Reading the Bible, sex and all

Since starting seminary I've had the opportunity to read
through the Old Testament with a thoroughness I haven't used since my
evangelical youth group days. While building biblical literacy is something
evangelicals do very well, reading the Old Testament now reminds me how my context
shaped how I read the Bible. And it all had to do with sex.

The Old Testament is a pretty racy text. From rapes and
seductions to concubines and harlots, it's hard to avoid the presence of
physical bodies and sex, often illicit.

Unless you're an evangelical teenager. One of my strongest
memories of that time is how hard our youth leaders worked to convince us that
the sex passages actually have nothing to do with sex...like when the most
beautiful virgin in the land is selected to lie with an elderly King David to
keep him "warm." We were told the story has nothing to do with her
trying to get him to respond sexually (even though in the ancient Near East a
king's power was tied to his virility). Instead, she literally is chosen to
raise his body temperature, since elderly people often get cold.