What is it we talk about?

 

The British historian of sexuality Jeffrey Weeks defines his subject as a study of “sexual practices in and outside the bedroom, those that transgress the norms of a particular society and period, as much as those that quietly or ostentatiously conform to them”[1]. This includes factors that organise our thinking around sexual life such as family structures, marriage codes, religious conviction and beliefs, legal arrangements and cultural settings, and “embody sexual meanings, determine the power relations that act on and through sexuality, and make possible different ways of living erotic life”[2].

Since all of those factors change in the course of history, sexual behaviour is also subject to change. Weeks and others have done great work to uncover the change pattern of sexuality in European societies in the centuries before us. It is not my task to repeat their work. I will rather concentrate on the status of sexuality in Europe today by looking at the factors that determine our sexual life today and by asking the question of possible consequences for the wellbeing of society in days to come. You will hear a theologian looking behind the obvious issue and provoking a discussion on possible consequences.

 

Sexual Cultures in Europe

 

Let us start with a more general observation. Sexual behaviour is bound to nature and culture. Humans are sexual beings and we involve in sexual activities according to our cultural standards. In sociology we speak of sexual cultures. Such cultures presume social and genital sexuality[3], determine the value of sexuality and influence sexual orientation.

Cultures are multileveled realities. What we do is usually informed by what we think and we think by what we believe. In other words, at the centre of our cultural design we find a system of beliefs, which might be religious or secular. And it is our beliefs, our deepest convictions that control our behaviour. Belief systems always require structures, which again regulate behaviour. For all behaviour in general and sexuality in particular such regulative structures are: (a) religious or ideological entities, (b) family, and (c) social institutions such as the respective government; institutions determining ethics and value, health and wellbeing, education and so on. We speak of pillars of regulation.

For centuries religion, and in Europe the Christian churches, have controlled the system of beliefs and consequently determined what human sexuality is and how sexuality is to be acted out. European sexual cultures might easily be identified alongside religious and/or ideological divides[4]. Orthodox in the East with the strong emphasis on collective regulation of society, and Roman Catholic in the South – similarly centralising questions of societal behaviour – and Protestant in the North of Europe with its emphasis on the individual. Central and Eastern Europe has been heavely influenced by Marxist ideology following an orthodox collective paradigm of regulating society and, consequently, sexuality[5]. But churches gradually lose their regulative control to the state and to science.

Recent developments such as the collapse of the socialist regime in Central and Eastern Europe or the globalisation first in Western and later in Eastern Europe in many regards added to the fact that traditional social regulation of sexuality has come under pressure. It is in this atmosphere of regulative competition where informal factors override the dominant regulators of sexuality. Just think of what the discovery of fertilisation control in the second half of the 20^th century did to the sexual orientation of Europeans. We still speak of a sexual revolution then. Culture, in short, determines how we think and live out sexuality in our respective contexts[6], but in times of transition other factors massively influence the development of both culture and sexuality in a given country. For all of us interested to pursue those issues I would warmly recommend that we read the volume on change patterns in sexuality in Eastern European countries, edited by Alexander Stulhofer and Theo Sandfort and published under the title “Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia”[7]. The authors highlight differences in development in their respective countries, but at the same time those differences do not hinder them to establish some common trends in sexual behaviour across Europe.

We might still ask, is there something like a European sexual culture or would it be much wiser to speak of different cultures and, as a consequence, of different sexual orientations in play? I was born and raised in Eastern Europe, but have lived and worked in Western Europe since the late nineteen seventies, travelling frequently to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and understanding and recognising the differences, but I do also see the parallels and the European universalities[8]; you might call them trends, if you wish.

So I will concentrate on these, because these trends foster development changes in sexual orientation and ultimately in sexual practice, which have brought us all together to this conference. Human trafficking is unthinkable without those trends.

Trends describe sexuality in broad terms, defining a philosophy of behaviour behind specific actions and methods of realisation. Understandably, I will not talk much about different practices of sexual conduct. Praxis is always much more bound to local reality, trends are less likely so. And trends follow general developments in society.

 

Sexuality in transition in Europe today

 

If anything is true about Europe today then it is this – Europe is in a transition. European societies face major changes on all levels of life. We have just witnessed the collapse of Marxist ideology in the East, and are still coping with the financial crisis in the South and West. Our national states are shaken by an unprecedented influx of migrants and the development of diasporas, thus becoming more and more multicultural, multireligious and multiform in many areas. If any word to describe the present state of Europe has value, this one will – Europe is post: Postmodern, postideological, postchristian, and so on. We are in a middle of a major paradigm change.

Sexual culture changes as well in times of transition. Change pattern are obvious. Let me underline some of them.

(1) Sexuality has gone public. You can see it everywhere in the public square: in advertisement and in literally every movie running down the screen, The Internet has become SexNet. And sexy is a term used for literally everything cool and pleasing. Never before has sexuality been as publically exposed as it is today.

(2) Sexuality is claimed to be a human right. Never before have men and women been fighting for their kind of sexual orientation as much as they do today. Deviating sexualities are claimed to be the norm and sexual minorities seek for public hearing and equal treatment in society.

(3) Sexuality is a matter of personal identity. Your sexual orientation determines who you are. To distinguish between boys and girls, men and women is in no way adequate. The question is rather how do you feel sexually.

(4) Sexuality is viewed as a personal affair without far reaching social consequences. It is pleasure rather than responsibility and it is widely reduced to genital sex. It is what you do with your body, less with you heart.

(5) Sexuality is first of all a matter concerning the human body and not the person as whole. Satisfaction is reached by sexual acts not by love. And love as such has become a synonym of sex.

(6) Sexuality is seen as vital for every age. Sexual activity of teenagers starts at an earlier age. Sexual education starts at preschool level. There is a growing scene of paedophile activity in Europe.

(7) Sexual liberty is protected more than the unborn life of a baby. There is nothing criminal in some European countries about abortion and at the same time actions against certain sexual orientations violet law.

(8) Sexuality is become a market product. Sexual satisfaction of any kind is a multibillion business inviting the most dubious and corrupt practices. Human trafficking is one of them, bringing slavery back to the 21^st century Europe.

Most of this has been different in the past. What has brought such massive change in sexual culture about? Who and what set the trends? Is sexuality following society in its broad development? Does cultural change lead to changing sexual culture?

There are a number of factors adding to the change. Think for instance globalisation. H. Ward, who observes the sex industry in Europe, writes: „Major drivers of change in the sex industry are economic, demographic, ideological, and technological. Globalisation is the umbrella term used to express many of these changes, which include increased economic interdependence of different countries through trade, the extension of the world market to areas of the world previously isolated, increased movement of people and of capital, and the rapid spread of new technologies and media across wide sections of the globe“[9].

The globalisation process is backed up by the media, especially the Internet, which, according to Nikola M. Doering, has become a major factor influencing the way we view and, even more so, practise sexuality[10]. Other factors can be added.

But how do those factors affect sexual culture? Why does sexual culture change after all? The answer is: Sexual culture changes in times of transition because the main pillars of social regulation are under threat. And these pillars are, as cultural anthropology teaches us: religion, family and social institutions of a given society[11]. Let us see what has happened to those pillars in recent years.

 

Religion

 

Religion in most European countries is pushed to the fringes of society and has very limited influence on the main trends in our contexts. The American ethicist Ronald M. Green even declares that, “most aspects of the traditional sexual ethics and theologies of sexuality associated with Western religious traditions may be dead”[12]. Consequently, there is no mentioning of any religious contribution to sexual education in the “Standards for Sexual Education in Europe” produced by the WHO together with the German Bundeszentrale fuer gesundheitliche Aufklaerung (BZgA) in 2012 and brought to attention to all European countries as a guidance for implementation, for example[13]. Religion is no longer a dominating factor in the belief system of the West in general and of Europe in particular.

But now what? No culture has ever managed to succeed without answering transcendental questions such as the meaning of life, the very purpose of being on Earth, where do we come from or go to, and what is our destiny on Earth. Such questions have to a large extent determined our common ethos, have created community and culture and signed responsible for what we thought to be an appropriate view on sexuality. Skipping those questions or passing them over to science all stuck in hypothetical theories is a dangerous move. It will soon reduce humanity to individualism in a most hedonistic culture of self-realisation and self-satisfaction. Without God at the centre of our worldview we will start to worship ourselves. And exactly this is what happens today. For generations of Europeans, God was the source of their identity. Today many people define their own identity according to their sexual orientation. The American writer Marva Dawn even calls this an “idolatry of sex”[14].

So what, the modern promoter of a self-centred culture may say. And may with regard to sexuality even quote science in support of the positive side-effects of unrestrained sex; science which has blindly followed the theories of the American psychologist Margret Mead and her book “Coming of Age in Samoa” published in 1928 where she observed unrestricted sex practices of young Samoans before marriage and concluded that this was the most healthiest of all sexual behaviours[15]. This book received wide attention despite the fact that the only 23 year-old graduate student who had spent just a couple of months on Samoa drew vague and in no way scientifically secured conclusions. Soon Mead’s findings became the standard for so-called scientific discussions on sexuality[16].

Do not read me wrong, I am thankful for all sexology has contributed to release sexuality from a Victorian prudery. But do partial findings make science the guide for how we design our lives?

 

Family

 

Similar to religion, the traditional family is on the defeat, losing influence rapidly due to the globalisation effects on our societies and a permanent push out of the family by relevant societal institutions. And this despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it is the family which is at first place to protect children from dangerous behaviour[17]. Studies like this are permanently overlooked. The WHO document mentioned above on “Standards for Sexual Education in Europe” reduces the role of parents to a merely advising part, seeing little to no educational competence in parents[18]. But isn’t the family the basic unit of all human cultures and societies? None of them ever managed to develop without the central role of family and extended family. Form and structure of family have varied, but never the fact of importance as such. Here humans enculturate, here they first engage as a social being. Leave the family out, and we may soon reduce a human to its biological nature only. In terms of sexuality this leads to a reduction of sexuality to genital acts only, thus omitting the social aspects of sexuality. As a result, inconsiderate, self-centered, egoistical practices that completely overlook the social impact of sexual activity will soon alarmingly increase.

European societies seem to welcome this experiment. But what is going to replace family? What then will become the main way of reproduction[19], enculturation and community building? Individualism with all its egocentric tendencies? Obviously not. Will science or any federal structure replace family? Or are we really facing a destructive future?

 

Society

 

Sexuality education in Europe is sought to rest on societal secular institutions only. They are the declared specialists on raising sexually responsible citizens. And they seem to foster individualistic decisions in sexual orientation rather than community-centred ones. They separate sexuality from spirituality and community. Lived sexuality becomes a private matter to a greater extent, placed into the four walls of one’s intimate, private life. “What I do for myself” is then my ultimate right.

 

A call for new direction

 

Europe is in transition and our changing world is also heavily affecting sexuality. Just screen the Internet, just examine the media for the images transported. Can we yet count how many marriages were broken, or unborn babies killed, or how many young women raped and enslaved by the prostitution business in human trafficking? Sexuality has become an omnipresent and, let’s face it, dirty business. The new European paradigm on sexuality is frightening.

Not all change, of course, is problematic and dangerous. It would be more than wrong to praise the past. No, our European past has not been any better. A Victorian patriarch may have claimed more Christian spirit in his daily life, but probably was in no way less abusive, at least not from a woman’s perspective. We obviously need new directions. We will have to join the process of change, but I would plead for a “process in which change is transforming and not deforming”[20]. Experiments might be done in a lab, but not with humanity, please. And the humanistic experiment of establishing sexuality without the realms of spirituality and community already bears daunting results: families are falling apart, morals are questioned, individualistic and hedonistic cultures thrive and in all of this, pornography has turned out to be the trade number One on the Internet while sexual abuse and related human trafficking has become a global disease. Just look at the data relevant to our conference topic: sex work or prostitution in Europe is flourishing in the richer Western parts of our continent considered to be further developed, more democratic and more humanistic than the rest. At the same time these societies misuse the situation of women and poor migrants to the limits. Prostitution in Europe is largely performed by women, who constitute 87%[21], and migrants, who count for 70-90%[22]. Most of the sexual workers in Western Europe come from Eastern (34%) and Central (26%) European countries, the Baltic states (6%), the Balkan (3%) and very few from the rest of Europe (4%). This adds up to 73% for prostitutes from Europe. Another group too comes from Africa, Latin America and Asia (27%)[23]. Prostitution is in any regard a European problem, a problem of a society claiming to be democratic, humane and supposedly driven by human rights issues. Is our “right” to sexual satisfaction but the pain of the other? How sick must a society be to allow this to happen? We need a new direction!

I am a theologian. And you probably expected a sermon sooner or later… Yes, I do believe that the new direction in sexuality matters will mean a recovery of the basic principles and basic cultural institutions determining a healthy sexuality in our countries. And I think that changes will have to occur in 3 major directions.

 

We need to bring God back to our nations to restore healthy sexuality

 

Now most likely many here will immediately think of the church and her failure to encourage healthy society structures in the past. But it is obviously not the church we place in the centre of our restored culture and even less our limited ideas of theology – it is God! He is the author of life. He has created men and women in his image, putting both sexual intimacy and social responsibility far beyond our small, intimate world. In Genesis 1:27-28 we read:

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

The sexual unity between man and woman is far more than just genital sex – it means responsibility for culture and society.

In order to become that creative unit we humans have to strip away all external influence hindering the realisation of God’s programme in our lives. In Gen. 2:24 we read: “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one” (NLT). It is those external influences that hinder true sexuality to prosper. Returning under God’s rule will open for us a chance to become new creations (2Cor. 5:17).

It is God who grants us our identity. He provides character, yes a sexual character, as Marva Dawn calls it[24]. And character leads to proper behaviour, which in return forms character. A true Christian community will nurture character[25], provide identity in God, which is never obsessed with one’s own satisfaction but rather finds fulfilment in being God’s agent of transformation and love. The Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God“ (Eph. 3:14-19).

Our identity in love does not come from active sexual activity but rather through the spirit of God who shapes a new loving character, which enables us to live in perfect love. Therefore, spirituality and sexuality belong together.

 

We need to restore the family as the formative agent of human sexuality

 

God created us humans as sexual beings. And he forms us in and through our families. Any restoration of sexuality will therefore require a conscious restoration of families and their crucial role in church and society. It is more than strange to miss the issue of family in most of the works in sexual ethics, both from Christian[26] and non-Christian authors. The church will have to provide clear guidelines for the role of the family as an agent of God’s life-giving mission in the world. What we need is a theology of a missional family also addressing issues of human sexuality and informing not just an understanding, but an alternative praxis as witness to the world. So people may hear about and observe what it means to know the fullness of love. Through the family sexuality and community will come together in creating a culture of love and care.

 

We need to restore the role of societal organisations as supporting arms for the family

 

All culture is the result of God involving the human genius in cultivating life (Gen. 1:28). Families shape and develop societies with all their institutions. And those institutions are set to support families in their life cycle. Society is for the family, and not vice versa. Science is not there to question the family as such, but rather to meaningfully support its life-giving role. Government is there not to reproduce the human race but rather to provide meaningful structures to enable the family to prosper. It is here that our sexuality will find a support system. This limits society to a supporting rather than defining role and protects sexuality from being reduced to a format which creates all the fatalities that we see today.

I am well aware that this appeal of mine will probably be only heard by the church. But why not start there? Jesus promised he would build a church called out from society to accept responsibility for that society (Matthew 16:18)[27]. As his Church we do right to obey and return to our mission. Our changed attitude towards sexuality will then become a testimony, not for prudery, but for truly fulfilled love.

 

Bibliography

 

1. CLARK, Anna. 2008. Desire: A History of European Sexuality. New York and London: Routledge.
2. DAWN, Marva. J. 1993. Sexual Character. Beyond Technique to Intimacy. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
3. DÖRING, Nikola M. 2009. The Internet´s Impact on Sexuality: A critical review of 15 years of research. In: Computers in Human Behavior 09/2009; 25:1089-1101.
4. GREEN, Roland M. 1987. The Irrelevance of Theology for Sexual Ethic. In: Sexuality and Medicine. Volume I: Conceptual Roots, ed. by Earl E. Shelp. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, pp. 249-270.
5. HOLLINGER, Dennis P. 2000. Sexual Ethics and Reproductive Technologies. In: The Reproduction Revolution. A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies and the Family, by John F. Killner, Paige C. Cunningham, and W. David Hagner. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, pp. 79-91.
6. HUGGERTT, Joyce. 1985. Dating, Sex and Friendship. Downers Grove, IL: IVP.
7. KELLY, Kevin T. 1998. New Directions in Sexual Ethics. Moral Theology and the Challenge of Aids. London, New York: Chapman.
8. MCILHANEY, Joe S. 2000. Sex in America: Past. Present, Future. In: The Reproduction Revolution. A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies and the Family, by John F. Killner, Paige C. Cunningham, and W. David Hagner. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, pp. 218-229.
9. MEED, Margret. 2001. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation. New York: William Morrow.
10. RESNIK, M.D. at al. 1997. Protecting Adolescent from Harm: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. In Journal of the American Medical Association 278, Nr. 10, pp.823-832.
11. STULHOFER, Alexander and Sandfort, Theo. 2005. Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern Europe and Russia. New York and London: Routledge.
12. 2009. SEX WORK IN EUROPE A mapping of the prostitution scene in 25 European countries European Network for HIV/STI Prevention and Health Promotion among Migrant Sex Workers Main coordinator: Licia Brussa. Amsterdam: TAMPEP International Foundation. In: http://tampep.eu/documents/TAMPEP%202009%20European%20Mapping%20Report.pdf  (1.05.2015).
13. WARD, H. and Day S. 2004. Sex work in context. In: Day S, Ward H, eds. Sex work, Mobility and Health in Europe. London: Kegan Paul, pp.15–33.
14. WARD, H. and Aral, S.O. 2006. Globalisation, the sex industry, and health. In: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563848/ (1.05.2015).
15. WEEKS, Jeffrey. 2012. Sex, Politics and Society – the Regulation of Sexuality Since 1980. 3rd edition. New York and London: Routledge.

______________

[1] Weeks 2012:1.

[2] Ibid:2.

[3] Terminology first introduced by Joyce Huggett (1985). See the discussion in Dawn 1993:9ff.

[4] See discussion in Weeks 2012:17.

[5] See Eder 1999:6-10.

[6] Ward 2004:15ff.

[7] Stulhofer 2005. See especially the chapter on transition (1-28).

[8] See for instance: Clark 2004; a.o.

[9] Ward 2006.

[10] Döring 2009:1089-1101.

[11] Stulhofer 2005:6.

[12] Green 1987:249.

[13] See full text in: http://www.schulpsychologie.at/fileadmin/upload/psychologische_gesundheitsfoerderung/Sexualerziehung/Guidance_for_implementation.pdf (1.05.2015).

[14] Dawn 1993:18.

[15] See the text in its newer edtion (Mead 2001).

[16] See a critical discussion in McIlhaney 2000:221ff.

[17] See in this regard for instance the ADD Study in the US (Resnik 1997:823-832).

[18] Ibid.:25-25.

[19] See the discussion on reproduction technologies and ethics in Hollinger 2000: 79-91.

[20] Kelly 1998:24.

[21] TAMPEP 2009:14.

[22] TAMPEP 2009:16.

[23] TAMPEP 2008:17.

[24] Dawn 1993:32ff. See more on ethics of the sexual character in Dawn 1993:41-80.

[25] Dawn 1993:36ff.

[26] See for instance: Grenz 1990; Kosmik 1977; a.o.

[27] See more in Reimer 2013:42-48.