Writers write best about what they know. I’m going to write about sex; at least, what I know about sex, which may not seem like much at all.

I know that it is beautiful—rather, it is meant to be beautiful. It is capable of tremendous beauty. I believe I feel at least some level of this beauty when I am with you, when I make love to you—on top of you, beneath you, or best of all, beside you. In what way could be possibly be any closer? How could we be any closer than when our bodies are intersecting? When our fingers are touching, our lips, our mouths—hungry, yes, but more hungry to feed one another than to satisfy ourselves. What, pray tell, is more glorious? more honorable, more pure? Moreover, how could anything so precious, so sacred, be wrong in any way? What better way to tell you I love you without speaking a word?

Perhaps it becomes sin when your body becomes my temple. Maybe my adoration for your body is idolatry; my indulgence in you, gluttony; my affairs with you, adultery—cheating on myself to be with you. In such a case, I choose sin. Shame on me.