Abstract

Relationships and sex education (RSE), as set out in the recent Bill
making RSE compulsory for all English schools, should be appropriate
to the religious background of pupils. This paper suggests that this
appropriateness is best found by gaining the best understanding
about religious young people’s lived experiences of relationships
and sexuality. Our in-depth qualitative research with three Christian
young men aged 17–18 from a large charismatic evangelical church in
the Midlands region of England investigated experiences of romantic
relationships, focusing on the ‘ethical moments’ in which Christian
ethical principles of sexual abstinence are negotiated. By attending
closely to both the theological and the non-religious discursive
resources that these negotiations draw upon, we demonstrate the
different ways in which abstinence becomes meaningful in study
participants' lifeworlds. We conclude that a sex education based on
ethics in practice might engage best with religious young people.