-Caveat Lector-
>From Slate.Com
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ARTICLES
In the Biblical Sense
A guide to the booming Christian sex-advice industry.
By Mark Oppenheimer
Posted Monday, Nov. 29, 1999, at 4:30 p.m. PT
When University of Chicago researchers set out to discover which religious
denominations have the best sex, they learned that the faithful don't do all
their shouting in church. Conservative Protestant women, their 1994 survey
found, report by far the most orgasms: Thirty-two percent say they achieve
orgasm every time they make love. Mainline Protestants and Catholics lagged
five points behind. Those with no religious affiliation were at 22 percent.
(Unitarians may not wish to read any further.)
What are the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world--those twice-born PTA moms--doing
in bed that the agnostics and unbelievers are not? Education may explain some
of their sexual satisfaction. (Click here [/Features/sex/SideB01.asp] for
how.) But they also may be getting better sex advice. Thanks to evangelism's
surge during the past quarter-century, America is in a golden age for
Christian sex manuals. Evangelicals may not want their children to study sex
ed in school, but they are not afraid of studying a little sex ed in their
bedrooms.
The modern Christian sex advice business dates to 1973, when the evangelical
Marabel Morgan achieved brief notoriety for The Total Woman. Morgan famously
suggested that wives spice up their marriage by greeting their husbands at the
door wearing nothing but Saran Wrap--a seduction attempted with sad
consequences for Kathy Bates in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. James Dobson,
founder of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, published a sex-and-
marriage book in 1975. Best-selling Christian authors Tim and Beverly LaHaye
followed in 1976 (also the year of Helen Wessel's The Joy of Natural
Childbirth, which taught Lamaze from a Christian perspective). Scores of books
have followed, selling millions of copies.
While the Marabel Morgan book aimed chiefly to comfort and instruct the wife
on holding the attention of her husband--implying without subtlety that any
sexual problems were her fault--later writers have expanded the boundaries of
the field, which is now marketed as "family counseling," a category that
includes child-rearing, lovemaking, marital relations and, of course, sexual
orientation. Today, the genre has even subdivided into niche markets. Teens
can buy I Kissed Dating Goodbye, by Joshua Harris, which counsels against
early sexual experience. Earl Johnson's Single Life: Being Your Best for God
as He Prepares His Best for You assures black women that their single status,
which demographics may brutally enforce, can be "a celebration rather than a
burden." Numerous books target gays for "recovery," including Coming Out of
Homosexuality, by Bob Davies, dean of the ex-gay evangelists.
Sex-and-marriage guides are the best sellers of the genre, and Tim LaHaye has
emerged as its Alex Comfort. If you're a Christian who wants to go forth and
multiply, he's your guide. Lately on the best-seller lists for the six
apocalyptic novels in his "Left Behind" series, which have sold nearly 10
million copies, LaHaye has long been a household name among fundamentalists
for his works on sexual and family life. His most famous book, the wonderfully
titled How To Be Happy Though Married, hearkens back to another era, in ways
both quaint and disturbing. LaHaye rehashes all the conventional ideas about
male and female sexuality. For example, he perpetuates the Freudian myth about
vaginal vs. clitoral orgasms, and he views male sexuality as essentially
dangerous. "The sex drive in a man is almost volcanic in its latent ability
to erupt at the slightest provocation." Men are stimulated by sight, says
LaHaye, women by words and touch. In the LaHaye scheme, the New Testament is a
sexual guide. Matthew 5:28, for instance, says, "But I say unto you, that
whosoever look unto a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her
already in his heart." But Jesus made no such statement about women because
most women do not look at men with lust. Thus man "should be the initiator
because of [his] stronger sex drive,"
while "the role of the woman is to respond."
LaHaye's books have their share of quackery and pseudoscience, but that does
not preclude some genuinely wise counsel to lovers--especially inexperienced
ones. He is wonderfully clear and clinical about the mechanics of sex. Here is
part of his description of female sexual arousal, for example: "When a woman
is sexually aroused, several of her glands begin to secrete a lubrication that
bathes the vulva area with a slippery mucous, easing the entrance of the penis
into the vagina." For young marrieds who have grown up shielded from the
universal sex talk of the secular world, these details are surely useful.
Perhaps the most notable quality of the Christian sex business is that it is
evangelical, not puritanical. It is very pro-sex--as long as sex takes place
in the context of marriage. Ed and Gaye Wheat, authors of Intended for
Pleasure: Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage, may
curiously advise "taking an acid or alkaline douche just before intercourse"
to select the sex of one's baby (they don't say which douche is
for which sex), but their overall tone is both practical and sensual. They
note that lubricant works best if you first "warm the K-Y Jelly by holding
the tube in warm, running water." They advise that newlyweds should "not get a
TV set for at least one year" and that "every master bedroom needs a good
lock." The Wheats and LaHaye offer finely wrought anatomical diagrams,
exhortations to married couples to communicate, reminders to "observe daily
hygiene habits," and constant refrains about making sure to satisfy your
partner. Bob Davies allows that masturbation is biblically permissible. The
Wheats condemn oral sex and vibrators only because they might be too fun,
thus souring couples on intercourse. The writers do not invoke the language
of sin.
Christian sex counselors are most alienating to worldly audiences when they
talk about masculinity and homosexuality. They are obsessed with manliness and
have a narrow idea of what that means. Self-styled natural law theologian
Anthony Moccia writes in Happily Ever After: How To Stay Married and Be Happy
Too! that "a husband has more of a chance to keep his marriage together if he
is rough and abusive but assertive than if he is kind and considerate but
submissive." (Moccia's greatest professional qualification, according to the
jacket flap, is an appearance on the Morton Downey Jr. Show.) Moccia's tone is
atypically harsh, but his message is shared by other counselors. Noted
preacher T.D. Jakes, who presides over a
Dallas-based empire of books, tapes, and TV shows, wants to "heal" not just
homosexuals, but all "men who are feminine in their mannerisms." These
Christian sex writers contend unequivocally that gays can simply turn
straight through faith and willpower. They generally describe gays with crude
stereotypes. In What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality, LaHaye employs
Galen's theory of the four humors to help explain gayness. "It has been my
observation," LaHaye writes, "that most homosexuals reflect a high degree of
Melancholy temperament"--"sensitive, artistic, gifted."
The Christian love doctors believe, against all evidence, that teen-agers can
squelch their hormones and homosexuals their essences. Still, for the tens of
millions of married couples who just need a little cheerleading--or a detailed
diagram--their books may literally be a godsend. LaHaye's advice, from the
most florid talk of "eruptive" and "electrifying" touches to his prim
injunction to "refrain from the use of back-alley words" during coitus, won't
please everybody. But with more than 2 million copies sold, he's one
evangelist who is spreading the good news.
RELATED ON THE WEB
You can buy LaHaye's How To Be Happy Though Married here
[http://bn.bfast.com/booklink/click?sourceid=412995&ISBN=0842314997], his The
Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love here
[http://bn.bfast.com/booklink/click?sourceid=412995&ISBN=0310212006], and the
Wheats' Intended for Pleasure here
[http://bn.bfast.com/booklink/click?sourceid=412995&ISBN=0800717368]. This
[http://www.leftbehind.com/Pages/tim.html] is LaHaye's home page, which
describes his Family Life Seminars and his "Left Behind" series of novels
about the Apocalypse. Regeneration Books
[http://www.messiah.edu/hpages/facstaff/chase/h/articles/regenera/books.htm]
sells Christian books on gay "recovery." You can join The Marriage Bed
[http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/TheMarriageBed], an e-mail community for
"married Christians to discuss sex and intimacy from a biblical standpoint."
This [http://hometown.aol.com/mytlv4b/websample4/index.html] women's
sexuality page teaches "how to have Holy sex," while Love Fruit
[http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Suite/6839/] advises on "sex from a
Christian perspective." Awesome Cross Daily
[http://awesome.crossdaily.com/vote.php3?sid=2155] offers a tremendous list of
Christian Web sites, including bookstores
[http://awesome.crossdaily.com/list.php3?cat=264]. Jews feeling left out of
all this Christian sex talk can check out Kosher Sex
[http://www.koshersex.com/home.html].
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