This year’s sexuality series kicked off with two talks from speaker Kristyn Komarnicki. Her second speech was titled “Sexual Justice: Why what we do with our bodies matters.”
Komarnicki is the editor of Prism, and, in 2001, she won the Christians for Biblical Equality’s Micah Award. This award “honors those who exhibit courage, creativity and tenacity in opposing abuse and advancing justice for women and children in Christ’s name.”
The event was sponsored by the sexuality series and was co-sponsored by Calvin College sexual assault prevention team (SAPT), gender studies, sociology, social work, campus ministries and residence life.
Komarnicki writes and speaks about sexual justice and sexual wholeness. She is driven by a passion for relational wholeness.
The talk was introduced by Julia Smith, director of the sexuality series.
Komarnicki’s talk argued for a less physical idea of sexuality and instead proposed a more holistic approach.
She began by inviting two audiences members — introduced as Kate and Luke — to come up and read poetry, later revealed to be from Song of Songs.
“We’re here to talk about sex, so let’s get started,” she said following the Song of Songs reading.
Komarnicki established that the world is a place where we often talk about sex, but we do not hear the truth.
“I really feel for you guys. You live in a world saturated with sex.”
One thing Komarnicki was passionate about was the lack of sexual education, especially from parents. She asked the audience if our parents had satisfying sex lives. She continued, saying it’s hard for most people to tell because most parents don’t show affection or talk about it:
“They are not modeling good sex lives, and that’s a tragedy.”
Komarnicki briefly recapped her material on sexual justice: objectification, judgment and discrimination, sexual abuse, sex outside covenant.
“The consequences are many and lasting, but I’d like to focus on the good stuff,” she said. “The fact is, God loves your body and your heart.”
Komarnicki described the “Eros of God” as characterized by love, longing for goodness and hunger for God. We tend to reduce it to pure genital desire.
“While sexual justice may not look sexy, it is In fact an invitation for a life of love,” she said.
The “Eros of God” permeates all of creation. You can see sexuality, goodness and love in creation, according to Komarnicki. She urged the audience to look for eros the next time they are walking around.
When it comes to sexual justice within relationships, Komarnicki hopes to move the focus of the conversation from sex to intimacy. In order to do this, she made a petition to change the question “How far can we go?” to “How far are you willing to go?”.
According Komarnicki, the focus of a relationship should move from what you can get from the relationship, to how you can help the other person. She asked the audience at the series:
“What would the world be like if we swap instead of trying to extract what we want?”
