The Ethics of Sex: New Dimensions to Religious Ethics

The Ethics of Sex is divided into three parts, covering problems in principles of ethics, difficulties in the history of ethics, such as marriage, divorce, and crimes against nature; and finally, new possibilities in Christianity, such as redeeming pleasure. The discussion throughout the volume shows the distinctive power of Christian rhetoric to create, develop, and impose moral identities for which sex is central. Some of these identities are positive, such as the Virgin Martyr, which others are sexual sin-identities, such as the Adulterer or the Sodomite. However, we can only move beyond these established "characters" by recognizing that they were written to be theological roles - and that some theology may be needed to rewrite them.