“As Christians, we have handed over the stewardship of sex to the world, but it is God who created it”

Partly because we do not usually talk much about sex in church contexts, and partly because in culture the topic is often discussed so much and so badly, Kari Clewett now releases The Good Sex aiming, she says, to “bring that back to the church”.

After years of teaching and offering therapy to couples in Barcelona and beyond, Clewett now puts her reflections in writing in order to reach more people.

Released by the Spanish publisher Editorial Andamio, El Buen Sexo (The Good Sex) is presented as a resource for “understanding and studying” this issue from the discipleship perspective.

This interview was conducted in Spanish, and translated into English.

Question. Was not talking about sex taboo in the church?

Answer. I think it is a taboo just because it is not addressed. In general, I think it is because of a lack of education.

People do not know how to talk about sex without being vulgar or using words that do not honour God, and I also think there is a lot of fear of being wrong.

For example, the phrase from Song of Solomon: “Do not awaken love before its time”, some people have taken it to the extreme of never talking about sex.

There has been a lot of emphasis on trying to keep the single or the teenager a virgin or unexposed, but without bringing information or education to them, and without helping couples who make the decision to marry to have the good sex, to be able to enjoy their sexuality and that gift that God has also created.

I find that, although it is taboo for many, it's not that people don't want to know more about it. That's why I'm having the privilege of finding a lot of doors open. In the end people want to know what God really thinks about sex.

And that is what the book is about.

Q. How do you become a voice in the evangelical sphere that brings the issue of sexuality to the attention of the church?

A. My background in psychology has always been the foundation, but I also studied theology and I think that has led me to a balance between science and biblical truths. I have always filtered science through biblical truth.

But when it comes to sexuality, my mother often reminds me that as a teenager I was already interested, giving talks at children's camps, even though I had no idea at the time (laughs). Sexuality has never been an intimidating subject for me.

I have always believed that sex is a creation of God, that it is in the Bible, and therefore it is necessary to study it.

As a psychologist I started working with children. I had the feeling that I was making a lot of progress with them, but then at home much of the work went wrong, so I moved on to family therapy and discovered the difficulties that parents had, and from there I started to do couples therapy.

In the middle of all this, I got married and I also went through my own marriage difficulties. I realised that there were not many voices in Spanish talking about issues such as infidelity, pornography, difficulties in communication, etc., and that aroused some interest.

I went through a marital crisis that ended in divorce and the feeling that I was, somehow, disqualified, but in the midst of that situation, I felt that God was challenging me to do something about all those issues.

I have discovered that my passion is to help couples understand what God has created. If we understand the gift of sex, our approach to it changes.

That is how a passion begins, sometimes more revolutionary and sometimes more calm, to bring good sex back into the church.

I think that, as Christians, we have handed over the stewardship of sex to the world, and as a church we have kept it a bit taboo, when reality is that it is our God who created it and we should be the ones who have the answers.

I do my ministry through my virtual consultancy and providing the church with answers to questions about sex is our mission.

Q. Everywhere everyone talks about sex in many ways.

A. In the book I write 'Good Sex' in capital letters because it defines God's concept of sex and sexuality, which I think has become very confused.

In the Bible there are several words for sex. One is yadah, which is used when talking about “Adam knew Eve”, although it is also used for sexual contexts. I really like that word because it refers to gaining knowledge or wisdom through experience. God's sex is much bigger than genitalia, it's about that deeper, more intimate knowledge between two people.

Another word is shaqab, which refers to lying next to someone and sometimes to an exchange of fluids. Even the Bible makes the distinction between knowing and exchanging fluids.

In our world today, if I ask a young man on the street whether it is more intimate to sleep with someone or to meet his parents, he will probably say the latter. That's bad sex, and that's where we are.

God never created sex to be something frivolous, without context, without a framework to protect it. Because sex is so powerful and profound, moving, healing, transforming, that it was created to be within a framework of protection such as marriage. Within that relationship of getting to know each other and exploring each other.

The 'Good Sex' is a seal of God, but it is something that many of us do not know, that we do not understand and that we have not taken the time to look at through the Word.

That was what I wanted to express in the book, which is something that I have communicated for a long time in conferences and in private sessions.

Q. To what extent are we also called to be 'disciples' in the area of sexuality?

A. Completely. As Christians, we are called to receive from God and to teach that and to show and share it with others. And when it comes to sex, it is the same thing.

That is why the subtitle of the book is “If God created sex, we must be the masters". Imagine a world in which every married couple understands the gift and power of sex, and enjoys it. How will be the experience of those children?

Those children will grow up in a family with much more connected parents. That will also lead to greater protection from sexual abuse and pornography.

Sex affects many layers, and we are called to do sexual discipleship. If God has created it, there is beauty. Our goal is to break ignorance and, at the same time, keep the purity and beauty with which God has created.

When we hold something of high value, we take better care of it. Part of the problem is that if we are not disciples and do not take care of sexuality, we do not treat it with value, but it becomes something that brings fear or unhealthy curiosity.

Q. You say we are not in need of just any kind of sex, but of sex that is practised in intimacy.

A. It is true that, as a couple, sometimes there must be moments for pleasure and passion without context, but the foundation and the basis of everything has to be intimacy and getting to know each other.

Trust is the possibility to act without having all the information. How important it is that we can know and trust in order to be able to enter into a sexual relationship and let go, enjoy and give to the other person.

If there is no intimacy, everything else will fall on deaf ears. We may experience things like an empty orgasm, which is reaching the end but without context.

As a generation and as a society, we talk a lot about sex but we are having less sex than other generations who didn't talk about it as much. We think we are very free and liberal, but we have lost the value and beauty, and also the broad concept of sex. We have focused too much on genital interaction without understanding that there is more to it.

Q. You also mention concepts that are in the public debate lately, such as consent and (mutual) reciprocity. Why is it important for us as Christians to be conscious and practical about this as well?

A. Sometimes it seems that this is something from certain ideologies or voices, but this was created by God and its design refers to a much deeper mutual and consensual sex than it is today.

In the Bible we find that God is the first to recognise that the woman has a physical sexual need and the man also has an emotional sexual need.

When we dig into the biblical verses, we can recognise that God created the woman, her anatomy, and so on. When we understand the anatomy of man and woman we begin to understand how each has needs that fit with the other.

God's consent is very powerful, because he not only wants you to be willing, but a mutual submission. He wants you to pay attention to the other person, and as one, that connection in unity is strengthened.

We should not look at the claim that the popular debate now holds, about women's pleasure, but we should go back to the Bible and the concept of 'Good Sex' and understand what God has in store for us. And it's amazing, really good. God has the best sex.

Q. It is interesting that you include very clear and specific illustrations of the reproductive organs in your book.

A. Yes, I was recently in a coffee shop chatting with a very influential evangelical pastor, he was looking through the book and opened it to one of the pages with illustrations. He closed it immediately, shocked. I have to say that the illustrations are done with a lot of love and the tone is respectful and giving honour to the Creator.

After what happened, the pastor looked at me and told me that he did not understand why he was feeling ashamed if it was God's creation.

As Christians we have to honour what God has created. We need to understand it and study it. And we must also consider the question of pleasure.

Q. Reflecting on pleasure is a challenge that you undertake in your book.

A. The world today pushes us towards 'self-pleasure'. An eroticism that, supposedly, encourages us to seek our freedom, to touch and explore ourselves in order to know what we like. Someone asked me what is wrong with that.

I think God created pleasure and we have five senses to experience his creation in a way that fills us with joy and gladness and helps us to praise him. When we see a sunset, we have to praise God. It is important to be within God's plan so that there is a reminder when we ask ourselves why we are here, why we got married, etc.

Sex is the sacrament of marriage, what God uses for you to remember the covenant and the promise, and also to have children. Who would have children if the process was not pleasurable? God has created us in such a specific way that one of our greatest pleasures comes in joining with other people and sharing that intimacy. It is not the same alone.

Q. In the book you say that pornography "kills the pleasure" of sex. What aspects, in general, usually make our sex flawed or deteriorating?

A. In the book, I constantly combine what is 'Good Sex' and the things that kill good sex.

I think individualism is numbing us. We want everything over-powered and chemically manipulated, so that we are less attracted to the natural. But, in the end, we realise that the more stimulation we introduce, the more we miss out.

It is the same with sex. Pornography and certain images push us towards violence and risky behaviour to "feel more", but we have lost what it is to feel a caress.

Part of my message is to go back to what is real. To discover what a caress is, a kiss that knows you, to understand sex from a shared experience. I think all this, right now, is what is revolutionary.

I even think that when we educate towards beauty and not from prohibition (which is how we have done it many times in the church) it helps to make good decisions. If we understand creation, it will be much easier to make good decisions.

That is why for single people, even though they may not have access to sex, when they understand 'Good Sex' and have been educated in it, are going to be much easier for them to embrace abstinence with passion. They will understand that they do not want fake sex.

Instead of working from the prohibition and threats of hell, we must work from the motivation and passion that comes from the beauty of what God has created.

Q. What keys do you give for a proper and biblical sex pastoral work?

A. I think the first thing is to educate yourself, and that's why this resource.

We should not think about whether problems will come, but recognise that they will come. We live in a fallen world and bad things are going to happen, so it's important to have a resource so that when they do, we can educate from the good sex.

One of the statistics that hurts me the most is that couples tend to wait an average of seven years before asking for help for their problems.

That means that some people wait longer, some wait less, but when a couple comes in with a seven year old problem, it is very difficult to work, because patterns and attitudes are already in place.

So my plea to the church is that we ask more questions to couples and teach more, not only how not to have sex before marriage, but also how to have sex after marriage, how to relate and talk to each other.

That is why couples ministry within churches is very important to know how to approach people who are struggling and who are confused.

The idea is to create safe places where people can come and ask questions. Asking for help is difficult but, although there may be disappointments in the process, in the end you find an open door.

I encourage spending time in pastoral care for training on this issue. We cannot let people who do not know God educate us about sex, because it is our God who created sex. We must have that information.