Throughout time, human sexuality in western culture has gone through a multitude of phases, which modern culture tends to use as evidence for the superiority of modern sexual customs. The story starts with Grecco-Roman abandon, which at times saw an abundance of pedophilia and orgies, mixed with classic anti-female mindsets. Pompeii - the Roman city frozen in time by a volcanic eruption - touted many a penis on the threshold of each home (though it should be noted these were more concerned with fertility than sexual conquest). Some men even felt that since women were simply a necessary evil, homosexuality was the far more wholesome and manly option, though it seems to me these men were simply bitter towards their mothers in some sort of reverse Oedipal complex. In any case, this leads many neoconservatives to believe that any abandonment of homophobia, particularly the allowance of gay marriage, will see Americans forced into duct-taping dildos to their front doors.

After half a dozen sexual revolutions between now and then, American culture is at something of a half-way point, it could be said. The Internet's chief use continues to be porn, with every search engine finding that their most abundant search requests are always related to porn. yet while Brazil hosts its annual carnival involving children in costumes and women wearing nothing but glitter and thongs (NSFW, but it's not porn, trust me), Janet Jackson's career was briefly shattered by the brief and completely un-erotic glimpse of one of her breasts. There's something wrong, here.

I think of all this as I return to pondering the nature of sin. Sin is defined as what separates one from God, quickly followed by a long list of no-no's, which for America's Christianity will revolve around sex. Every Christian camp and rally I attended as a child was intensely focused on sex. Since this all took place after the 1960's it was qualified with a "Sex itself isn't bad", but the message was definitely a little mixed - very few seemed comfortable speaking positively on the matter, but were quite prepared to launch into a sermon on the havoc it can cause.

The damage this sort of repression has caused is well-known. More than a few have fled from the faith of their youth, but find themselves eternally wounded by the thoughts and habits that were built in to them. One blog, Letters from Johns, features letters from men that are confessing to having visited a prostitute. A common theme in these letters is sexual repression in youth. For some, it simply creates the kind of curiosity that comes only when told we can't have something. For others, it sparked an insatiable desire for the forbidden, for which they could find no suitable outlet.

I guess the conclusion I'm approaching is that sex is not as important as many set it up to be, including myself. If the pursuit of this distant goal drives us to other iniquities more deadly, is it truly worth it in the first place? And, since when did nudity become erotic regardless of context? While I still hold to my decision to abstain until marriage, perhaps it wouldn't be the death of beauty were I to fail (more than I already have) in that endeavor. There are certainly those that value sex too little - but I would venture that America's Christianity has valued it too much, perhaps as a reflection of its own obsession - though that may be a matter of the chicken or the egg.

The source of these convictions is far from new. Virginity (in women, at least) has long been associated with purity and innocence. The loss of virginity then becomes a scarring of the heart, a blackening of the soul, and the physical significance of this makes it feel that much more pressing to preserve. Unfortunately, however, innocence is not a technicality. Innocence is a quality of the heart, not of the genitalia. If virgins hold any innate purity above their peers, I must have missed it.

Purity is the ideal. We do not live in the ideal, however; we live in reality.