Is It Shameful to Talk about Sex?

Why our conversations on sexuality need to be public.

When I began writing and speaking about sexuality, I embraced that calling reluctantly. I was hesitant to risk rejection by publicly acknowledging that I’m gay. Self-disclosure would bring stigma. I first came out of denial about my sexuality in the early 90s. Back then, it wasn’t only my faith community that didn’t understand me, it was society at large. Those were the days when the Democratic President, Bill Clinton, signed the Defense of Marriage Act (1996).

I began telling friends and family that I’m gay in the mid-90s. I started blogging to the broader public in 2007. While mild improvements had occurred by the early 2000s, my evangelical world still advocated against basic LGBTQ human rights (e.g. job and housing protections). When I married Sally in 2020, it had only been five years since Obergefell v. Hodges made it legal for me to do so (2015).

But there’s also another reason I’m a reluctant spokesperson: I feel uncomfortable talking about sex. I’ve been contemplating this discomfort, unpacking its source. Two things stand out to me. First, vulnerability. Second, sexual violation. Concerning vulnerability, sex renders us naked before another person. While vulnerability behind closed doors doesn’t trouble me, talking about sexuality publicly feels like violating something that should be intimate between two people.

In other words, I still have a healthy sense of modesty. I still view bodies and sex as sacred. Some things are meant to be private. But here’s the thing. Modesty is different than secrecy, which is driven by shame and fear. Shame is a response to what is not sacred. Shame is a reaction to humiliation, making us want to hide from that humiliation. Shame desires secrecy. In contrast, what is sacred desires to be honored, and honor is typically public praise.

Shame results when our vulnerability is violated in some way, or we fear that it might be violated. But vulnerability itself is good. And more, specifically, the vulnerability of sex is a profound place of knowing and being known.

As I’ve pondered my discomfort talking about sex and sexuality, I realized that what I’m resisting is violation of what is sacred. It’s a beautiful thing to talk about the sacredness of human sexuality, vulnerability, knowing and being known. I want to talk about that. But most of the time, public discussion of sexuality violates the sacred.

I’ve been uncomfortable because the way we often approach human sexuality is crass, trivializing, humiliating, or violent. Violation of the sacred is everywhere.

Unfortunately, shame in response to violation causes us to shut down and avoid talking about sex at all. In fact, silence is often confused for modesty. Modesty is good; secrecy is not. Secrecy is shame-based, not sacred-based. And secrecy is a tool feeding violation. Sexual abuse thrives on secrecy. That means, we need to resist shame’s urgent pleas to be silent, to hide.

What’s the solution? Rather than giving in to shame’s confused desire for secrecy and silence, God invites us to publicly lament violation and to publicly honor what is sacred. That’s what I want to do on this Bible, Sex, and Gender Substack. When I feel shame because of some violation or fear of violation, I will bring it into the Light and publicly lament the violation, as I do in the article “Overcoming Shame.”

And, when I’m awestruck by what is sacred, I will publicly laud it, honoring its beauty and encouraging all to gravitate toward it. The biblical authors were not ashamed to talk about sexuality. They called out abuse and sought justice (e.g. Deut 22:25-27; Lev 19:29; Matt 18:6; 1 Thess 4:6). They wrote poetry about the wonder of sexuality (Song of Songs).

We need to talk about sex and sexuality.

While sex-talk abounds all around us, it often trivializes the sacred. It reduces it to titillation. It’s primarily about appetite and consuming bodies to feed a personal hunger. It’s focused on external appearances to draw another person in.

But I want to talk about sexuality in these kinds of ways:

• “It’s not good for the human being to be alone” (Gen 2:18).
  

• “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam 1:8).
  

• “So, Boaz said to Ruth . . . ‘I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.’” (Ruth 2:8-9).
  

• “As a father has compassion on his children . . .” (Psalm 103:13a).
  

• “I’m my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (Song 6:3).
  

• “In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy . . . Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:26, 39-41).
  

• “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42; different Mary than mother of Jesus).
  

• “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent” (1 Cor 7:5).
  

• “That each of you should learn to control your own body. . . .that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister” (1 Thess 4:6).

• “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 21:3-4).

I’m not trying to make an exhaustive list. Nor am I suggesting that only special revelation (Scripture) has something to teach us about sexuality (as one example, general revelation is also important). But these scriptures illustrates how it can be good to talk about sex. Instead of evoking shame, sacred conversation on sexuality nurtures the heart.