Glenden BrownIs waiting or being sexually healthy the goal?
In an otherwise good article, Dealing with abstinence-only programs, in today’s Trib, Corey Hodges pastor New Pilgrim Baptist in Taylorsville writes:
For many young people, engaging in sexual intercourse is just another dating activity. Many don’t consider the consequences . . .
As a parent, I continue to remind my three sons that my desire is that they abstain from sexual intercourse until they have entered into a marriage commitment.
The idea of abstaining focuses too narrowly on both the sex act and marriage. It misleads us into focusing on the marital status of sexual partners rather than quality of the relationship.
In a recent article in the American Prospect, Courtney Martin made the case I’ve made here at OneUtah repeatedly:
On one side, you have social conservatives who claim, “Abstinence-only sex education is the only way to protect young people from unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and emotional turmoil. Sex is sacred and must be saved for marriage.”
And on the other, you have liberal folks like myself who respond, “Studies actually show that abstinence-only sex education is less effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STIs than comprehensive sex education. Sure, teenagers probably shouldn’t be having sex, but they are, so we better educate them to protect themselves.”In their own ways, these perspectives are both myopic, and I’m wondering if it’s time to take a new approach to the conversation. We’ve debated ourselves into a tizzy, framing sexual activity as the shared — whether preventable or inevitable — evil, throwing poison darts of statistics and dogma back and forth. In the process, we’ve lost sight of the target all together: Education is supposed to promote self-aware, healthy, whole human beings.
It often seems in arguing for abstinence until (as does Pastor Hodges), the goal is to help young people remain sexually healthy by avoiding diseases and unintended pregnancies, which are certainly laudable goals. But I think that fails to make a case for the pleasurable aspects of sexuality - that sexuality is a good part of human life. Ann Hanson, at the UCC National Offices, likes to say that “Sexuality should be life-enhancing.” The fear of disease and pregnancy distorts our discussions of sexuality and sends the message that sex is dangerous and must be confined to marriage.
It also sends the unintended message that marriage must be the ultimate model of human sexual relationships and frankly that puts way too much pressure on marriage. Many couples struggle to learn that their marriage is better when they are within a web of other relationships. IOW, the nuclear family works best when it is part and parcel of an active, vibrant connected community. Sexual activity within marriage isn’t always consensual, healthy, or life-enhancing. Sex outside of marriage is often consensual, healthy and life-enhancing.
Pastor Hodges otherwise excellent article holds up sex until marriage as the preferred goal, and not sexual health. I suspect the pastor means sexual health but by identifying sexual health as married he misses an opportunity to make the more important case for empowering people to be sexually healthy throughout their lives.