My name is Reverend Dr. William R. Stayton. I’m the former director of the Human Sexuality graduate program at Widener University, and serve now as Professor and Scholar-in-Residence. My new profession is as Executive Director of the Center for Sexuality and Religion, whose primary mission is to inform religious systems about the best in sexuality education, research, and best practices. The title of my presentation is What Sexuality Educators Should Know About Religion.

What should sexuality educators know about religion?
Well, everyone has a sexual values system, and more often than not, those sexual values systems come from some type of religious background. Even though the person may not be religious, the culture that they are a part of has often taken on those sexual values. And so I think it’s important to understand the whole range of sexual values systems, and I will be reviewing those in my presentation.

What do you mean by “Sexual Values”?
I’m talking about what people believe are good or bad things, right or wrong, moral or immoral.

What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation?
What I hope that my audience will get is that basically there are two types of values systems that our religions are promoting. The main one that most people hear about has to do with the ACTS of sex being right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral, so that everything is judged according to the act of sex, whether it’s masturbation or homosexuality or sexual lifestyles. The other view has to do that the basis of all religions is really to help people better their relationships. Their relationship with themselves, their relationship with other people, and their relationship with their god or deity or the universe. So that what this religious viewpoint really tries to stress is that we need to help people to better their relationships, to think more highly of themselves, to have better relationships with other people, of all genders, and to be able to accept the variety of practices that people engage in sexually that enhance and build their relationships.

Closing Statements…
The main thrust of my message is that I believe very strongly that we are born both sexual and spiritual, and that what often happens in some religious traditions is that they try to separate out the two – that you try to follow the body, you lose the soul. You follow the soul, you need to repress the body’s needs or desires. I believe that that’s the wrong message, and that we need to integrate those – that we need to integrate our search for meaning, and purpose, and what life and sex is all about, with our sexuality and our sexual expression.