ABSTRACT
This chapter explores female sexuality, specifically in its conjugal expression. There has been a tendency in recent feminist thought - as part of the ongoing struggle against heterosexism - to focus all new thinking on sexuality around lesbianism, so that there is very little left that is inspirational about marriage itself. Postmodernism teaches that there is no safe space outside our socialisation into patriarchally-constructed notions of sexuality and marriage, within which to float free of all prejudices and presuppositions. Christian feminist discourse offers points of critique from which to ask fresh questions. Whereas these are offered from "women's experience" there is no claim for any assumed universality. A specifically Christian sexual ethic springing from feminist, liberationist thinking and congruent with much contemporary thought, is grounded first in the New Testament vision of the Reign, or Kingdom, of God. Feminist understandings of embodiment show that female sexuality is more diffuse, not so mono-focused on genitality as is often presumed.
