College campuses across the country are reporting rising numbers of sexual assaults, date rapes and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). There is also evidence that the “hook-up culture” on campuses — casual sexual activity with no strings attached — is affecting students’ mental health. Federal health officials released a report this week showing that the U.S. last year hit a record high of more than 1 million cases of Chlamydia — a record.
On Tuesday, the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Cardinal Newman Society hosted a conference, “Modest Proposals,” to address the sexual climate, specifically on college campuses. It featured a panel of chastity all-stars who have written books that address the problem of sex on campus and seek solutions beyond more condoms and more STI testing.
One panel participant, Dawn Eden, director of the Cardinal Newman Society’s Love and Responsibility Program and author of the book The Thrill of the Chaste, talked with CitizenLink about the sexual climate and the importance of chastity.
1. What do you do as the director of the Love and Responsibility Program?
The Love and Responsibility Program attempts to help Catholic colleges find solutions to problems of sex on campus that are true to their religious identity, rather than just telling kids that they should get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. We have this wonderful Christian heritage of teachings on chastity that should be brought to bear in any discussion of sex on campus.
2. What's causing the growing trend of casual sex and sexually transmitted infections on college campuses?
Planned Parenthood and its allies — and the influence that those organizations have in attempting to control our country’s policy of sexual education and trying to control our country’s health policy. Planned Parenthood has an enormous college outreach. They are pushing colleges to offer condoms and emergency contraception, and they’re urging colleges to tell students that hook-ups are the norm. Planned Parenthood spends a great amount of money in their PR to try to convince college students that everybody is doing it. And why? Because they want to build business for their abortion clinics, for their STD testing.
Planned Parenthood keeps saying that if college students are educated on STDs and getting tested for them and using condoms, that these STDs will go away. Well, obviously they’re not going away and obviously Planned Parenthood has a tremendously larger presence now than it did 40 years ago when these diseases were practically unknown.
3. How did you become an advocate for chastity and sexual purity?
I grew up thinking that there was no reason that sex had to be connected to marriage. I thought there was nothing sacred about marriage and there was nothing truly sacred or godly about sex. When I worked as a rock journalist, I was living this very worldly lifestyle, but I was profoundly unhappy. I had pleasure from my lifestyle, but I did not have joy.
Upon becoming a believer, I knew my lifestyle was not in line with my faith. I looked for a book to help me, and the only books I could find were books written by virgins, for virgins. The idea of being a secondary virgin made me feel like a used car. So, with the help of readers of my blog, I learned about chastity and that you don’t have to be a virgin to be chaste. I learned that chastity is the ancient Christian term to describe the proper place of sex and sexuality in the Christian life. Learning the true meaning of chastity showed me that for the loss in temporal pleasure, I was gaining a greater reward. When I learned more about chastity and became serious about practicing it, I had the opportunity to write this book.
4. Why is your message about the dangers of premarital sex so important?
The popular culture tells college students the best way to prepare for marriage is through sex. What I discovered is you can’t seek permanence through impermanence. Having sex is not a training ground for marriage; it’s a training ground for divorce. Christians have always believed that the body and soul are united whole. And it’s in the nature of casual sex for a person to attempt to separate what’s going on emotionally from what’s going on physically. It’s very damaging. It impairs one’s ability to have intimacy, and people who practice doing this are going to find that when they’re in a marriage, they have obstructions to emotional intimacy.
This is not just an issue of Christians trying to impose their values. There are plenty of studies that show that cohabiting and sex before marriage damage people’s chances of having a lasting marriage.
5. How can people heal from their sexual pasts?
Healing is always available to us in Christ. If we sincerely repent of our sinful behavior — and to repent means not just to be sorry about it but to turn away from it — God recognizes that, and He washes us. Once you make the decision to change your life, you have to think about where you are going to find fellowship with other people who feel as you do.
Our sexuality cannot be divorced from who we are in Christ. When we learn about our sexuality in the light of Christ’s teaching, it gives us a great awe and wonder about how, as the Psalm says, we are wonderfully and fearfully made.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit Dawn Eden's blog.
To read more about purity and sexuality, visit Focus on the Family’s Pure Intimacy Web site.
(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
