And an argument for the benefits of marriage is not, of course, the same as an argument against pre-marital sex. The unique benefits of marriage do not in any way hinge on its position as the unique locus for licit nookie.

And trust me, in a world of no-fault divorce, marriage doesn’t mean you’ve closed the escape hatch for good. Having been divorced thrice, I know this well!

As a Christian, I think God calls many of us to marriage. Obviously, not all are called; Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 7. It seems that for reasons of mutual comfort and mutual challenge, as well as (sometimes) for the procreation of children, marriage is an excellent idea. But it’s a long jump from “God calls some of us to marriage” to “God wants all of us to abstain from genital pleasure outside of the confines of heterosexual marriage.”

Slow Talker, I think what you’re getting at is “What does a truly egalitarian, justice-centred marriage in which form and content congrue look like?” It’s a great question.

On the other hand, all of what is potentially good in marital sex — the care for the other person, the mutuality, the concern for just relations, the pleasure, and yes, the sense that the act of making love empowers each person for greater service to the world — can be frequently found in sex outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage. The lives of many unmarried persons, particularly but not exclusively gay and lesbian couples in enduring relationships, bear witness to this truth.

What feels good, emotionally and physically and spiritually, about marital sex is good “content”. Being congruent with “right form” may make a couple feel more reassured about the metaphysical meaning of their sex, and they are entitled to their feelings. But other couples achieve that same transcendent level without the explicit sanction of church or registry office.

I certainly don’t mean to imply that marriage is invariably an obstacle to just love-making, but on both theological and psychological grounds, I deny the assertion that marriage is a necessary prerequisite for it.

This is probably at its worst in this sentence: “This focus on form is a guarantee of guilt and shame for anyone who experiences sexual feelings prior to heterosexual marriage.” Ummm, exactly why/how does a conservative sexual ethic *guarantee* guilt and shame merely for the experience of *feelings*. I’ve heard people say this before, but in my experience of conservative social circles, this is actually far from the dominant position; however, you make this attitude seem to be an inevitable byproduct of a conservative sexual ethic.

Now, it is true that many are ungracious to those who are perceived to be less pure of heart than themselves, and I’d be the first to argue that this arrogance is usually worse than the sexual sins they may (or may not, if we see such sexual activity as not sinful) be condemning. But just as I can certainly be gracious and forgive a person who just punched me while still considering that violent action as sinful, I think that those with “conservative” sexual ethics can avoid giving a stigma to sexual sin without giving up their particular sexual ethic.

I think it is also clear that you are underselling (in my view) any conception outside of pleasure for what sex is for, what the purpose of sex is from a theological standpoint. While I am firmly in the Protestant camp, I find myself agreeing with Catholics here who argue that sex and marriage ought to properly be seen first as sacramental/covenantal, something which only makes any kind of sense as a reflection of the intra-divine relationships among the Trinity and representing the relationship between Christ and the church. Such conceptions of sex and marriage, I would argue, have qualifications for both “form” and “content” (an opposition I use only begrudgingly, because I think the form and the content actually should and do mutually constitute each other, if they are properly understood); sex is reserved for particular covenantal relationships, and sex should always be practiced with mutual love and self-giving as its ideal. I simply don’t see why you think that your two categories have to be mutually exclusive descriptions of sexual ethics. I also think that you are selling a more conservative sexual ethic short if you assume that it only means “keep it in your pants until you’re married” without any consideration of its deeper theological meaning.

I do tend to look at things from a standpoint of efficacy, and I wonder, perhaps echoing the conservative critics you cite who “fret that a justice and content-centered ethic is too vague, too malleable, for broken human beings to embrace”, appealing as the focus of your content-based criteria sounds, how well it can work in practice. I’m far from an advocate of the form-based ethics touted as an alternative. But I wonder if they were adopted in the past, and are perhaps still adopted and touted by many, as a “least-worst” solution. Many of us, perhaps most of us, are broken in some way, and even the best of us fall and fail every day. Sexuality is extraordinarily powerful, like a drug. As wonderful and affirming as it can be in with a positive content, negative sexuality can also be as base, degrading and defiling of a person’s life and character as heroin or meth. I’ve known people intimately, including in my own family, who have for a long time been about as broken and degraded, including sexually, as I can imagine anyone to be (doing PnP with people they meet on craiglist or the street, for example). I very nearly despair at them ever finding grace.

And even beyond those extreme examples, we’re all going to screw something up sooner or later in this regard (no pun intended there). For some of us, “doing” and getting “done right”, finding what is good and affirming content for us in our sex and giving that to our partners, is often no easy feat, for whatever reason. I wonder if the simple form-based norm has its appeal because it gives approval while avoiding some of the challenge that finessing the search for good content requires.

“When we set up an ideal, however, we end up condemning anything short of that ideal as inadequate at bsst and sinful at worst. As you yourself point out, STF, most people will fall short of the mark — and thus we “set up” most people for shame and for guilt.”

Who is this “we” you speak of here? Are you saying that ideals cannot be celebrated, because to do so would somehow force shame and guilt upon the rest of us? So we abstain from praise of Martin Luther King, because it might trigger shame about our own moral cowardice? Do we avoid academic study of Shakespeare for fear of shaming student writers who are unlikely to have nearly enough talent to attain that summit?

I believe that most shame today is promulgated not by churches, but by a materialistic, competitive media culture that offers unattainable examples of success, fun, fame, and desirability as the measure of a notable, and hence worthy, existence. That is the source of shame in the modern world today - it surely doesn’t come from theologians. People feel shame because of what their peers think and say about them, not because of some words from a pulpit.

So when you look to a new Christian ethics as a means of liberating people from the old, “form-based” ethics, you are designing your ethics to offset an ethical system that was driven from the mainstream decades ago. The vast majority of people will ignore any new Christian ethics as easily as they ignore the old. You are addressing the wrong danger, beating a strawman that was beaten and left for dead long ago.

” Nothing was “spoiled”, nothing was “tainted”. Young people, especially those raised in traditional cultures, need to hear the vital message that their bodies and their souls will not be dirtied by pleasure — but they can be dirtied by shame and coercion.”

They don’t need any new Christian ethics for that message - they are already getting that message downloaded directly into their visual cortex. Alex Rodriguez and Madonna will show them all they need to know about the irrelevance of their traditions in the modern world, and the immensely gratifying pleasures of a shame-free, coercion-free existence. So if you think you are liberating some retrograde, red-state serfs from the Elmer Gantry types, that liberation is well underway. Those who are newly liberated each day will pass you by on the way to the rave party, with nary a look back.

My experience of this is that it is very destructive, leaving people raised that way with lots of shame and guilt - and frequently lousy marriages. (I’m not saying that all marriages of Christians who waited until marriage to have sex are lousy - just most of the ones I know about.) Maybe in some idealistic realm, all this talk of the sacredness or sacrament of marriage is helpful, but it sure doesn’t seem to work very well in the lives of anyone I know.

Anyway,I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out my own sexual ethics,with what seems like little guidance, and this helps put words around a lot of my nebulous thinking, so thanks for that.