Children are oblivious to sex, and then starting as teenagers we become obsessed with it. The Bible puts sex at the very center of knowledge.

I think on balance the children’s view is the more accurate one. Yes, of course, sex is essential to survival of the species, but so are gravity and oxygen and your liver and hypothalamus, and we don’t think about those things very often. Seen from a dispassionate distance, sex is just one of hundreds of things that make our world go around.

So why do we adults, and the Bible, give it such special status? I think it’s because the way that sex works requires us to be obsessed with it. Breathing can be done unconsciously, but mating requires attention. Sex is not more important than oxygen, but knowledge of sex is more important than knowledge of oxygen.

[25 March 2023]