Real Sex by Lauren F. Winner

I didn’t think I would get into this book as much as I did with Girl Meets God simply because GMG was so good, but as I kept reading I was pleasantly surprised. The subtitle to this book is ‘the naked truth about chastity.’ Winner uses the book as a platform to talk about the role of the Body of Christ in the area of sex, marriage, and singleness. She also uses a great portion of the book to discuss the view of our individual physical bodies. I really took a lot away from it.

Some favorite quotes: (Concerning the idea of couples being exclusive even in marriage): “The history of dance, Berry says, is illustrative: in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, “the old ring dances, in which all couples danced together,” were gradually replaced by “social ballroom dancing, in which each couple dances alone.” For many people today, of course, social ballroom dancing is a thing of the past. It has been replaced by the rave, in which a crowd of people dance not so much as a community, but as a group of individuals, boogying in the same room, alone.”

(Concerning the lie that sex always has to be exciting): “Our task is not to cultivate moments when eros can whisk us away from our ordinary routines, but rather to love each other as eros becomes embedded in, and transformed by, the daily warp and woof of married life. For in household sexuality, we see the ways of our daily human struggles offer the only language we have to call ourselves to God’s grace.”

“What fasting is slowly teaching me is the simple lesson that I am not utterly subject to my bodily desires.”

“Perhaps we ought not fixate on the call of lifelong singleness. Some people, of course, are called to lifelong singleness, but more of us are called to singleness for a spell, if even a very long spell. Often, our task is to discern a call to singleness for right now, and that’s not so difficult. If you are single right now, you are called, right now, to be single-called to live single life as robustly, and gospel-conformingly, as you possibly can.”

“Singleness tells us, for starters, of a radical dependence on God. In marriage, it is tempting to look to one’s spouse to meet all one’s needs. But those who live alone, without the companionship and rigor of marriage and sex, are offered an opportunity to realize that it is God who sustains them.”

“Too often, the church seems to suggest that sexual sin cannot be forgiven. Martin has every reason to wonder if he should bother with sexual discipline. We hear from the pulpit and read in the pages of magazines and books that “sexual sin doesn’t ever go away totally. They live on, like ghosts, in all future relationships, and can do real damage there.” We learn that premarital sex “can scar a marriage for a lifetime.” We read that if we have premarital sex, then, come our wedding day, the specters of the other men or women we slept with will hover around our betrothed.” This language of scars and ghosts that sexual sin is wholly different from any other sort of sin. That its consequences last forever. That somehow, Jesus’ saving work on the cross does not cover this. All of those suggestions, of course, are patently false.”

I especially identify with the last one. I think any kid that has gone to youth group or read a book on sex or done that experiment where you chew up Doritos and spit it into water and mix the water with other kids’ cups have a distorted view on sexual sin. Winner talks about the last experiment in her book and it is quite comical.
This is not to say that you should go out and have sex. Read the book and find out what Winner has to say : ).

Today I was driving home from Greenville and the sun was shining, there were white puffy clouds in the sky, and everything was green. My radio landed on a hit country station (where I may or may not have known all of the lyrics) and for a brief moment in hillsboro I was behind a normal looking guy on a harley (not the harley type) with his daughter riding behind him on the bike. She was probably eight, had a harley do-rag and pink crocks. It made my heart smile.