more on Real Sex

I read this critical review of Real Sex today. The writer takes issue with Winner's blanket statements about extramarital sex as always distorted, bad or hurtful. She says the tradition " lies every time it denies that sex outside of marriage can be very beautiful and “real,” and, by the same token, that sex inside marriage can be very abusive and distorted."

I think the author had some interesting ideas about questioning the church's traditional distinctions about sex. It still seems that no one is addressing the things we had really hoped to find in Lauren Winner's book: how does one affirm embodied personhood and sexuality when you do not have a relationship to express it in? It seems the monastic tradition might have some answers for us, as we discussed at thorubos. Maybe it's the book we can write.

the winner book, sex and sacrament

I'm looking forward to the Thorubos meeting tomorrow morning where we will discuss Lauren Winner's Real Sex: the Naked Truth About Chastity.

I finished the book a few weeks ago, and have been thinking about sex and christian practice and the ways they interact a bit in preparation for our meeting. Kent posted some thoughts on it earlier this week.

I've also been thinking about sacraments and the way they function in our lives. And I think, in some ways sex is like a sacrament. Sacraments are a physical expression of God's love for us, and the way God deals with us as whole people - people with bodies that can be submerged or broken, people who eat and touch each other in blessing. God thinks bodies are so important he chose to incarnate himself. Now, human love is obviously not as holy or pure as God's love, and sex isn't the same as communion, but sex too is an embodied expression of love and delight in another person. And, rightly ordered, it implies a promise. A promise we don't always keep - since we're fallen people.

Some traditions count marriage as a sacrament, and I wonder if they don't have the right idea. That God's blessing on a human commitment of love is a Holy Moment - a special instance of embodied grace in our everyday lives. Or maybe it's too different - maybe it's a whole nother thing, as it were.