Reviewer’s Choice: Real Sex, by Lauren F. Winner
By Robin Galiano Russell
Ms. Winner, the author of Girl Meets God, provides a thoughtful, literate and biblical take on sex, knowing it will sound "strange, backward, repressed" to secular ears.
Scripture makes it clear, she says, that God designed sex only for marriage. Singles are to be abstinent, married are to be faithful.
What's unique about Ms. Winner's book is that it goes beyond the usual Pauline verses that warn against sexual immorality and gives a proactive perspective that puts sexual behavior in the context of Christian ethics.
That means Christians need to consider why God cares when we do and do not have sex, and the church needs to reconsider how it helps people practice such Christian teachings. Traditionally, she says, the church has been naļve, ineffective and "theologically vacuous" as far as sex education.
Ms. Winner pulls no punches. Chastity is not easy, nor instantly rewarding, she writes. She dispels the outright lies told about sex by both popular culture - "good sex can't happen in the humdrum routine of marriage" - and the church - "premarital sex is guaranteed to make you feel lousy."
She critiques the modern notion that whatever two consenting adults do in private is nobody else's business. When witnessing a marriage ceremony, she reminds us, part of the new relationship the community is pledging to uphold is biblical chastity.
Ms. Winner is no prude. She confesses her own sexual history, saying she's had to learn chastity as an adult after her conversion.
Originally published in The Dallas Morning News on May 6, 2005.