The Burr in the Burbs

Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. That’s the name of the latest book by Lauren Winner who also wrote the memoir entitled: Girl Meets God: A Memoir. Ms. Winner was the first plenary speaker for our conference on love and marriage. I have to admit that I was quite impressed. I have not read any of her works, but I figured she would be very articulate. I was impressed by her analysis of the currents of our culture.

The title of her paper was “Allowing Sex to Be Ordinary.” She observed that the sexual revolution has not only impacted our views on non-marital sex but also on marital sex. She challenged us to answer “what is good sex?”

Those who engage in non-marital sexual relations refer to it as exciting. It is a thrill precisely because it is illicit and unpredictable. In other words, the excitement is derived from its inherent instability.

On the other hand, married sex is often decried as dull and ordinary. Ms. Winner states that the difference btwn marital and non-marital sex is . . . excitement. And she argues that we Christians capitulate to the currents of our world when we believe that marital sex is only good when it more closely resembles non-marital sex. So all sorts of advice is given to “spice up” our bedrooms, going from embarrasing to bizarre.

But allowing sex to be ordinary is the more counter-cultural approach. Marital sex is good because it is comforting, familiar, clumsy and a natural part of domestic life.

Anyhoo, I thought she made some provocative points and now intend to read her book.