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Why Are Christians Having Better Sex Than the Rest of Us?
A Texas pastor has come up with one of the best public policy proposals of the decade: have more sex.
Let’s concede right up front that you hate evangelicals. Most affluent, educated people do. Where I live, they're the most unpopular group there is. How do I know this? Because of the reaction to a story that ran in yesterday’s New York Times.
Earlier this month, the Rev. Ed Young, a 47-year-old megachurch pastor in Texas, urged his married congregants to have sex as much as possible with their spouses; if possible, every day for a week. Sex improves marriage, Young argued. God wants you to have more of it. “If you've said, ‘I do,’ do it,” he told the Times.
The piece quickly became the newspaper’s most emailed story of the day, sent mostly, I suspect, by readers in New York, Washington, and L.A. to their friends along with notes mocking Ed Young and his parishioners. That’s how I first saw the story. “This will be good for them,” the email read. “It’s hard to spend too much time engaged in meth-fueled sodomy with your boyfriend when you've got a nightly copulation meeting with your wife.” (A reference to Colorado pastor Ted Haggard, who confessed to such activity after being busted by a male prostitute.)
The devout are actually having better sex than the rest of us.
Even a friend of mine who’s sympathetic to Christianity was skeptical of the idea: “I'm of two minds on it. If you can convince a good Christian girl that she's serving God by having sex with you, it's hard to argue with that logic. However, is it good sex, or sanctified sex? I love Jesus, I love rock and roll, but I don't like Christian rock. Some things are better left separate.”
The evangelicals have a PR problem. Even when they say something self-evidently sensible, all a lot of people can think of is Ted Haggard. Which is a shame, because Ed Young may have come up with one of the best public policy proposals of the decade.
Once you factor out venereal diseases, there’s almost nothing better for you than regular sex. Judging from the many studies on the subject, a daily romp is healthier than yoga, a five-mile run, and a handful of multivitamins combined. Sex has been shown to ameliorate memory, posture, depression, anxiety, insomnia, menstrual cramps, digestion, bladder control, dental health, and the sense of smell.
It’s a natural analgesic that also reduces the risk of prostate cancer and heart disease. It lessens the incidence of colds and flu. It burns calories. Overall, according to a 1997 study in the British Medical Journal, men with the most active sex lives have a death rate half that of those with the least active. Sex prolongs life.
You'd think that someone other than Ed Young would have noticed this. Maybe one of the tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats paid to worry about America's health might have caught on and launched an ad campaign on billboards and city buses. (“Sex: It’s the Right Thing to Do,” or “Take a Minute for Couchball.”) But no. It took an evangelical.
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JMLATX
Very true. When you're having great sex, who really cares if someone leaves their socks on the floor?!
funkychicken
Sex is good? Wow, this groundbreaking! Once again Tucker and the Repubs are way ahead of the cultural-curve.
Yeah.
jkh5804
As for Ed Young's sermon... yeah, so what. Lots of evangelical churches have offered the same advice for years. What made this newsworthy is that it was at a megachurch on Sunday morning, so more people heard it, and he brought a bed on stage to make his point... great showmanship.
The thing I don't get is the open animosity that the enlightened display toward evangelicals. As a liberal graduate student, they irritate me, too, but we "educated, affluent people" go to great lengths to stress tolerance for a religion whose members sometimes blow other people up. But it's open shooting on evangelicals because sometimes they engage in "meth-fueled sodomy with [their] boyfriend[s]."
Really, I get it. Americans hate hypocrisy. I think on some level some even admire the passion of the suicide bomber and wish they had something that they believed in that strongly. But, seriously, to use an illustration my grandmother used, with all of the finger pointing at the hypocrisy of the evangelicals, those pointers have three fingers pointing right back at themselves.
cajola
This is news worthy, why???
Does anybody really give a toss about this....is there nothing more important to discuss....I think Tucker must be desperate if this is the best he can find to talk about!!!
pencilbox
..."having a religious affiliation was associated with higher rates of orgasm for women."
-because the study counted every time someone said, "Oh god, Oh god!"
tcupit
Sex is only good though if you're married and straight...otherwise it's really bad...or so would say Ed Young...and therein lies the problem. All I can say is I hope these evangelicals are using condoms and not reproducing.
pencilbox
jkh5804- It might more worthwhile to be concerned about the open animosity of *evangelicals* to "the enlightened".
I agree that finger-pointing is a waste of time. Still, if someone is trying to ban the teaching of evolution in your child's school, or keep your gay sister from marrying, or basing a political ideology on the fact that you're not a "real American", something needs to be said. Loudly.
More sex is a great idea for everyone, not just for married couples (I doubt many singles will "just eat chocolate cake", as the pastor suggests).
Make love, not baseless assumptions that reference a an arbitrary moral code!
JeepRover
This is something I can totally get behind. Now, just to convince my wife.
@jkh5804: I don't think its the educated religious right that the liberals have a problem with. I myself went to a very fundamental Christian school and to this day have to defend comments I make like, "I don't care if the GLBTs want to marry." I'm immediately flooded with messages stating I need to talk to Jesus and that I need to confess my sins. That is what irritates me. I know many who are tolerant and observant of their Christian faith, and we get along fine. It's the ones that are intolerant that I have to restrain myself.
mikey05
I would like to see the methodology for the University of Chicago study. Every time I hear about Christians having supposedly better sex I think of the Alexandra Pelosi documentary about the religious right, where Ted Haggard asks two of his male followers "How often do you have sex?" and they both quickly answer "Every day! And our wives orgasm every time!"
zazzer
'Striving for orgasm.' Never thought Tucker Carlson would write those words.
And is heterosexual sodomy permitted? If not, they ain't winning the best sex contest.
muddog
As usual Tucker "White Lie's" his way......
Christians have better sex, NOT!!!. They may have more unprotected sex, I.E. higher birth rate but that does not mean they enjoy it.
I live in RURAL Oregon and I read the NYT's, so save the usual LA / NY are the only people reading it BS.
Having some creepy Evageleical tell his "Flock" to have more sex is beyound SICK, can you imagine sitting in the pew's next to some "Conservative" as the preacher talks about sex!!?? LOL!!!!
Sorry Tucker, you will need more than this to make the Evangelicals more, um should we say, Hip / Human / Real / Warm blooded.
discussed
Is this really new? Hasn't the church been promoting sex since the dawn of christianity as a means of growing the size of congregations? Obviously we're not talking about "protected" sex, because evangelicals are huge fans of teaching abstinence-only sex ed, so the more babies they can indoctrinate, the more money will eventually fill their collection plates. It worked for the roman catholic church, why not evangelicals?
lizziellen
What happened in the 80s? Women went to work and maybe had less time to be ready, willing, and able for when their husbands came home from the office, especially if they had to start a second shift. Also, long distance relationships got easier and more accepted as the nuclear family became less pervasive. Forcing time for sex might treat the symptom, not the cause...post hoc ergo propter hoc.
erikaf
Evangelical circles have been preaching the "more sex" theme for years and what no-one seems to mention is that is all about creating more little evangelicals in a hurry (under the guise of sex is good for marriage) to see if they can out sex the browning of the US. I am completely convinced that this is the underlying motivation.
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