A Backwards View of Sex

Is sex not supposed to be exciting? According to Lauren Winner, it's not: Winner grew up Jewish, converted to Christianity, and now says she is still "unlearning many of the false lessons I learned through years of premarital sex." What does that mean exactly? Winner, who had only been married for three months when she finished the book (her marriage is now in its second year), believes that sex has been overly hyped. "Premarital sex has no normal qualities. It is based on mutual desire and dispenses with the ordinary rhythms of marital sex, trading them for a seemingly thrilling but ultimately false story," Winner says, treating sex with reverence instead of disgust. "The twisted lesson premarital sex teaches is that sex is exciting. In fact, the opposite is true: The dramas of married sex are smaller and more intimate." And that's what everyone wants, right? Excitement is overrated, anyway. "The New Faces of Chastity" (Village Voice)