Sex and the (Vatican) City

First thing first, Jessica Coblentz, a graduate of Santa Clara University, works in Catholic young adult ministry. She will begin graduate studies at Harvard Divinity School this fall. This post originally appeared on her personal blog, http://www.jessicacoblentz.blogspot.com./ This post can also be viewed on the Emerging Women blog at http://www.emergingwomen.us/2009/07/16/sex-and-the-vatican-city/.

With the Episcopal bishops backing the blessings of same-sex unions, lifting the ban on ordaining gay bishops, and its fallout (N.T. Write calling this a slow-moving train crash and the formation of the U.S. Anglican Church launches that will ban female and gay bishops), I have been thinking about the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. I believe that we are going to have the same type of fallout when we approve (I think we are going to approve) the proposed social statement on human sexuality, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, and the Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies.

Then I read Jessica's blog. She blogged about the lack of honest talk and the complexities of sexual decision-making in the Roman Catholic church. While she does imply that this issue is not unique to the Roman Catholic Church, I am wondering if the church can really have a frank and honest talk about sex. For some reason, the church can take this wonderful gift that God has given us, our sexuality, and turn it into a subject that people would rather avoid by drink gasoline than engaging it.

Here is Jessica's blog:

By Jessica Coblentz
I have a problem. I’m addicted to Sex— Sex and the City, that is.

A friend lent me a couple seasons on DVD recently. I had needed an episode for a program I facilitated at the women’s college where I work in campus ministry. The students and I gathered for popcorn, Oreos, and an episode of Sex and the City, followed by a thoughtful discussion about sex, dating and spirituality. Ideally, the show provides a point of reference for the discussion beyond one’s own sexual and dating experiences (or, sexless and dateless experiences).

The weekend following my program was chilly and wet. Cooped up in my apartment, I found myself utterly pathetic in any attempt to resist the sassy DVDs stacked on my desk. I would watch a couple episodes, eject the disk, and return to some writing, my “to do” list, or a phone call to a friend—only to cave in, again, to “just one more episode!”

What is it about this series that I love so much?! Why do I find it so utterly irresistible? Surely, I love the clothes, the shoes, and the posh New York restaurants. Ultimately, though, it’s the hip sitcom’s candid, witty talk about sex that keeps me glued to the screen. It’s so absolutely refreshing. Even when I disagree with the assertions they make about sex, I love the honest, bold, and fearless way they talk about the sexual decisions they make. They are confident in their sexualities. Not driven to silence or timidity by guilt or shame like so many of us.

In the discussion that followed the episode I watched with my students, I had asked them to characterize the conversations they’d had about sexuality in their religious communities. Most of them were Catholic like me, and all of them responded with, “NO. No, no, no, no, no, no! All we’ve heard is NO.” If they heard about sex in the church setting, it came across as “no,” and “Don’t do it, period. None of it.” There was no honest talk about the complexities of sexual decision-making. No hospitality that allowed them to feel they could ask genuine questions about the reality of sex in their relationships.

This got me thinking…what would a Catholic-type Sex and the City look like? Sex and the Vatican City, perhaps? Honestly, my first response was, “Well, it might look exactly the same as the regular Sex and the City!” Like most folks, we Catholics have pious speech about sex that we often fail to live up to. However, as I thought about it more it occurred to me that if there was a “Catholic” version of Sex and the City that embraced a conversation style akin to the show, yet ultimately continued to espouse the same “Catholic” positions on sexual ethics (anti-abortion, pro-NFP and anti-artificial birth control, no extra-heterosexual-marital sex, etc.), I might still love it. And my students might have a very different experience of Catholic sexual teaching.

I can see it now: The four ladies chatting over brunch. Charlotte is cheering about how happy she is that her natural family planning is not working and she’s pregnant again with her fifth child. Samantha is complaining about her latest boyfriend who just can’t understand why she won’t marry him: he’s been divorced and she is standing by the Church’s position that he cannot remarry. Miranda is still struggling to balance her work as a mother and as a lawyer—only now its in the context of Pope John Paul II’s teachings on “the genius of women” and women’s unquestioned responsibility to family life. Carrie writes a witty sex column for the National Catholic Reporter.

I can envision it now! And I would still like this “Catholic” version in many ways—even if I continued to wrestle with some of the ethical positions it endorsed. Perhaps this type of show will never happen for the Catholic Church, but I still hope that some version of this honest, hospitable conversation about sexuality will.