Missing the Point

When University of Chicago researchers set out to discover which religious denominations have the best sex, they learned that the faithful don't do all their shouting in church.

Conservative Protestant women, their 1994 survey found, report by far the most orgasms: Thirty-two percent say they achieve orgasm every time they make love.

Mainline Protestants and Catholics lagged five points behind. Those with no religious affiliation were at 22 percent. (Unitarians may not wish to read any further.)

The article's a little old - I just never saw it until last week - but it's a perfect example of writing that is well-researched, entertaining, enlightening...and masterfully successful in missing the point. While reviewing the Christian sex-and-lovemaking books market, Slate goes out of its way to point out all the things that Christians teach that science finds wrong - and even manages to conclude that Christians have better sex because they are uneducated - yet manages to almost completely ignore the one thing that all Christian books teach that is borne out by the experience of better sex: sex is best in marriage.

Jesus said once that we ought to seek first the Kingdom of God, then all things would be added to us. It's a wonderful principle that has application in having better sex as well as having better everything else. Sex is not about technique, it's not about science, it's not about studying orgasm. It's about experiencing oneness, the oneness that is best expressed through two people joined emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. In seeking to do things right, we will find that we do them better, because we're using things as they ought to be used. It should not surprise us that tools work best when employed for the right purpose.