by Rachaele Yisrael

Created on: August 19, 2009

Many people argue that the Bible is against sex. Some Christian's suggest Jesus and Paul's advice to serve G-d as a single to mean that marriage and sex is a necessary evil. Or the fruit of the garden was the fruit of sex? You may think that Bible suggests women 'lay back and think of England' while their man has their way.

I certainly don't think it does and I am not alone.

In his article "The central importance of human sexuality in the Hebrew Bible' Sanford Aranoff writes of the 'primacy of sex' and attempts to reexamine the Bible accounts. I respectfully disagree with some of his tenets and it would take a long article to look at every text I believe he has misread. However, I think we also agree on much.

Now, the Bible is not a book for prudes. It does regulate sexual behavior in ways some today object. Its terse, historic style speaks of Jacob requesting Laban hand over Rachael 'that he may have intercourse with her' sounds hardly romantic.

However, Sanford rightly observes that 'Judaism encourages loving sex in marriage.'

Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs) exudes a beautiful erotic tension. where both partners figures are praised and beatified. It's fascinating that celibate Christians, like Bernard Clairvaux or St Claire of Assissi could use its imagery in sermons Or Muslim mystic Rumi similarly describe an undressing woman to describe the love and miracles of God.

However, I respectfully reject Sanford's argument that for the sake of human happiness sex as a goal to achieve. Rape is also sex. It is how a couple shares their bodies that bonds them. Misused sex can also scar and repel.

However, sex can be used in a loving relationship to enhance unity and even deepen a couples spiritual connection.

I agree with Sanford that sex can change a person. Oxytocin bonds a mother and suckling child. And can bond a woman to a man through sex. It has been suggested that it is because of oxytocin that some girls are blind to a man's flaws after her first sexual experience.

Perhaps this ties in with his argument that prostitution is wrong because it does not bind a couple as one. In using Pretty Woman as an example, he perhaps undermines his argument.

Remember Vivian's friend Kit advising never to kiss the guy? By kissing a prostitute risks forming an emotional bond. Kissing risks elevating sex to an emotional act. Why? I suggest it is simple NLP and possibly oxytocin . If you repeat a pleasant sexual experience with someone, it gets neurologically linked.

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