A Clarification

In my last post, when I mentioned my hesitation about telling my students "the unvarnished truth" about American sexual practices, I was referring specifically to our attitudes toward fornication--or, in more modern, less theological language, premarital sex. On the one hand, these students have to live here for a while (some have been here for over a year already) and will need to understand what American mores are, even if they make other choices because of their religious convictions. On the other hand, I don't really want these students to go back to Turkey or Saudi Arabia with the impression that all (or even most) Americans have no sense of sexual morality.

I was not referring specifically to Roman Polanski's horrifying rape of a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s. These students seemed sensible enough to know that such terrible crimes happen in every country and that Polanski's crime does not reflect anything about the character of the American people.

Given thes conflicting goals I described above, I told my students that while premarital sex has become more common in America in the last 40 years, not everyone engages in it or approves of it, and that the Christian churches (about which they had expressed some curiosity) varied in their opinions on the issue.