Some people tell me that my book about the meaning of sex should have discussed disordered sex.  I understand their view.  What the old baptismal vows called “the glamour of evil” shimmers all around us, taking the word in its original sense of a deception or enchantment.

But I don’t agree.  The only way to get a bad thing is to take a good thing and ruin it.  It follows that one understands the bad from what is good, not the good from what is bad.  Once sexuality is understood, the problem with disordered sex becomes obvious, and the need to discuss diminishes.  If one does so anyway, one may lose everything, because the jarring encounter with ugliness overshadows everything else.

In this as in many things, there is a mean.  There is a right time to discuss the misery and the shame of the bad.  But not always.  Not while discussing the joy and the glory of the good.