So I’m reading the news, and I come across this article decrying the production of “The Vagina Monologues” at some college. The author’s opinion was that this play was thinly disguised porn, and that it’s production (and in fact, all porn) was a creeping smut on our society, destroying the sanctity of sex. The sanctity of sex - that’s the exact phrase she used, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Sanctity - the holiness of life and character, or the quality or state of being holy or sacred (Merriam-Webster online)

I would wholeheartedly agree that sex is, or at least ought to be, something sacred. The question is, does talking about sex, showing pictures of it, discussing how to do it (and how not to do it), or does just plain doing it, destroy this sanctity?

Well, does talking about God destroy the sanctity of God? Does showing religious imagery, talking about what you do in church or what you pray for, destroy the sanctity of your faith? I think the author of my article, and pretty much any person of faith, would agree that it does not.

Why then does looking at and talking about sex destroy it’s sanctity?

What’s going on here is another example of the moral double-speak of the religious right. Preserving the “sanctity” of sex, to them, requires hiding sex, especially all the nitty-gritty physical details: the sights, the sounds, the smells and bodily fluids, the sensual reactions to often inexplicable stimulus. In fact, it requires treating sex like something to be ashamed of. Quite the opposite of something sacred.