Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity

by Lauren F. Winner

Overview

In Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity, Lauren Winner speaks candidly to single Christians about the difficulty--and the importance--of sexual chastity. With candor and wit, she talks about her own sexual journey. Never dodging tough terms like "confession" and "sin," Lauren grounds her discussion of chastity first and foremost in Scripture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2000003479139
Publisher:	christianaudio
Publication date:	08/15/2006
Edition description:	Unabridged

About the Author

Lauren F. Winner (PhD, Columbia University) is the highly acclaimed author of the memoir Girl Meets God. She is assistant professor of Christian spirituality at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, and has written for the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, Christianity Today, and Christian Century. Visit her website at www.laurenwinner.net.

Hometown:

Charlottesville, Virginia

Date of Birth:

October 13, 1976

Place of Birth:

Asheville, North Carolina

Education:

B.A., Columbia University, 1997; M.A., Cambridge University, 1999

Table of Contents

1	Unchaste Confessions: Or, Why We Need Another Book about Sex	9
Part 1	Talking about Sex
2	Real Sex: Creation, Scripture, and the Case for Sex in Marriage	29
3	Communal Sex: Or, Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night	43
4	Straight Talk I: Lies Our Culture Tells about Sex	61
5	Straight Talk II: Lies the Church Tells about Sex	85
Part 2	Practicing Chastity
6	On the Steps of the Rotunda: Line-Drawing and Formation	103
7	Chastity as Spiritual Discipline: Conforming Your Body to the Arc of the Gospel	123
8	Communities of Chastity: What Singleness Teaches the Church	133
9	Responding to M.: The Practicalities of Repentance	149
	Notes	163
	Acknowledgments	173
	Author's Note	175

Editorial Reviews

Winner, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Girl Meets God, weaves an intriguing tapestry from sociological, autobiographical, pastoral and historical threads. She balances a journalistic report of how difficult chastity is for American Christians; a personal account of how she and her friends have approached premarital and marital sex; a survey of what the Bible, pastors and good Christian books say about the topic; and an overview of how chastity has been understood throughout Christian history. The candor with which Winner writes about sex may alarm some Christian readers, but those who follow her arguments to their conclusions will find themselves rewarded with fresh insights about an overdiscussed but still deeply entrenched problem among Christians. Interestingly, some of Winner's best insights are about married sex. She states early on that "in Christianity's vocabulary the only real sex is the sex that happens in marriage; the faux sex that goes on outside marriage is not really sex at all... [it] is only a distorted image of sex, as Walt Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort is only a simulation of real wilderness." Winner places real sex not in the passionate world of one-night stands and dating relationships, but in the ordinary, domestic life of married couples. As such, she helpfully and perhaps even radically reframes both the Christian and cultural discussion of chastity and sexuality. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly