relationship. It means not knowingly engaging in sexual activities which will cause harm, (emotional, spiritual, physical), to yourself or your partner. It also means not harming third parties, which is a complicated area - if my fellow Christians were distressed by my sexual life, does that mean I shouldn't have one? I'm not sure, and I don't think laying down a hard and fast rule will help anyone in deciding that.

My decision is personal. It's one based on my relationships and the development of my sexuality so far. I want time to explore that, without rushing madly to ‘fourth base’. What an awful way to think about sex- it's not a list of objectives, it's about intimacy. I'm still changing at a rate of knots, I don't feel I can talk with any certainty about who I will be and who I will love in the future.

Abstinence education tells you that the primary focus is on not having sexual intercourse, and on overriding the physical desire to do so. It teaches you that there is a division between body and mind, and that you need to call the latter in against the former. It doesn't prepare you - or at least, it never prepared me - for that confusing state of being, when your body and mind both want someone desperately, and yet both are overloaded with new sensations and desperately want out.

We desire our partners, and it seems daft to me to pretend we can cut that off and then magically call it into being on the honeymoon. There are conservative Christians who will tell you that you shouldn't do anything which will start to turn you on. I think that's a little on the pointless side. They are right when they say that sexuality starts long before intercourse.

Having never received secular sex education, I don't know how they deal with it, but we in the church certainly need to do better by our fellows, in open conversation about sex and how we deal with sexuality.

Comments

[Paul]

Well done Toni for such an eloquent commentary. My thoughts entirely.