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The trouble is that for those who live in our time and place, with Temptation Island on TV, Cosmo at the check-out, and racy catalogs in the mail, that worthy suggestion is at a distinct disadvantage, to say the least. To borrow Walker Percy's phrasing, it is hard to imagine the hip, young American single settling for "settling down with a wife and family any more than Jove settling down with Juno. Juno—yuck! Wife, children, home, fireside, TV, patio, Medicare in Florida, growing old together … yuck! Better to grow old alone in the desert, sit on a rock like a Navajo."
Perceptively, Winner argues that Christians should counter not only promiscuity but a secular view of romance that renders household love unattractive, squeezing out "the sorts of values that marriage and sexual intercourse, when understood as distinctly Christian practices, must be made to honor." This is why my neighbors' twenty partners do me harm (and not them alone, but also the sitcoms provided for their entertainment and the commercials trying to sell them things)—not breaking legs but twisting our view of the body and our sexuality.
Christians should have a way of describing sex that is characterized neither by prudish disapproval, nor by adaptation of secular norms, nor by domestication of romance. Winner gives two excellent reasons to reject extramarital sex, one vertical (very vertical: God's command) and one horizontal (honoring our brethren in Christ). The case would be strengthened by a theology of the body, like that developed by Pope John Paul II, which describes sex as an opportunity for profound self-giving. Such a theology gives us reason in our own persons to live our sexuality seriously and well, unmasking casual sex as a kind of self-betrayal and rendering marital intimacy more than merely a realistic accommodation—rather, something worth our aspiration.
It makes perfect sense that a Christian book honoring real sex should praise marriage, although Winner admits this came as a surprise to her. ("Initially I set out not to mention marriage at all. … I was sick of hearing about nuptial bliss.") In part her change of mind came with her own recent marriage. In fact, much of the book springs from the author's experience, from her own romantic past, conversion of life, and attempts at chastity, right up to her newly wedded state. Her proximity to the life of a young single Christian is both a resource and a limitation. She is likeable as a fellow pilgrim on the way to purity. She handles hard subjects with frankness and delicacy. But chastity and eros have a long history in Christian reflection, and while some theological heavy hitters—St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis—get walk-on parts in Winner's account, she might rely on them still more. Our culture may present its own special stumbling blocks to virtue, so we should listen for faithful voices that address us from outside it.
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