"Just as a husband and wife experience deep joy as they lose themselves and merge into oneness at the moment of sexual climax, we experience ultimate joy as we become one with Jesus Christ in a union that leads to incomprehensible joy. Sexual intercourse mirrors our relationship to God and causes us to worship him for giving us this good gift."
Don't get your panties all in an uproar just yet. The same woman said a long Sunday morning in church is the best place to practice Kegel exercises.
Her name is Linda Dillow and she's known as the Christian Dr. Ruth, teaching (yes) married couples how to have holy, hot sex lives.
Dillow knows what much of the world thinks of Christians: they're prudes, they're frigid, they fear and discourage sexual pleasure, especially in women. And she admits that Christians have only themselves to blame for this perception. "Augustine, who wrote a lot of wonderful things, had a very warped view about sex," she said. "Even Martin Luther, who was married, said, 'Intercourse is never without sin, but God excuses it by his grace.' Women today don't know these statements, but I think the whole attitude has filtered down to them." But what was historically true is no longer universal.
...Dillow and her friend Lorraine Pintus founded Intimate Issues, a pro-sex ministry that hosts conferences for women and couples seeking a richer love life. They have also written two books that promote the joys of marital sex, "Intimate Issues" and "Intimacy Ignited" -- two entries in a flourishing genre that includes titles such as "Sacred Sex," "The Glorious Pursuit," "Sheet Music" and "His Needs, Her Needs." "Some women," write Dillow and Pintus, "have spent so many years 'damming up' their sexual passions in an attempt to remain pure that they find it difficult to suddenly open the floodgates and allow sexual feelings to flow." The Christian sex advice movement is dedicated to unleashing that flood...
"God doesn't in the scriptures say, All right, these acts are acceptable," Dillow told me. Her approach is to examine "the whole intent of all scripture. The message Christ brought is, You are not under the law; you are under grace, and that we are given a lot of freedom to decide what is beneficial for us, what is loving between this husband and this wife."
There you have it: sex is awesome (even oral sex and masturbation are almost okay). When you're married.
[Salon: Holy Sex!]