I’ve recently been buying the Nottingham Post newspaper and found this article right at the back last Thursday’s edition, and thought it was really interesting the views many students have on sex and religion. I tried to see if they had this article on their website but it keeps crashing on it so I’m going to type it up just for you 
Taken from Nottingham Post, Thursday March 3rd, 2011.
Nottingham researchers have carried out the first detailed exploration of religion, youth and sexuality. Oonagh Robinson finds out more.
Sexuality and religion are generally considered uncomfortable bedfellows. But now, for the first time, a team of researchers from Nottingham has carried out a detailed study of attitudes, values and experiences of sex and religion among young adults. Led by The University of Nottingham, in collaborationwith Nottingham Trent University, experts spent two years investigating the often complicated relationship between sexuality and faith. Involving nearly 700 youn people from six religious traditions – Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism as well as young adults of mixed-faith – the report reveals:
- Nearly a third of young people think celibacy is fulfilling.
- Almost two thirds are committed to treating heterosexuality and homosexuality on equal terms.
- 83.2 per cent support monogamous relationships.
- Around 57 per cent think sex should only take place in the context of marriage.
- 56.9 per cent believe sex outside marriage can be fulfilling, as long as it is within a loving context.
- 58.1 per cent believe casual sex is detrimental to one’s wellbeing.
The report highlights the challenges young people face in reconciling their sexuality and their religion. It reveals concerns they have about the stigmatisation of religion and Britain’s increasingly sexualised culture. And it suggests today’s religious leaders don’t know enough about youth sexuality.
The project “Religion, Youth and Sexuality: a Multi-faith Exploration” received nearly £250,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council. Dr Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Dr Sarah-Jane Page from the School of Sociology and Social Policy at The University of Nottingham, and Dr Michael Keenan from Nottingham Trent Univeristy’s School of Social Sciences, asked all the participants to fill in online questionnaires. Some were also interviewed individually and recorded week-long video diaries.
Dr Yip said: “Despite their diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, many of today’s 18 to 25-year-olds are following their own paths, drawing from a variety of resources such as religious faith, youth culture, the media and friendship networks. They are creating sexual ethics that are informed by their religious faith. Similarly, their sexuality also informs the ways they understand their religious faith and belonging. However, a majority of young people believe religious leaders do not know enough of sexuality – particularly youth sexuality. Others consider institutional religion a social control mechanism that excessively regulates gender and sexual behaviour, without sufficient engagement with young people themselves.” Dr Yip explained the main aim was to document and diseminate the voices of religious young adults. “We hope the research will speak to religious leaders, professionals and practitioners working with young people in secular contexts, and of course young people themselves.”
About two thirds were involved in a religious community and more than half attended a public religious gathering at least once a week. Their experiences in connecting their religious faith and sexuality varied. Some had experienced tension and conflict, while others were able to deal with conflict by “compartmentalising” faith and sexuality.
But Rev Richard Clark, vicar of St Andrew’s Church in Mapperley, said he thought the report failed to take into account the separate sub-divisions within different religions. He cited not separating Christianity in Protestants and Roman Catholics as a particular example. Rev Clark added: “As a vicar in a red-light district for 19 years, I have had to engage with many issues to do with sex and sexuality, and have talked to many people about sexual isssues. It’s not easy to talk about this publicly because of confidentiality issues. I suspect that church leaders know far more about teen sex issues than they speak about publicly. We also would expect lay people with some expertise in the area to be working in schools, colleges and universities. At times, Christians do deliver sex education classes in city schools. Any young adults who wants to discuss sexual issues with church leaders should certainly give themselves the chance to do so. They may find that we are more clued-up than they imagine us to be.”
Rev Clark said he could only speculate as to why some leaders had not been as helpful as young people would have liked them to have been. “It may be because most faith leaders believe that sex properly belongs inside marriage and that they do not want to encourage young people to think too much about sex some years before they get married,” he said. “It would not be surprising to learn that young adults do not consider the senior leader in their church to be engaging in issues in sexuality as they probably have only a little to do with a youth or student group, but may have been employing a designated specialist.”
Views from the Report
“Religious. It sort of feels a bit of a dirty word to be honest. That’s my instinct. And for me when I think about it I get a kind of bit constricted in my chest almost. Kind of lots of rules and sets of beliefs that you have to sort of sign up to.” Heterosexual Christian woman
“I don’t think casual sex is desirable because I think sex is something intimate and should be with a person that you really love. It should just be in a loving, consensual relationship because that is the most healthy way.” Christian-Buddhist woman
“Me and my fiancee, we are not married. We live together, and obviously we do have sexual relations. We think that even though the religion says that you shouldn’t [have sex] before marriage, we are more than married, and so as long as we are happy with each other and we are not forcing on each other…” Christian-Muslim Man
“I have nothing against people who are gay or lesbians. I feel they’ve made a wrong choice, but I don’t have anything against them, because even in Islam we acknowledge that people can be gay or lesbian. But we say it’s haram [forbidden]. A lot of people who are gay or bisexual usually end up growing out of it. In Islam it’s something that you should reject.” Heterosexual Muslim woman
“I don’t know if it’s [homosexuality] right or wrong actually, but it’s an individual’s prerogative as to what they decide, and as long as they are happy with what they’re doing, they don’t bother me.” Heterosexual Hindu Man
“So I guess telling my parents maybe I will feel very relieved, but if it did get out into the community it will just hurt my parents, and I know it will be hard for me to face the community again, maybe I’ll be thrown from the mosque. It is quite scary.” Bisexual Muslim man
“I don’t feel that people need to know about sexual orientation. I think I have got to a place where I am quite comfortable in my parish and I don’t really want to rock the boat too much there, because occassionally it can be quite hostile towards people. There was a woman and she had got divorced and she actually had to stop [church activity] for a while.” Homosexual Christian woman
“Sex before marriage or engaging in sexual activity before marriage is completely unlawful so you have to try and avoid that.” Heterosexual Muslim woman
“When I tell people of my aims to live as a Christian in a relationship where I am not having sex, people see it as impossible, and I guess that is because they are seeing things in a more worldy way. I think with the strength that God can give, it is a possibility.” Homosexual Christian Man
