Let's do it? The argument for sex on the casual side

This afternoon, after a week of sober topics, the last speaker in our counseling workshop addressed the topic of sex.

Actually, he talked about sexting and how to counsel high school and college students.

The comments of the students were confidential and they will stay that way.

But what fascinated me was his apparent attitude about sex.

First, if you haven't read my blog before, and are appalled that I'm writing about sex, a heads-up: I'm a very odd duck for a member of the clergy.

Liberal? Sometimes? Conservative? Provocative? Provoking? What she said.

I like ideas -- and it helps if they are really outrageous, or stretch me in ways I haven't been stretched by anyone before (and if that sounds suggestive, get your mind out of the gutter).

Finding kindred spirits who will go out and play with me is something I enjoy immensely.

So some new ideas about sex? I'm all ears.

To some extent.

Call me an old fogey, but I'm not happy, as the mother of a 16-year-old daughter, about the epidemic of sexting coursing through the high schools -- not to mention what's going on in college.

But, as I watched him be interviewed in a t.v. clip by one of the local blow-dried brigade, I realized that he was saying something pretty radical about sex. Really, even more interesting than sexting.

As a society, he asserted, we are becoming much more casual about sex. And I got the sense that he thought this wasn't a bad thing.

Sexting, in this context, becomes a rather edgy form of flirtation. But the sex therapist did say to another interviewer that he thinks teens don't have a clue as to what they are doing when they send each other naked pictures -- not to mention that doing this, under certain circumstances, is currently a felony.

I'm not sure what I think about casual sex -- although I find the American prurience about it disturbing.

Let me just say that I think the argument for it (at least in my experience) is mostly voiced, in our society, by men. I've heard so many guys make it that I tend to mentally turn up the noise machine -- a few babbling brooks here, some birds there.

After he finished his presentation, I went up to talk about him about one of my (professional) passions, polyamory.

Quickly we moved from polys to BDSM, pagans and my curiosity about whether certain religions attracted more "alt" sex practitioners.

It was then that he said something truly astounding to me. Most of us, he said, fall outside the boundaries of normative (or what we believe) is normative sexual practice.

Not 51 percent, mes amis. More like 99.9 percent of us are a little bent -- so bent as to redefine "normal."

Wow. I had to admit, I wondered what I've been missing.

More to the point, I wonder what all of you guys are doing!

After a little chatter about fetishes, he turned to speak to my professors.

But I got his email address.

About time I found out.