Articles
Thou Shalt
Sex Beyond the List of Don’ts
Lisa Fullam
G
o into any gym and you’ll see people
improving themselves. The woman
on the biceps machine is building
strength in that muscle, perfecting her natu-
ral attribute by practicing a range of motion
against resistance that will make her stronger
in every circumstance where muscle power is
required. Glancing in the mirror, she notices
how her hard work is paying off not only in
strength but also in the beauty of a toned
and fit body.
Walk into a school of music and observe the man in his
forties just learning the violin. He struggles a bit with tone
and pitch, and his fingers still get sore from the strings, but he
wants to be able to express himself musically in the mode that
the violin allows. He devotes himself to practice so that he
may be not just a man learning the violin, but a violinist.
The virtue ethics of Thomas Aquinas is about this kind of
process. In this approach, virtues are defined as “perfections”
of our natural capacities, not just for certain types of activity
but for human moral life as a whole. Aquinas follows Aristo-
tle, who noted that we “become builders by building and lyre
players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing
just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing
brave acts.” The virtues together constitute a vision of what
it means to be most fully human, to manifest the virtues pres-
Commonweal . April 24, 2009
ent “inchoatively,” Aquinas says, in our nature. We measure
our growth in virtue according to an ideal that is our own
personalized spin on the particular excellence for which each
of us individually was created: the woman in the gym wants
to be strong and beautiful as only she can be. The violinist,
while he loves to listen to Itzhak Perlman, wants to express
the music that dwells inchoatively in his own soul. For Aqui-
Lisa Fullam is associate professor of moral theology at the Jesuit
School of Theology at Berkeley. She is the author of The Virtue of
Humility: A Thomistic Apologetic (Edwin Mellen Press).
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nas, virtues are the content of human flourishing, character-
istics of people who more and more fulfill God’s hopes for us
in calling us into being.
What happens when we apply this very traditional mode of
ethical reflection to the questions of sexual ethics? What are
the perfections of our character, the virtues resident incho-
atively in our natures that may be developed in the context
of sexual relationships? The morality of sex has long been the
focus of Christian teachings—and prohibitions. But we can-
not have a correct notion of virtues without a vision of the
goal for our activity—the violinist had to hear an excellent
violinist before he knew what might be achieved with some
wood, strings, and a bow. I propose a three-fold end or goal,
a telos, that might be a starting point for a new conversation
about sex. I’d also like to sketch, in a very preliminary way, a
few virtues of “excellent” sex—the character ideals that may
be cultivated in our most intimate relationships.
First, some definitions: “Sex” is a biological category (male
or female); “sex” also refers to the panoply of human erotic
acts. “Sexuality” is a much broader term having to do with
how we relate to others. The Catechism of the Catholic Church
says, “Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the
unity of...body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the
capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way
the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.”
In other words, we are intrinsically sexual beings, and our
sexuality permeates our self-understanding and our relation-
ships with others, including our relationship with God. The
sexual act, then, is one expression—perhaps the most focused
and intense—of sexuality. It is in that connection that ques-
tions of sex reach beyond matters of biology and technique
to include the realm of feelings, meaning, and desire. This is
where sex becomes morally interesting, at the level of whole
persons in our lives and loves.
Part of the challenge of thinking about ethics for sex and
sexuality is the breadth of sexual experience and its meanings.
Sex can be an emotionless transaction or a profound experi-
ence of loving union between partners. It can be celebratory
or consoling. Sex can help us develop a deeper understand-
ing of ourselves, our partners, and God. It can be tender or
violently abusive; it can heal or it can deeply wound. Sex can
signify acceptance and mutuality, or it can be a competition
to demonstrate prowess, or it can be a seeking for one’s own
 pleasure unconnected to that
of our partner.
Sex is the occasion of what
is arguably the greatest pleasure
the flesh is heir to. Sex is also
the usual way we procreate,
giving life to another person
whom we hope will grow to love
in turn. On one hand, sex can
symbolize a close relationship
between people—one question
people ask to learn if a couple
is serious is whether they’re
having sex—and on the other
hand, sexual intimacy serves
to deepen a relationship that
already exists by opening each
person to otherwise unknowable
aspects of the partner. Sex helps
to create what it symbolizes.

C
omplicating the task
of considering sexual
ethics is an unfortunate
historical fact: far too often in
Christian tradition, sex has
been regarded with suspicion or
fear. Sex is such a powerful force
in our lives that some have regarded it as needing very strict
control, lest we be run by our desires. For example, Augustine
views the unruliness of the sexual appetite as paradigmatic
of the disordered state of humanity after the Fall. A corol-
lary can be found in contemporary culture, where to some
degree the whole category of sin has become conflated with
sex—when an advertisement for a movie or book promises
“sin,” nobody expects a graphic depiction of lying, gossiping,
or cheating on taxes.
Christian ethical reflection on sex has tended to focus on
what makes individual sex acts morally right or wrong. This
view of sex that looks at acts objectively and tends to regard
anything sexual as probably sinful has resulted in a rule-focused
sexual morality generally expressed as lists of don’ts: Don’t
masturbate. Don’t have sex before marriage. Don’t use contra-
in Christian life is not sin, but grace, starting with the grace of
being called into being and called into love by God. A focus
on grace and how we respond to God’s invitation to love will
include serious consideration of sin, but will go much further
in the direction of excellence, and will lead us to ponder the
heights of what is possible in our lives. We center our lives as
Christians on Jesus’ vision of human fulfillment in the reign
of God and the love by which we devote ourselves to its real-
ization. That vision calls us forward and helps us see what re-
quires work in our current world. To bring this approach into
the realm of sexuality means that we start with the hopes we
bring to sex, the ideals we wish to incarnate in our loving.
So, my topic here is not the don’ts (important as they may
be) but the dos, a subject that has been less well considered
in the Christian tradition.
Commonweal . April 24, 2009

ception when you have sex in marriage. Don’t have sex out-
side marriage. Don’t have sex with someone of your own sex.
Don’t abuse others sexually. I’m not dismissing these don’ts
out of hand: some don’ts are of great value, some are less valu-
able, and some are grounded in bad biology, bad psychology,
or bad theology and should be discarded. But to limit our eth-
ical talk of sex and sexuality to the don’ts is a theological and
MEINRAD CRAIGHEAD
We acquire virtues the same way an athlete or violinist gains
skills—by attentive and reflective practice. We grow in virtues
also through reflection on the experience of others, which
is where the wisdom of families, friends, religious traditions,
and other strong communities becomes significant. We may
rediscover the value of the don’ts in a new way—or, in some
cases, we may come to realize that some of the established

also a spiritual error, not unlike limiting a discussion of Chris- don’ts belong to a vision of human sexuality that has more
tian life to talking about sin. to do with outdated taboos than with our own Christian
Like the don’ts of sex, sin is an important reality (and many experience.
of those don’ts may be understood as sinful). But the first word A goal we might seek in our sex lives, I suggest, may be

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 described in three dimensions: a feel for incarnation, an ability
for intimacy, and an eye for insight. I’ll describe each of them,
but they work together like a trinity—three aspects of one
reality. I invite you to examine this proposal in light of your
own feelings, beliefs, understandings, and experiences.
I
ncarnation is a central motif of Christian anthropology.
We speak of Jesus as God incarnate, but the very notion
that God can be fully human, like us in all things but
sin, is a bold proclamation of the ineradicable goodness of
human embodiment generally—not just Jesus’ incarnation,
but our own. We are not spirits trapped in matter; neither
are we mere matter that has stumbled into self-awareness.
Rather, Christian tradition holds that we are incarnate spirit,
an indivisible body-soul-spirit composite.
When we are lost in sexual passion, there’s usually not a
lot of thinking going on—we are taken up in our bodiliness.
Certainly pleasure is one of the obvious ends we hope for in
our sex lives: there is a huge array of sexual pleasures, and
pleasure by proxy, as it were, when we delight in the delight
of our partner. Some Christian ethicists, notably Christine
Gudorf, regard mutuality in sexual pleasure as normative for
a Christian sexual ethics.
Developing a feel for incarnation includes mutual pleasure,
and goes further. A sense of our incarnate selves leads us to pay
attention to our overall well-being—physical, emotional, and
spiritual. Some models of Christianity have emphasized a body-
denying asceticism that seeks to ignore the legitimate needs
of the body in an attempt to become more wholly “spiritual-
ized.” Now, a little asceticism is a good thing, but, as Thomas
Aquinas observed, “to afflict the body immoderately…is to
offer a sacrifice of stolen goods.” A feel for incarnation, then,
calls us to be kind to our bodies for their own sake.
A feel for incarnation also means that, contrary to social
messages that reduce the worth of persons to their sexual desir-
ability, we seek in our sexual relationships to grow closer to our
partner in his or her totality. We are called to love ourselves
and others as incarnate persons, not just bodies and not just
souls. A feel for incarnation means we understand that we
are bodies but not only bodies—and that our human dignity
lies in the whole human person.
If it is incomplete to value people only or even chiefly
for their bodies, it is also incomplete to ignore the beauty of
the human body. A normal and holy aspect of our embodied
Commonweal . April 24, 2009
humanity emerges as sexual desire, which cannot be wrong in
itself, any more than hunger for food is wrong in itself. Lust,
that bugaboo of traditional sexual ethics, is a corruption of
sexual desire. Aquinas defined lust as being unreasonably
driven by sexual desire. While he seems to understand this
to mean simply an excess of desire, I would suggest that the
essence of the unreasonableness of lust, and what makes lust
wrong where sexual desire itself is not, is that lust seeks only
the body of the other, instead of seeking the whole person.
For Aquinas, virtue is a mean between two unreasonable
vices. One vice concerning sexual pleasure is lust. The opposite
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To limit our ethical talk
of sex and sexuality
to the don’ts is a
theological and also
a spiritual error,
not unlike limiting
a discussion
of Christian life
to talking about sin.
vice, Aquinas tells us, is insensibility, or lack of enough desire
for sex. A feel for incarnation, then, means that we appreciate
the beauty in the people around us, celebrate beautiful bodies
(and imperfect ones), and seek in our relationships to perceive
human beauty holistically—body, soul, and spirit.
I
ntimacy is a central goal of sex. Like the other dimensions
of excellent sex, it’s a goal because it cannot be taken for
granted, and because it is something that can deepen with
attentive practice. Intimacy is not a yes or no question, but
a matter of depth and degree. After all, people who remain
sexually and emotionally contented in very long relationships
tend to say that they continue to learn new things about their
partners—they keep on growing in their knowledge of the
other. Here we begin to see another kind of problem with a
sexual ethics centered on prohibitions. In a minimalist, list-
of-don’ts ethics, so long as you meet the minimal criteria for
permissible sex, all guidance ceases. But a married couple not
breaking any “rules” might still struggle with a lack of intimacy
and fulfillment in their sexual relationship. What guidance
could their faith offer them?
What the telos of intimacy in a virtue ethics does is not so
much condemn or approve particular acts as remind us to keep
an eye on the whole relationship, our entire sex life, and not
to settle into patterns of stasis, boredom, or lack of care that
fail to keep looking for ways to improve. It’s important to note
that in virtue ethics, the ideal should invite and inspire us,
not condemn or depress us. We’re not buff after one day in
the gym—we need to work at it with persistence and hope.
Remember the dynamic character of virtue ethics—it’s not
about being perfect, but about taking steps and sometimes
half-steps to get there, or at least get close.
Here is also where we can see how a virtue-based approach
can reframe one of the traditional don’ts of sex, sexual pro-
miscuity. It is the connection of sex to sexuality, to self and
affectivity, that is at stake. A promiscuous person may find
himself or herself dividing sex from intimacy, settling for
sexual satisfaction that falls short of the deeper communion
that sex can offer. Since we are all called to love deeply and
wisely, and since sex can be a powerful mode of interpersonal
communion, divorcing sex from its capacity to unite lovers
can inhibit our ability to form deep sexual bonds, especially
if we’ve developed the emotional toughness that allows us to
express the body’s language of care and tenderness without
its emotional correlates. A person who is unable to achieve
emotional intimacy may use promiscuity as a mask, substituting
the physical for the deeper body-spirit-soul connection that
is the aim of satisfying sexual relationships.
Seeing sex in light of its end of intimacy also is an invitation
for those who have chosen celibacy to look closely at their own
ability for intimacy. As John Updike put it in his final novel,
“Without the sexual need to negotiate, there is little to curb
neurotic crankiness.” Those who live celibacy with integrity
and joy are able to be open to deep human connection and its
associated virtues without availing themselves of the natural
training ground for such growth—we often learn the most,
and learn most intensely, about negotiating the human needs,
frailties, and delights of others in the kind of relationships
that tend to be or become sexual. (Parenthood is another
training ground for this kind of growth in virtue.) Even deep
friendship—itself a fundamental grace, and, Aristotle holds,
a means of growth in virtue—stops short of the challenges
and rewards of sexual intimacy. Ask anyone married happily
for a long time.
Intimacy as one of the three aspects of excellent sex is related
to incarnation—sex expresses a personal reality, not only a
bodily one. At the same time, it calls us to an emotional and
psychological openness and vulnerability that can be far more
challenging than just physical sex. One of the virtues cultivated
in what Christian ethicist Karen Lebacqz called “appropriate
vulnerability” is trust. A person who shies away from vulner-
ability will never know the freedom that can come through
trusting another person with our bodies, thoughts, feelings,
and desires. To be accepted by another in this intimate way
in turn contributes to the third dimension of excellent sex,
which is an eye for insight.
I
nsight means more than just perception; it implies a deeper
level of cognition. While an observation like “she moved
out” is a matter of objective fact, the evaluation “she
doesn’t love me anymore” is a deeper awareness of a fuller—and
more painful—human meaning behind the observed act.
Absent insight, incarnation and intimacy alone lack a rich
aspect of human self-awareness that transcends the more
obvious levels of bodily and psychic/emotional intimacy. It
is insight that invites us to see the echoes of our relationships
beyond the immediacy of partners to include family, society
as a whole, and our relationship to God. Insight allows us to
come to a better understanding of how sexual relationships
have played out in our lives in the past, and how we might use
that experience in present and future relationships. Insight
calls us to cultivate the virtue of compassion for our own
mistakes and those of others, and to be committed to what
sustains stronger intimate relationships. Insight reveals con-
nections that may not have been apparent and sharpens our
vision of what might be.
Insight is especially engaged when we begin to catch the
echoes between our sexual lives and our spiritual lives. Chris-
tian tradition has tended to associate spirituality with sexual
abstinence, but to think of sex as opposed to spiritual excel-
lence or as inhibiting spiritual growth is inconsistent with a
true understanding of our incarnate nature. Shouldn’t such
resonant aspects of our humanity have something to say to
each other?
Indeed they do. The mystics of Christian tradition often
employ language of sexuality to describe intense experiences
of prayer. When Teresa of Avila, for example, describes union
with God, it sounds a lot like sexual ecstasy; Bernini’s sculp-
ture got it just right. The use of sexual imagery in describing
profound experience in prayer isn’t coincidental: in both cases
people are striving to express human self-transcendence in
and with another, whether that other is a sexual partner or
God. In both cases, one is lost in the other and never more
completely found.
Another echo: While Christian tradition has sometimes
idealized impartial, impersonal love of all as the ideal of imitatio
Dei, I think that it is in our closest relationships, and perhaps
most of all in intimate sexual relationships, that we best imitate
the way God loves us. The Song of Songs is a steamy, erotic
love poem, included in the Bible because it is an apt expres-
sion of God, who loves Israel with the urgent yearning of an
irresistible lover. God, after all, throws his lot in with each of
us, personally, individually (and not only communally), every
day, trying to accept and navigate and respond to our human
strengths and weaknesses, both the trivial and profound. God
risks heartbreak with each of us, the way lovers risk and dare
with each other, saying, “Yes, you, personally, are the one I
want to be loved by and will be hurt by if you cannot, will not,
or do not love me back.” The God of Israel, the God of Jesus
is a jealous God, in that God is vulnerable to us, and invites
us to love God as intensely and personally as God loves us.
We learn how to do that partly from our direct experiences
of loving God, but we also learn that by learning how to love
well in any other realm of our lives.
T
he list of virtues for excellent sex, of course, doesn’t
Commonweal . April 24, 2009
end with those I’ve mentioned here. The triune end
of incarnation, intimacy, and insight is sought via a
panoply of virtues, ranging from patience, humility, and for-
giveness to honesty, attentiveness, and playfulness. And the
wonder of it all is that it is exactly in the pursuit of excellent
sex that we discover the particular contours and textures of the
form it will take in our own lives, just as in each generation
Christians incarnate the faith anew, responding to the voice
of God as we and those who’ve gone before us have discerned
it. In excellent sex, we celebrate that we were created by Love,
to be love, and make love, in the world. N
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