Ethical Houston

Deut. 25: 5-10

“If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family.  Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of brother-in-law to her.  The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.”

 The scripture goes on to say that if the brother refuses to marry his sister-in-law, she can go before the council of elders and demand that he marry her.  If he refuses she may take her sandal, spit in his face and the man will be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.  Strange law, huh.  For Israel sex was more about necessity than pleasure.  Women were considered property and had limited rights.  But this law is referenced again later in the old testament where a man refused to marry his dead brothers wife and even when God told him directly to marry her, he refused and as a result, God killed him.

Today the purpose of sex and its relationship to family, covenant, and responsibility is much more blurred.  For those of us who are older, we mostly learned the facts of life in the locker room or the back of a car on a weekend date. If we had “the talk” with our parents it was generally pretty superficial and stressful for all concerned. And as far as the church giving information, it too was generally pretty superficial, stressful, and the message generally was “don’t” or riddled with messages of guilt.  As the culture began to open up and become more permissive we began to get our information from the media, which was usually unreliable.   Since the fifties and sixties the media and behaviors have gone through a revolution and yet we still live in a world where it’s difficult to talk openly about behaviors that are at the core of the human condition.  The culture on the one hand wants us to be responsible and careful, but gives little good information to help young and old alike.

 During the nineties, Bill Clinton’s Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders was making a speech before the United Nations on the world Aids pandemic.  Someone asked her in a Q and A what she thought about teaching people alternate ways of dealing with their sexuality, and in particular masturbation.  Her answer was, “I think that masturbation is a part of human sexuality and perhaps it should be taught.”  For that statement and a public outcry for her to resign, President Clinton asked and received her resignation saying that he did not agree with her on the subject– and this coming from Clinton.  Hardly a month passes without us seeing somewhere on the back pages of our newspapers where a person in some authority like a school administrator has made statements about sex and sexuality and has been asked to resign.  Much of the time the argument is made that sex is not to be taught in school unless it’s about total abstinence.   Those who protest, state that it is either for the parents to teach their children about sexuality or for the church to do so.   Unfortunately, most often neither happens. Today our children have new sources for learning about sex.  They can just turn on the TV, or go to the internet or for many who are latch key kids, learn about it while mom is away at work. 

 Sex and sexuality is more than learning about the nuts and bolts of the act itself.  It’s about learning about responsibility and self worth.  It’s about a young girl learning that she doesn’t need to “put out” and get pregnant to have self worth.  It’s about a young man learning that he doesn’t get his manhood from “scoring” and that if he fathers a child he will be expected to help take care of that child.  Sex has become more of a sport than about relationship.  Sex is depicted as momentary and lacking in intimacy.  There are no consequences.  Even STD’s hold little concern for many. 

 Many young people engage in serial relationships, sometimes ending in marriage and often not.  And what becomes of those multiple relationships.  Among middle class women we know that in breakups women are more likely to seek help from friends, therapy, etc.  while men tend to internalize their feelings and move on.  Even serial relationships and one nighters are often depicted as having little effect on the parties who engage in them. These multiple breakups can have a negative emotional cumulative effect.  In the movie “High Fidelity” with John Cusack and Iben Hjejle, Cusack is in the process of breaking up with Hjejle and tells her that this breakup doesn’t even make the top five of his life long breakups.  It becomes obvious that all of his multiple breakups have taken a toll on his ability to trust and to be intimate.   

 So, what of morality and ethics.  In this situation I equate morality with those taboos of behavior that our religion or family teaching gives us.  Ethics is about the way we treat one another and the covenantal relationships we establish with one another.  For young people the concept of ethical implications of a relationship may be too sophisticated.  Hormones are raging and they’re blinded by their new found power.  Friends and media depict this behavior as normal.  And they can’t see beyond the moment.  That’s why it’s important to give correct and sound information.  Since they’re not mature enough to understand the implications of relationships, it’s important to give them adequate information.  Even though the law of relationships given in Deuteronomy seems quite bizarre to our modern mind, it’s about ethics and not morality.  It was believed by Israel that a man had an obligation to help his brothers’ line continue if he died and not to do so, was an abomination to God.  Women had few rights but this was a right that she had to ensure that her children and her husband line be continued.  It was an ethical issue because it dealt with the realities of the time. 

So, what are the ethics of relationships and sexuality for us today?  To me, it’s that we’re all blessed children of God, worthy of respect and concern.  Sexuality is not just about an act. It’s that even in a moment of passion we consider the full humanity of the other as well as our own selfhood.  Children who are born into loving families where both parents are involved in raising children are more likely to stay in school, stay out of poverty and prison and live a productive life.

 As parents and teachers,  we can’t just see the world as either being like Father Knows Best or a world of internet porn— neither is reality.  Reality is that today 40% of all children are born out of wedlock with 70% of African American babies born out of wedlock to women who often have no network to help them cope and will soon find that the quickest way to find ones self in poverty in America is to start out poor, have a child with no father around and little education.  Reality is that over 60% of college grads in their thirties live in co-habitation relationship. Reality is that 50% of all first marriages end in divorce.  Reality is that there are different sexual expectations between upper middle class persons of all races and those who are poor. 

 When Jocelyn Elders made her statement about masturbation, no one asked her what she meant and how she might suggest teaching.  But we know that living in a masturbatory fantasy world is also not the answer.  I mean, what do we think men and women who frequent porn sites do, just read the articles?    Maybe if we had waited to let her explain herself we might have a clearer understanding about what she meant.  But we closed her off and we’ll never be able to engage her in a more open conversation about what it means to be fully human.