Advancing Sexual Health for the Christian Client

Data and Dogma

Beverly Dale, Rachel Keller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780815379959
• eBook ISBN: 9781351214445
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Advancing Sexual Health for the Christian Client is an essential toolkit for professionals working at the intersection of Christian belief and sexual health. In this book, Beverly Dale and Rachel Keller deconstruct potentially harmful Christian beliefs around sexuality to support clients stuck in sexual guilt, shame and fear.

Combining the experience of an ordained Christian clergy with a certified sexologist, this guide promotes a new approach to sex and faith for therapists, which will help their clients to reconcile a belief in God's love with sexual knowledge and fulfilment. Grounded in historical and cultural contexts, and drawing from both academic research and scriptural exegesis, the authors offer practical clinical applications and interventions to enable clients to re-examine their sexual beliefs in a way that encourages sexual healing.

By understanding the goals of a sex-positive, body-positive Christianity, professionals can find a common language with the person of faith and build an effective therapeutic relationship. This book will be a key point of reference for any sex therapist, educator, or student looking to integrate faith-based concepts into their approach.

Part I

Understanding the Problem

An intelligent mind acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

—Proverbs 18:15

1

A New Mindset

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

—Isaiah 43:19

If a sexual-health professional and a theologian could create a healed world of sexually healthy people, it would look like this. First, all sexual ignorance would be transformed into sexual empowerment based on verified knowledge. Second, all religious teachings that restrict and limit sexuality, so that sexual access is viewed as a scarce commodity, would be replaced by a perception of sexual abundance, with respect for self and others. Finally, all sexual guilt and shame would be replaced by sexual freedom. Let us explain.

From Ignorance to Knowledge

They have neither knowledge nor understanding; they walk around in darkness.

—Psalm 82:5

As students of the Enlightenment, we have great faith in human beings’ ability to make better and more informed decisions when we have better and more access to accurate information. Keeping people ignorant of valuable information is most problematic when that knowledge could have a positive impact on our personal lives and intimate relationships. All humans (with a few exceptions) are sensual creatures, with sexual desires, needs, and urges driven by the biological urge to mate, the need for intimacy and companionship, and the desire to play, laugh, and be in the exquisite joy of the present ecstatic moment. This brings meaning and purpose, joy and fulfillment.

Permission to learn about and explore one’s sexuality is an important part of self-understanding that enhances our life-fulfilling experiences. Yet, with misguided intentions, much of Christendom today seeks to limit people’s access to important sexual information that could improve our sexual health and communication. As Karen McClintock, a therapist and United Methodist clergy member, notes:

While the past [thirty-plus] years have produced a revolution in sexual knowledge and education, the church has been silent in the face of its own sexual shame. Moreover, the chasm between spirituality and sexuality has been widening.

(McClintock 2001, 39)

Traditional Christianity discourages people from learning about their bodies and sexuality and exploring their sexual identities and desires, instead requiring followers to save that exploration for a heterosexual marriage, at which point both spouses are encouraged to “give themselves” to one another as unexplored vessels.

There is no problem with Christians deciding they want to wait until they are in a committed relationship or marriage before having intercourse. The problem lies in a lack of autonomy and personal knowledge. Christian teachings that frown on—or actively prevent—comprehensive sex education or exploration imply that there is little value in these activities outside of marriage. Furthermore, by condemning or restricting masturbation, comprehensive sex education, and premarital sexual contact, the church denies people permission to be autonomous moral agents in full control of their own sexuality. This can have disastrous results for Christians who find themselves unable to address their needs, desires, and concerns effectively in sexual scenarios.

Research has repeatedly shown that the more youth are given sex education, are able to practice communicating about sexuality, and are given permission to be moral agents on their own behalf by having access to knowledge related to sexual infections and contraception, the more their behavior is well-considered, mature, and responsible (Advocates for Youth 2011; Brugman, Caron, & Rademakers 2010).

Sexual knowledge can be uncomfortable and challenging, but can open doors to growth and new understanding that give people more choices in how to live their lives and love themselves and one another, so that they can have more intimate and fulfilling lives.

From Scarcity to Abundance

Now to [God] who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.

—Ephesians 3:20

Our second goal is to see religious opposition to sexuality, which inevitably creates a mindset of scarcity regarding pleasure, sexual expression, and sexual possibilities, replaced by permission to enjoy sexual abundance—both within oneself and with others.

Sexual abundance is when individuals feel full of erotic vitality—whether or not they act it out in sexual behavior. Science shows that human bodies were created with the capacity to experience significant pleasure. In fact, the physical and psychological benefits of orgasm are well documented, including decreased mortality risk, reduction in heart disease, decreased risk of cancer, help with sleep, relief from migraines, improved mental health and well-being, and increased cognition in the elderly (Wright, Jenks, & Demeyere 2019; Rider et al. 2016; Anderson 2013; Planned Parenthood 2007). Relational benefits include the release of oxytocin and dopamine, hormones that accompany orgasm and that help to increase bonds, regulate moods, and even minimize pain when experienced within the necessary conditions of safety, desire, and consent.

It is not surprising that many Christian mystics (as well as those from other religious traditions) use erotic language to describe their spiritual experiences with the divine. The language and/or experiences of sexual ecstasy as life-giving express their closeness to, and the intimate accessibility of, God. Sexuality is woven throughout the mythology and origin stories of many cultures and religions (Kuefler 2007). The author of the Song of Songs in the Hebrew scriptures writes about a sexual union between an unmarried man and a woman that is deeply erotic and drives them to overcome odds to be together. Thus, positively linking spirituality with sexuality and the erotic is not a big leap for much of religion. Audre Lorde (2006[1984], 89) suggests that the erotic urge is the “assertion of the lifeforce . . . of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we (women) are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.” We hope that, as Christians become released from the scarcity mentality, we can recognize the erotic impulse as far more complex and nuanced than simple sexual behavior and that sexuality can be viewed as a life force that connects all of life to all that is divine.

Sexual abundance also provides a corrective to the severe limitations of the orthodox church’s heteronormative procreative bias, which states that the only acceptable way to have a sexual relationship is between one man and one woman within the context of legally recognized marriage—and, in some churches, for the primary purpose of procreation. This excludes the vast majority of adults who don’t fit into this narrow list of acceptable sexual identities, expressions, and life situations. A perspective of sexual abundance reverses this by focusing on how each person can find love, joy, and connection with others in an ethical and life-affirming way.

The perspective of sexual abundance allows people to look for sexual health and satisfaction rather than having their limits dictated by restrictions. In this way, sexual abundance is a liberating mindset that frees us to act more intentionally and consciously. We are not promoting irresponsible hedonism but suggesting that the human spirit often responds in healthier ways to an ethic that is more focused on saying “Yes” to pleasure, fulfillment, and satisfaction of desires, than one that focuses on saying “No! No! No!” Having a mindset of sexual abundance also frees people to take an honest look at their sexual history and relationships in order to seek healing where needed. It fosters an openness to change as part of the spiritual journey of discernment toward wholeness.

From Guilt and Shame to Freedom and Pleasure

There is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

—Psalm 16:11

Some argue that guilt is good; they see it as a possible impetus for change. More often than not, though, guilt becomes a chain that constrains us and detracts from the positive change desired. Guilt can manifest as a preoccupation with a problematic or hopeless past or a perseveration on one’s misdeeds. Unworthiness is a close cousin to guilt, particularly religiously induced sexual guilt. Guilt can hang over a person for a lifetime and prevent a vivacious life in the present moment. Instead, repenting for past behaviors, recognizing poor choices, and accepting the foibles of humanity can be best experienced as regret—not guilt. Regret allows us to move forward into the future in a way that mind-numbing guilt does not. In most cases, a movement toward sexual health will entail the loss of the fetters of guilt and shame.

Shame is the sense that there is something inherently wrong with one’s personhood that simply cannot be changed. Sexual shame is far too prevalent in Christian circles. Robert Albers writes:

In the hierarchy of sins that has been constructed by the church . . . the sins associated with the body seem to receive the most attention, whether it be lust, fornication, or adultery. The persistent sins of the spirit such as envy, jealousy, slander, hatred, and judgmentalism, which slay the spirit within others, are often ignored. This negative emphasis is the genesis for much shame associated with the body and its functions.

(Albers 1995, 89)

For those raised in the evangelical Christian “purity” culture, author Linda Kaye Klein writes, “The purity message is not about sex. Rather it is about us; who we are, who we are expected to be, and who it is said we will become if we fail to meet those expectations. This is the language of shame” (Klein 2018, 14). While evangelicalism provided her with mentors and leadership opportunities that helped her gain confidence, she writes, “The purity message was not one of them. Intended to make me more ‘pure,’ all the purity message did was make me more ashamed of my inevitable ‘impurities’” (Klein 2018, 32–33). There is huge variation as to how orthodox Christians actually define “purity” in terms of behavior: dressing modestly (for women), waiting until the wedding (or the engagement) for the first kiss, restricting kissing in public, kissing only while standing up, kissing while lying down but avoiding other sexual contact, kissing and touching as long as there is no orgasm, or engaging in all kinds of sex behavior with the single exception of PIV (Freitas 2015).

Christian teaching is contradictory on this issue. Scripture states that “all have sinned and fallen short” (Romans 3:23), from which one can conclude there might be a certain amount of shame involved in simply being human. However, this teaching is countered by the idea that all of humanity is “made in the image of God” (Genesis 1:26–27) and that this is very good (Genesis 1:31). Further, it is difficult to believe that the apostle Paul, who wrote the Romans declaration of humanity’s sinful state, actually meant to instill shame—his resounding conclusion is that nothing “can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:31–39). We suggest that fear of sexuality and a continual negative focus on sexual sin within Christendom have led many believers to overemphasize the former teaching and fail to incorporate the positivity of the latter, as well as to overlook the intent of Paul’s argument in the first place. Christian theologian Matthew Fox (2000) has written that the church’s historic tendency to overemphasize the “original sin” in the Garden of Eden is wrongheaded. Rather, he writes, the emphasis should be on the more positive message of the “Original Blessing” that humanity was created to experience in the sensual garden.

In a sexually healthy world, religious teachings would be carefully balanced to free people to live proactively and unencumbered. By relying on God’s love and knowing that God’s grace abounds, we can shed our guilt and shame and live freely. This includes the freedom to, as the Christian reformer Martin Luther (1521) wrote in a letter to his friend, “be a sinner and sin boldly.” Tightly held sexual shame and guilt often have deep spiritual roots; letting go of them may require the intervention of a pastor or priest who can advise about confession and absolution. As a parallel process, practitioners can rightly point out how sexual guilt and shame limit sexual health and healing. Sexologist Tina Schermer Sellers writes that “ignorance contributes to a dearth of awareness: self-awareness, sexual awareness, gender awareness, other-awareness, emotional awareness, even cultural awareness. . . . But one of the biggest costs is in what we might call ‘pleasure imagination’” (Sellers 2017, 9). When Christians are blocked from self-awareness by guilt and shame, they are stunted from developing a sense of sensual play and enjoyment.

The goal in moving toward sexual freedom is to leave behind problematic barriers that hamper personal growth, limit hope, and create fear of risk-taking. Faith often moves us into new and strange places. We can take those steps of faith confident that love will not abandon or forsake us along the way (Hebrews 13:5).

Challenging Cultural Norms

In this book, we make bold claims. We assert that sex-negative Christianity is bad for people. We are stating that when churches are sex-negative—promoting messages based in ignorance of sexuality, perceived scarcity of sexual experiences, suspicion of pleasure, and guilt and shame—following those beliefs is actually harmful for Christians. This is a bold claim. We make no apologies for encouraging sexual-health professionals to challenge clients’ belief systems. On the surface, this runs counter to the standard cultural-competency approach. Modern conventional wisdom in therapeutic modalities dictates that a professional should learn about each client’s culture and work within it. This is an important and very appropriate aspect of joining with the client and respecting where they are in their thinking. We support the use of cultural competency in this way, and we take it a step further, specifically in the realm of Christian teachings on sexuality. We propose that it is essential not only to learn about the client’s religious beliefs—their religious culture—but also to identify how it may be contributing to their dysfunction, while also cultivating ways their faith can support healing. In this way, identifying the source or cause of the dysfunction involves a critical look at the religion and therefore the client’s culture. The therapist can then help the client consider other ways of interpreting Christian teachings that may better support their needs. We will discuss many of these alternate perspectives throughout this book.

We are asserting tha...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Praise
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Understanding the Problem
• Part II Sex-Positive Treatment Approaches
• Part III Tools and Exercises
• Index