The Puzzle of Sex

Peter Vardy

Description

Almost everyone is directly affected by questions involving sex and sexual ethics - yet few are aware of the background to current views on topics such as sex before and after marriage, sex as procreation and fulfilment, homosexuality, sexual abuse, rape and contraception. This new edition offers added and up-to-date material discussion burning current issues in a thoughtful, reflective and challenging way.

Sujets

• Sexe (homonymie)
• Sexualité
• sexualité
• Sexualité

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 19 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 32
• EAN13: 9780334048145
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Puzzle of Sex
New Edition
Peter Vardy





Copyright information
© Peter Vardy 2009
First published in 1997 by Fount Paperbacks, UK
This Second Edition published in 2009 by SCM Press
Editorial office
13–17 Long Lane,
London, EC1A 9PN, UK
SCM Press is an imprint of Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd (a registered charity)
St Mary’s Works, St Mary’s Plain,
Norwich, NR3 3BH, UK
www.scm-canterburypress.co.uk
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, SCM Press.
The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this Work
Acknowledgement of sources :
Adam Butler, ‘The Wall’, in A. Dodds, The Hospice Book of Poetry , St Helena Hospice, 1992. Used by permission.
Dale Grant Stephens, ‘Eye to Eye’, in Let Your Heart Talk , Heart Talk Publications, 2003. Permission sought.
Raymond Carver, ‘Company’, in All of Us , Harvill, Random House Group Ltd. Used by permission.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
978 0 334 04205 1
Typeset by Regent Typesetting, London
Printed and bound by
CPI Bookmarque, Croydon CR0 4TD



Contents
Introduction: The Sexual Challenge
Part One: The Puzzle of Sex – A Developing Understanding
1. The Creation Stories
2. Women and Sex in the Hebrew Scriptures
3. Jesus – A Scandalous Figure
4. Men, Women and Sex – The Early Christian Tradition
5. East and West – Different Christian Perspectives
6. Reformation Thinkers
7. Old Wine in New Bottles – The Basis for Sexual Ethics Today
Part Two: The Puzzle of Sex Today
8. Psychological Perspectives
9. The Sexual Revolution
10. Contraception and its Social Effects
11. Transactional Sex
12. Love and Marriage
13. The Old Gods Return
14. Sex and Becoming Fully Human
15. Infidelity, Adultery and Betrayal
16. Homosexual Relationships
17. Bringing the Threads Together



Dedication
To Anne Vardy
with grateful thanks




Introduction: The Sexual Challenge
Is underage sex wrong? Much depends on how ‘underage’ is defined. In Britain and the United States the age of consent is 16, in Vietnam 18, in Madagascar 21, in Spain 13 and in some countries in the Arab world a girl may be married and have sex once she has had her first period (which can be at the age of 10). Adultery is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia yet in the West it is common and scarcely raises any public comment. Homosexuality is widely accepted in parts of San Francisco, in Sydney’s Kings Cross area or in Brighton and Hove in England – in other parts of the world it is punishable by death. Sex on the internet is increasingly common and sexually explicit magazines are available on the shelves of all Western newsagents.
Is sex on the internet wrong? Websites such as Second Life have boomed in popularity in recent years and the first divorce has taken place with one partner citing her husband’s adultery through his avatar with a female avatar on the internet. Sex is meant to be one of life’s great pleasures and many magazines and television programmes are devoted to either sex or helping people make themselves sexually attractive. In schools, ‘health’ programmes teach young people how to avoid the risks associated with sex, often divorced from any wider moral or psychological considerations. Implants are now being used by teenage girls to avoid the risk of pregnancy instead of having to ‘bother with’ condoms or ‘the pill’ and a vaccine is being increasingly given to 12-year-olds to avoid infection by the HPV virus during adolescent sexual activity. Meanwhile, the rate of marriage is declining with more couples choosing to live together, yet at the same time the divorce rate is rising.
Sex is at once routine, simple, straightforward and yet complex. It can be both beautiful and devastating. The beauty of a flower is directly related to the need to pass on its genes through the assistance of insects, bees or butterflies. Male animals fight each other in order that their genes can be passed on rather than their competitor’s. They engage in hugely complex and demanding displays to attract females and invest much of their energies in the process, often shortening their lives as a result. Sex is the means by which almost every individual plant and animal reproduces, the very process by which species evolve and by which life on earth continues to exist.
The link between sex and reproduction invests a bodily action with a profound significance, for individuals and for society in general. Sustaining the young requires huge investment both in terms of parental time and of resources. The selection of a sexual partner has, therefore, profound significance. The ability to control the rate and type of reproduction determines the success of an individual and ultimately of a community. From the earliest times individuals have been interested in controlling their own fertility, being discriminating in their choice of partner.
Historically human beings, and particularly those who have an education and/or political power, have liked to play down the importance of ‘base instincts’ like sex in their lives, claiming that human beings are potentially unique in being able to ‘rise above’ animal needs and desires to behave on a ‘higher, rational level’. However, experience teaches that the power of sex can undermine humanity’s idealistic, rational vision of itself. Because of this, sex has often been viewed with suspicion and has been seen in negative terms particularly, it must be said, by religion. Religion has always been aware of the power of sex and, generally, with some exceptions as in parts of Hinduism, it has been looked on negatively, as an unfortunate necessity in perpetuating this temporary and unsatisfactory world. Sex must be directed towards reproduction and then kept firmly under control.
Sex has disrupted and distorted the orderly working of communities when unleashed from its tight bounds. Greece went to war with Troy because of the beauty of Helen and the sexual drive that drove King Priam’s son to steal her away from her Greek husband. The Hebrew Judge, Samson, was overthrown because of consequences arising from his sexual behaviour – he failed to live up to his celibate calling as a Nazirite prophet, was attracted to a foreign prostitute rather than a good Hebrew girl, spent time trying to please her rather than engaging in productive work and ended up humiliated and dead. Choosing the right sexual partner for your son or daughter was a central concern of monarchs in the Middle Ages. It could ensure peace and stability or could foster ambitions in terms of expanding territory or undermining a troublesome neighbour. A bad match could lead to the end of a dynasty and disastrous civil war. The association between sex, sin and suffering was made early in human history. It was the accepted interpretation of the story of the Fall in Genesis well before the time of Jesus which made it all the more significant that he was born of a virgin and remained apparently unmarried. By the time of the renaissance, images of Adam and Eve in the Garden typically showed the serpent in highly sexualized female form suggesting that female beauty aroused the bestial nature of men and thus prevented them from fulfilling their potential as rational beings in the image of God and in harmony with God. In some versions of Islam, women are told to keep their bodies completely covered to avoid providing temptation for men.
Today, the link between sex and reproduction has been largely broken due to modern methods of contraception, particularly the pill which was developed by Dr Gregory Pincus in the early 1950s and which, it is estimated, one hundred million women use today. The impact of the link being broken has been described as a revolution and this is a fair description. The practical and political significance of sex has altered. If large numbers of children and consequent investment do not necessarily result from the sexual act, society (in the form of politicians, the law, religious authorities and families) becomes less concerned with controlling it. However, that vacuum was soon filled by media and advertising agencies who seized on the potential of sex as a means of controlling people, though in a different way and to a new end. Sex is now used overtly to sell every commodity and people are encouraged to enjoy sex in quantity as well as quality from earliest adolescence. The use of sex in this way is legitimized with reference to science, albeit a twisted, distorted and very selective version of science. Sex is said to be ‘natural’, and human beings like other animals are said (in the words of Richard Dawkins) to be ‘the lumbering robots blindly programmed to pass on the selfish molecules known as genes’. 1 All efforts to control fertility and to influence the outcomes for individuals and societies therefore seem futile or insidious. Human beings should enjoy the now, take advantage of contraception which may reduce possibilities and delay the inevitable, allowing everyone to ‘eat and drink for tomorrow we will die’. The ideas that actions and choices may have a long-term significance beyond producing higher or lower amounts of personal happiness, that our lives may have a purpose other than to pass on DNA, is being eroded.
Unfortunate