Sex seminar extols joys of married love
DEVON, AB-A weekend sex seminar that is the brainchild of a pastoral couple at Devon Community Church in suburban Edmonton, is attracting the attention of Christians right across Canada.
While the subject of their workshop, "Understanding and Meeting Your Partner's Sexual Needs," occasionally raises eyebrows, Simon and Ruth Clarence say they now have numerous invitations from church groups, affirming the need for an educational seminar on the role of sex in marriage.
Ruth, who has degrees in teaching and theology, offered her first sex seminar to the women of their church at the request of her husband. "At first I thought he'd gone crazy," laughs the vivacious mother of two. "I mean, how many pastors' wives do you know who are eager to share about intimate matters in front of the ladies of their own congregation?"
So well received was Ruth's initial presentation that some of the women who'd attended began to jokingly call her "Dr. Ruth," a reference to the well-known sex therapist by that name who has been a staple on American airwaves for years.
"Like many couples," says Ruth, "our experience was that after being married for a while and having kids, you begin to run out of new ways to say, 'I love you.' So off to the bookstore I went looking for help in how to put the spark back in our romance.
"What did I find?" she chuckles. "Suggestions like-try
hopping a plane to Paris for a romantic dinner at the Eiffel Tower, or surprising your spouse with a Mediterranean cruise. Discouraged, I went home
wondering how on earth I was supposed work that into the budget of a pastor's family."
Ruth says she understands why many women turn to soap operas, trashy romance novels and afternoon talk shows for ideas on spicing up their sex lives. "The down side of that," she cautions, "is that, of course, many ideas you'll hear there do not reflect Christian values and would be highly inappropriate for Christians to adapt."
The Clarences believe that part of the problem for Christians when it comes to the role of sex in their marriage is the failure to understand that sex is actually God's idea and not the world's.
"Read the Bible," says Simon. "Right from the opening chapters of Genesis, we're told that the man and his wife were naked and unashamed. Proverbs encourages us to delight sexually in our spouse and the Song of Solomon is a graphic description of a lover's desire for their partner.
"Meaningful sexual love between married partners is God's ideal and it's time Christians stopped feeling guilty about legitimately promoting that aspect of their lives."
Shortly after that first presentation to the women of her own church, Ruth received an invitation to speak on the topic of sexual love at a Christian women's conference. Again, her presentation was warmly received and additional invitations to speak began to pour in.
The invitations soon became so numerous that Ruth knew she had to set a limit. "I told Simon it didn't make sense for me to be going all over the province if it meant that I had to neglect my own marriage and family."
One solution to that problem has been that Simon occasionally accompanies Ruth on the seminar trips and together they've developed an approach that enables them to minister to both genders-Simon will speak to the women and Ruth speaks to the men about seeing the sexual relationship from the other gender's perspective.
"We always clarify that we are not sex therapists," Ruth clarifies, who is presently writing her second book on the topic. "We're not teaching the logistics or techniques of love-making. There are no graphic, play-by-play descriptions at our seminars. Our objective is to tastefully educate people about how they can enhance the significance of their sexual relationship with their spouse."
For more information about the Clarences' seminars in various Canadian cities, visit www.two-gether.com
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