Jilli, you should definitely get the skirt.

I, OTOH, need that coat Deena linked to.

I was raised nearly fundie, and yet had no idea that some people were taught sex was bad (never mind that it was never presented to me that way), until I was in my twenties. Where did I learn it was sometimes presented as bad? I learned that at a Christian college, where exactly the opposite (that sex is great) was stressed. And for the most part, the purity movements are based on the same theory.

This is me. While my religious background did stress that sex outside of marriage was bad, it wasn't because sex was bad. Quite the opposite. Sex is a gift from God that should be saved and given to the right person (ie, spouse) and would be wonderful.

Historically speaking, a lot of the "sex is bad" attitudes came hand-in-hand with the early church (read: Catholic) patristric writings that also ramped up misogyny. It was done, in large part, as a way to make the newly created institutional celibacy seem more attractive. If sex is bad and women are bad, why need them? Give them up and become a priest!

While my religious background did stress that sex outside of marriage was bad, it wasn't because sex was bad. Quite the opposite. Sex is a gift from God that should be saved and given to the right person (ie, spouse) and would be wonderful.

Yes. This.

Historically speaking, a lot of the "sex is bad" attitudes came hand-in-hand with the early church (read: Catholic) patristric writings that also ramped up misogyny. It was done, in large part, as a way to make the newly created institutional celibacy seem more attractive. If sex is bad and women are bad, why need them? Give them up and become a priest!

I kept trying to write about this -- and my thoughts and words got tangled - thanks for haveing a more organized brain, Chikat.

While my religious background did stress that sex outside of marriage was bad, it wasn't because sex was bad.

See, I just can't see this as a sex-positive message, no matter how much fun they might have said it would be once you got married.

While my religious background did stress that sex outside of marriage was bad, it wasn't because sex was bad. Quite the opposite. Sex is a gift from God that should be saved and given to the right person (ie, spouse) and would be wonderful.

This is what we were taught, but it's some of the stuff that went along with it that I think was harmful. We (and by we I'm referring to my college fellowship group, not the Baptist church of my childhood) were taught that ANY expression of sexuality pre-marriage WHATSOEVER was a sin. Sexual fantasies were wrong. Masturbation was wrong. Reading romance novels, even relatively tame ones like traditional Regencies, was wrong. When dating, anything beyond holding hands and *maybe* the occasional chaste kiss was wrong. I knew several couples who intended their first kiss to be when they were pronounced husband and wife. Sex was a wonderful gift of God, but you weren't supposed to open it, nor even look at it too closely, until you were married.

So even though I did wait until my wedding night to actually have sex, I was and am a pretty big sinner by my collegiate standards.

I think that sex-is-bad may be more common now. But not from Church teachings.

I think it's since the advent of AIDS, scare-tactics/ heavily abstinence (even if not abstinance-only) SexEd is really common, and promotes pretty screwed-up attitudes toward sex. It kinda melds, in my head, with religious abstinence-preaching and forms this monlith, which I know is not really the case.

I just can't see this as a sex-positive message

What about it pings you that way?

were taught that ANY expression of sexuality pre-marriage WHATSOEVER was a sin.

I'm lucky that I was not taught that at all.

I don't remember sex ever being mentioned in my church. Granted, I was a phenomenally unaware kid, but I was a regular attendee of my hometown church well into college. I remember not one lesson that pinged any awareness of what men and women did together. Maybe they were too subtle.

Maybe they figured I was safe since I was dating the preacher.

Well, a girl finds enough time to wish lovely lexine a happy birthday and comes back later to a whole new thread. Hmph.

At least I got in under 100. And I got to see ChiKat and the boy! Awwww!