Sex and God: Two Peas in a Pod.

by Tully McLoughlin

Reverend Debra Haffner, a leader in the Unitarian Universalist community, said on Sunday afternoon that it was possible to engage in a religious life while pursuing love (sexual and emotional) that is “just and whole.” “Sexuality,” she said in the beginning of her talk, “is not what we do. It’s who we are.” And there’s something equally innate about religion, she says. We are hard-wired to be religious, just as we are built, biologically, to be sexual.

Haffner polled the room, asking whether the traditions of the ‘cradle-religion’ in which we were each raised left a positive, negative, or mixed impression of sexuality on our minds. She declared that the ‘mixed’ sort were probably students of mainstream Christian religions, the ‘negative’ were bound to be Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and some Jews, and the ‘positives’ were Unitarian Universalists, and maybe a Catholic or two with “a good priest.”

If you’ve ever felt that sex and God were in direct conflict, you’ve reached what Haffner calls a “religious impasse,” after which you’ve got three options. One: hold onto religion and deny sexuality. Two: hold onto sexuality and deny religion. Or three—which Haffner advocates—become theologians in search of your own answers.

Haffner concludes that it is possible to be religious, moral, and sexual at the same time. There was an tone of pragmatism to her talk. Like any good orator, Haffner knew her audience—a room of smart young adults at a liberal Ivy League school. She pointed to the fact that since 1960, the number of people in the United States who have had sex before marriage has topped 90%. In the twenty-first century, sex is an integral part of our culture and our self-perception. Haffner encourages embracing a new sexual ethic focused on the quality of a relationship with another person. And she lists (drum roll) the five criteria of a “moral sexual relationship.” Here they are.

Criteria 1: It’s consensual. (“Teaching how to say yes is as important as teaching how to say no,” she said.)

Criteria 2: It’s non-exploitive. (Don’t use somebody. This means that hooking up, she claims, isn’t usually moral.)

Criteria 3: It’s honest. (Honesty is multi-layered. Everything from talking about STIs to sharing what feels good and what doesn’t is important.)

Criteria 4: It’s mutually pleasurable. (Everybody’s got a ‘personal love map.’ “Ecstacy is personal,” she says.)

(and) Criteria 5: You use protection. (40% of 20-29 year-olds don’t use contraception regularly.)

Haffner cites the Bible frequently, and calls Genesis the “Desperate Housewives of its time,” because of its sexual content. She thinks a renewed sexual morality hinges on “reclaiming” the Bible for a progressive religious response. She speaks easily and confidently, and her message is comforting—we can have sex! It’s “part of our birthright.”

To me, everything seemed a little too simple. C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity, “The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.” Lewis concludes that marriage or chastity is the only way. Haffner, faced with the same dilemma, says that’s impractical in our world. As long as we use protection and respect our partner, the village doesn’t have to grow in size. And we can use this God-given gift as a means of expressing love for one another.