When University of Chicago researchers set out to discover which religious denominations have the best sex, they learned that the faithful don't do all their shouting in church. Conservative Protestant women, their 1994 survey found, report by far the most orgasms: Thirty-two percent say they achieve orgasm every time they make love. Mainline Protestants and Catholics lagged five points behind. Those with no religious affiliation were at 22 percent. (Unitarians may not wish to read any further.)
What are the Phyllis Schlaflys of the world--those twice-born PTA moms--doing in bed that the agnostics and unbelievers are not? Education may explain some of their sexual satisfaction. But they also may be getting better sex advice. Thanks to evangelism's surge during the past quarter-century, America is in a golden age for Christian sex manuals. Evangelicals may not want their children to study sex ed in school, but they are not afraid of studying a little sex ed in their bedrooms.
The modern Christian sex advice business dates to 1973, when the evangelical Marabel Morgan achieved brief notoriety for "The Total Woman." Morgan famously suggested that wives spice up their marriage by greeting their husbands at the door wearing nothing but Saran Wrap--a seduction attempted with sad consequences for Kathy Bates in the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes." James Dobson, founder of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, published a sex-and-marriage book in 1975. Best-selling Christian authors Tim and Beverly LaHaye followed in 1976 (also the year of Helen Wessel's "The Joy of Natural Childbirth," which taught Lamaze from a Christian perspective). Scores of books have followed, selling millions of copies.
While the Marabel Morgan book aimed chiefly to comfort and instruct the wife on holding the attention of her husband--implying without subtlety that any sexual problems were her fault--later writers have expanded the boundaries of the field, which is now marketed as "family counseling," a category that includes child-rearing, lovemaking, marital relations and, of course, sexual orientation. Today, the genre has even subdivided into niche markets. Teens can buy "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," by Joshua Harris, which counsels against early sexual experience. Earl Johnson's "Single Life: Being Your Best for God as He Prepares His Best for You" assures black women that their single status, which demographics may brutally enforce, can be "a celebration rather than a burden." Numerous books target gays for "recovery," including "Coming Out of Homosexuality," by Bob Davies, dean of the ex-gay evangelists.
