Assignment | Lesson One | Sexism

If I were setting out to develop a sexual ethics with my congregation I think it would be great for us to read this book together! It would be helpful to have some common language to guide us and some shared basis for how we build a framework.

With any human behavior, there is a potential for it to be harmful or healing, coercive or cooperative, limiting or expansive. I would hope that we could develop a positive and healing understanding of sexuality that gives deeper meaning to how we live as humans. I hope we could celebrate the full range of who God has created us to be by lifting up sex as a beautiful part of human connection and pleasure. Sexual intimacy gives us the opportunity to both give and receive care with loving intention.

Starting with liberation and mutuality seems foundational to me - as those are values we (out congregation) hold across our relationships. Consent is another non-negotiable concept that we’d need to lay at the foundation. Seeing one another as holy parts of creation and treating one another as such is based in love of (and respect for) God, self and neighbor/other.

I think it would be important for us to use more expansive and less ‘binary’ language to be able to include a wider range of gender identities and sexual expressions in our sexual ethic. Our congregation includes people across many identities and I would want our language and imagining to be inclusive of those who are often left out of descriptions dominated by heterosexual or cisgender assumptions.

There are lots of ideals we could point to and uphold as the ‘best’ ways to engage in sexual practices. But I would want to make space to recognize that the limitations of the world around us make it nearly impossible to engage in ‘perfect’ sexual practices. We may try to eradicate the sins of patriarchy from our bedrooms and we would be right to do so; but excavating the isms that are deeply embedded within us is work that takes a long time to achieve. I’d like to find a way to establish the idea that there are ideals we can work to achieve in sexual encounters, without creating additional layers of shame for the ways we do not yet meet those ideals. Engaging from places of love for god, self, and other, celebrating the full range of our human experiences, and working toward wholeness would be important pieces of the framework we would build upon.

Public Purity Pledges. Virginity Pins. Knees 6-inches Apart. No Touching the Bathing Suit Area. Both Feet on the Floor. Dancing Leads to Sex. Choosing Gay “Lifestyle”. Living in Sin.

I grew up in the conservative view (see above) and now live in the liberal view- both of which, as the readings indicated, “overly emphasize sexual acts”.  The saying “180° away is still on the same line” is so true.  

The overriding concept for me, this week, was the focus of Justice around intimacy, sex, and ethics. This is a positive forward way of relating- intimately and platonically- instead of a list of “don’ts”. The ethics concepts are interconnected - Safety ties in with Consent which influences Mutual Pleasing. These concepts  emphasize an equal power dynamic and the seeking of the good of the other. If these were reinforced, it would bleed into all relationships within a congregation, as we all would be placing others first.

After I unclenched around teaching the concept of sex being “great”, I realized that societal attitude would hopefully shift, eliminating shame, guilt, and unhealthy curiosity. People could talk about sex and intimacy in a normalized, healthy way- there’s no fear in talking about pizza (which is also great!). Our relationships with others could be more open as fear and shadowy thoughts of sex wouldn’t be in the background of all encounters… maybe…hopefully.

If I was charged with creating a sexual ethics policy for my congregation, I would lean heavily into I Corinthians 10:23-24. (“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. NIV). These verses make us stop and think before acting. I would also combine the equality over power dynamic with the ethics mentioned in the readings (safe, consensual, faithful, mutually pleasing, and intimate) as a strong judicial behavioral guideline for all relationships. 

Ahhhh, sex is so complicated and so uncomfortable to talk about sometimes! Being raised Catholic and by a mother who absolutely would not discuss sex, all I knew was what the church and society thought was right and wrong and none of that felt right to me. 

In my early twenties I worked for a company called AVN (Adult Video News), the trade media company for the adult industry. I coordinated trade shows and worked on the business side of the industry. I spent a lot of time around a lot of people who made sex their livelihood. This was a complete juxtaposition to what I believed sex to be. As a result, I learned a lot about what I feel is right, what others opinions are, and overall, that healthy, consensual sex is actually a good thing. Now, overall, my relationship with that industry is quite complicated because I don’t agree with the easy access that minors have to it, the fetishes that portray violence against women, and the addiction that happens with some people. This isn’t me saying “Porn is GREAT!” but my time working in that industry changed my views and actually helped me have a healthier relationship with sex than I had before.

I think that we tie so much up into sex in how it defines us and others. If we were able to connect our faith to say that sex is NOT a sin and can happen outside of marriage in a variety of healthy ways, it would enable us to become closer, more intimate with one another in our relationships without carrying the baggage of guilt or shame into our experiences. If we were to take away the negative opinions of sex from the church and flip it around to be healthy and supportive, I can’t even begin to imagine how that might change us all.

Side note - the timeliness of this overall lesson while we are watching the news on the Cornell 7 has sparked some very helpful conversations in my house, particularly with the men. I’m grateful for so much of what I’ve learned this week (adam translates to humanity!) as it has given me some useful tools to communicate better what I was already feeling.

I think about this issue of sexual ethics as I’m raising kids in a faith context, and trying to not repeat the same “sex is dangerous and harmful unless you are married” mentality I got as a young person. 

 

I agreed very much with the five principles outlined: safe, consensual, faithful, mutually pleasing, and intimate (De La Torre, p 22-23). I had already built an ethic for myself based on the concepts of safe, consensual, and connected (maybe this most relates to intimacy- the idea that sex can be something that brings us together and bonds us, not just a biological urge). 

 

I think I disagree (at least in part) with the idea that we should project a message of “sex is great” in church. While I agree that in its ideal format, sex would be great for all involved, there is so much trauma and negative experiences surrounding sex that I worry about alienating folks who have a history of trauma. Sex can be great, but it isn’t always great for everyone. I think just adding additional nuance, and space for people’s varied experiences around sex is appropriate for a broad congregational setting. 

 

When I was involved in the Catholic youth group, they wanted to put “theology of the body” (or at least a fairly patriarchal and conservative version of it) at the forefront of the youth programming. And the intention was not necessarily bad, sex and sexuality can be something sacred, special, and set apart. But I think a realistic approach that includes messaging about our God-given bodies, and those principles listed above can provide tools for people to make decisions about how and when they will engage in sex. 

 

To #1:
I had some disagreements with the work orthoeros is expected to do.

So orthoeros requires ensuring a background of justice, oriented toward dismantling social injustices, within which sex would be possible to occur? Right sex then is merely a particular instantiation of just living/doing? Sex is responsible for doing justice? Or sex that is right is not right without what's right more broadly in living and society being a concern being addressed?

Is a liberative sexual ethic different or more constructive than the control proscribed by sexual norms? Is an ethic different in kind than a system of norms? 

Not still focused on essential microcosms or elemental relations that determine right encounters in total? Whereby these elemental interactions necessarily cohere into a manifestation of a love supreme? Even if deconstructive of powers and norms at be, it still retains a concern with emergence of justice before and by means of still-accepted monogamous, stable, and familial encounters between mutually giving and vulnerable pairs. I get that sex should model and be included within the love we talk about often elsewhere, but that's awfully heavy a weight for it to carry for many still learning what their body in the world entails. Sex is a language that lovers use as well as by those negotiating boredom. It can be declarative, interrogative, celebrative, and consolating. It can write terms of relation and similarly ambiguate them too. It can be direct, asynchronous, remote, or even hypothetical.

I realize we've already constrained the whole by mentioning here we're concerned with what's erotic per se. But it's somewhat a sleight of hand to import eros so easily into sex, as though eros has or is still so coincident with sex. Many who enjoy sex with another either don't desire love to come into play or aren't free to allow a love therein to emerge a love made visible in public. Casual, non-erotic sex here is treated as a mistake, not because it's a wrong kind of sexual act by type, but because it's simply not the work of love, or necessarily within a trajectory to shalom & shlemut. That what's only contributing to making love real for one's self and for the world, belongs to the concern or story of a liberative sexual ethic. This may be fine for a system identifying instrumental value in sex for the theological edification of a Christian, but it's not how and where many folks, especially queer folks, encounter and resolve sex as a frame of experience in their lives.

To #2:

Church would definitely have to reckon with what sex has been in it's walls for many for so long before perhaps folks would hear about sex in that venue in a positive or imaginative way. To deal with it's institutional enablement of sex abuse within itself, it's profession of sex to the ends of its systematic doctrine, and moreover its active use of sex instruction as a means of control for non-dominant cohorts in particular.

But what if? If there were instead the take that sex was great preached from the pulpit, then sex would (ideally) be drawn into Jesus’s message of love and our ready knowledge of God's Creation. As most reflections and observations, it would be instrumentalized toward guidance for right living. Not a bad thing, but a capturing that would domesticate sex in a way the church isn't willing to do in a positive, direct way (at least yet).

Would sex become a form of worship like other forms of celebrated creative capacities? Would we include and de-privatize stories of sex from among the saints? We'd perhaps be more realistic about who and what we each are, but as a parent to young kids who I know will one day struggle hearing anything from me about sex or desire, I wonder whether sex has a place in the sanctuary or in Sunday school. Perhaps to erode mechanisms of shame and prejudice would be good, or for it to be anti-parable, but what parables of sex might we tell?

Sex like so much else complex humanity is a mystery that speaking it out or codifying its right place can feel reductive and truncated. I don't want sex to be made illicit, but using the church to make it licit or recommended feels like an invitation for proscription or teleological capture. Don't drag sex or ecstasy, but perhaps speak more on love itself than it's manner or manifestations. What love feels like and why it's the presence of God rather than whether sex rightly inheres that kernel of love. Whereby love has no end and how creative and procreative it might be, how sex is great sometimes but isn't necessarily a sign of faith as neither any given meal might be. That God and her people have their sexuality that can & should be good and worthwhile, but that it's a language to speak or a song to sing, not the binding agent itself.

To #3:

To begin I would ask how a sexual ethics might be carried - as a script, guidelines, do's and don'ts, as illuminating narratives. How will it be used and what would the result of it's good use be?

I would include a few key ideas: 1) that people and their dignity always remain centered, 2) that sex be always understood as both an event (something that occurs) and a way of being (an orientation, a site of difference, an identity), and 3) that sex is never done in a vacuum (at least until space travel) - it imports features of its context and exports traces and implications of its creative fulfillment beyond its time and place. In terms of the creation of such an ethics, I'd include as many voices as possible, and seek to recognize how subjective and sensitive a topic this remains for most.

I would exclude pledges, promises, grand theories about how individual choices on sex determine systemic outcomes, a thorough accounting of ancient Near Eastern sexual practices and mores, and mostly exclude the comfort that sex is not all good nor all bad, nor that it's a private concern that doesn't involve those for whom it seems to have been sorted. Especially with the sorrowful persistence of rape culture and of suspicion of victims of sexual violence, sex is not simply a nice-to-have in one's own life, but a location of often-central human behavior for which each of us affects and determines the perceived permissions and contours of care and pleasure all of us carry into encounters, our gaze, taunts, dreams, and desire.

DSF SEJ Wk 1

Erin Aylor

10-11-2026

My response is a mash-up of these 3 response options. I come from a background growing up Missionary Baptist and being in that denomination for roughly 30 years then Southern Baptist ~6 years after that. So, the purity culture and emphasis on waiting for marriage was really drilled into teens. I actually still believe that waiting for marriage is very much best practice. There was the sole emphasis on only one thing before sex, and that one thing was marriage. There was never even a thought of liberationist points of view such as power dynamics, trust and safety, faithful, and especially the mutually-fulfilling part. I have become a big fan of Sheila Gregoire, author of “She Deserves Better” and “The Great Sex Rescue”, and am curious what the Professor thinks of her work. It has really been insightful for many of my friends that also grew up in this same denominational background. Many women struggle with sexual dysfunction that stems from 1) lack of knowledge 2) lack of concern for women’s sexual enjoyment 3) viewpoints around genuine intimacy and fulfillment. On a personal level, what really hurt my heart was reading about imbalance of power as I have an adult daughter with an intellectual disability. It’s a long story, but we are no longer able to be her legal guardians. She has now been married twice to men who are 18 and 25 years older than her. These two men are by far not the brightest bulbs in the pack, but I still feel this is not right at all! There is an imbalance between ages and life experiences. As an educator (I’m bivocational and a Career Coach at our local high school), I could guess 90%+ of our local students have any information about this at all. The orthoeros is missing from education today. And honestly, it’s missing from church programs educating Christ followers in our own congregations. I appreciate all of the reading and videos this week. The main thing I had disagreement with is the reading from Matthew 15:21 where Jesus’ comments are construed as racist. I’m just not seeing that. I’m no Bible scholar. But after the reading the course reading discussing that excerpt, I went back and read it in 3 versions and also looked to commentary (www.hermaneutrix.com and www.sacredspace.com along with www.juniaproject.com of which I am a patron) to help get a better understanding and my larger commentaries are at the office. I appreciated the Junia Project’s insight the most. No matter which way one is looking, calling or referencing someone as a dog does come across seemingly aggressive or at the minimum, not complimentary. It was the foundation of what got this mom like “a dog on bone” begging Jesus to heal her daughter. She was hanging on tight! She was not letting go of the request! And, He came through! And, I don’t think begrudgingly but wanting to help. I’ll be pondering this scripture more. 

Attached in video are my responses

Video

I’m just starting back to school after being out for a few years so I hope I’m doing this right!

The readings this week made me think about sexism like never before. I’ve always thought it was just discrimination on the basis of physical gender but I’m finding it’s so much deeper than that.

I was raised in a conservative-ish Christian home where I attended a Disciples of Christ church on Sundays but an Assemblies of God youth group on Wednesdays. I’m 100% sure I signed a Purity Contract in high school. I always thought that was biblical. Lust is one of the seven deadly sins, after all. But we never talked about *why* we should abstain. No one ever talked about sexual oppression or guilt or power.

I love the idea of orthoeros, especially if it’s focusing on “the sexual prejudices of those in power.” I immediately thought of male senators who stand up and decry the idea of homosexuality but then get caught having gone to male prostitutes. They try to completely deny the meetings, then say they were seduced, then say they regret all of it. “Please respect our privacy during this difficult time.” Then a few months later, we hear about their impending divorce. All of the ethics had been broken.

I agree with the ethics of mutual giving and vulnerability, and the Five Principles. I think they are all summed up by the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do you want your partner to be vulnerable to you? Then be vulnerable to them. Do you want to feel safe? Then make them feel safe. It works the same in the church. Do you have an issue with the pastor or another congregant? If they had a problem with you, would you want them to approach you with kindness and give you the benefit of the doubt ? Then you should do that for them. Did someone have a good idea for a special event, and you’re able to help? Then help.

When it comes to sex, most congregations don’t talk about it AT ALL but it does come up when someone gets pregnant before they’re married. Most people talk about why couldn’t they control themselves or trying to decide if the couple has been together long enough to warrant a baby. That part’s not up to us, but we can talk about being in a committed relationship, making sure they’re taking care of themselves and each other, and giving them the Five Principles as a basis for a healthy relationship.

But we also should have a few sessions for married/long-term couples too. It needs to be talked about in terms of mutual respect and trust, not just what physical aspects you like. Talking about the motivation behind the action might increase the intimacy between the partners.

Sorry last video didn't work - this one should: https://youtu.be/5i2stTOKByk

Ignore video below and just click the above link - sory for the confussion

Test