Five Harmful Religious Ideas I Had to Unlearn about Sex
This post originally appeared two years ago on Removing the Fig Leaf. I was born a Pentecostal. My background was not as extreme as Kim Davis’s Pentecostalism, but I did grow up on Jimmy Swaggart and “That Thing†and homophobia and overt misogyny and stories of demon sex spirits imprinting pornographic images on my mind […]
More Myths about Sex
(This is part 5—and the last part in a while—in the series, “What I Want My Teenage Daughters to Know about Sex.” Click here to read it from the beginning.) We pick up this week with more myths about sex and relationships, especially that part about relationships.
Myths about Sex
(This is part 4 in my series, “What I Want My Teenage Daughters to Know about Sex.” Click here to read it from the beginning.) In the words of psychologist David Ley, “many of our beliefs about sexuality have been based on myths and subjective fears.” Indeed, numerous myths about sex and relationships persistently circulate […]
Intimacy and Marriage, and Sexual Ethics
(This is part 3 in my series, “What I Want My Teenage Daughters to Know about Sex.” Click here to read it from the beginning.) Yes, you heard me right: Getting married has nothing to do with getting pregnant, and getting pregnant has only a passing connection to sex. You might think then that I […]
It’s Not Just about Teen Pregnancy
(This is part 2 in my series, “What I Want My Teenage Daughters to Know about Sex.” Click here to read it from the beginning.) There’s a story that continues to permeate even modern society. If you have sex, you might get pregnant, and that would be a disaster. After you get married—or in some […]
What I Want My Teenage Daughters to Know about Sex
I disagree with many other Christians about sex. Firstly, I think God wants us to be happy and prosperous. He created us to enjoy the world and our existence in it. And sex is part of that existence. To turn a phrase, sex was made for man, not man for sex. Sex should be fun, […]
The Very First Wife Swap
(This is part 3 in my series on 1 Corinthians 5. Click here to read from the beginning.) Most of us probably imagine the first swingers as 1960’s hippies in a free-love commune. But in fact, it started earlier than that, in World War II. Christopher Ryan explains: It seems that the original modern American swingers were […]
A Little Truth Would Go a Long Way
(This is part 2 in my series on 1 Corinthians 5. Click here to read from the beginning.) One marvels at the repetition of intentionally tragic stories, like Evergreene’s: After her Christian marriage ended in divorce, and after she slogged through the concomitant depression, she decided she’d be happier living a bisexual, polyamorous lifestyle. She hid her […]
Removing the Leaven from Passover
The Passover stuff is already out at the grocery store. At the other end of the store, an even greater selection of pastel-colored candy and related items. But Pesach is still several weeks away, and first I have another bat mitzvah to think of. My Beloved will finally herself be called to the Torah in […]
The Curious Story of Tamar
Matthew begins his gospel by breaking the rules. It’s not so much that he includes a boring genealogy that breaks the rules—although from a storytelling perspective, starting with a boring genealogy certainly breaks the storytelling rules. To the ancient Jews, genealogies were very important, and they pop up throughout the Bible. Rather, it’s the way […]