Kate Ott - Sex, Tech, and Faith: Ethics for a Digital Age

This text provides an integrative, (very!) specific, and accessible approach to Christian digital sexual ethics. It expands our Christian moral imaginations, equipping us for the current digital age and what it means to recognize Christ in the virtual incarnations of others as we make ourselves known. Ott also helpfully updates gender violence realities such as digital sexual harassment and intimate violence. If you want to introduce Christian digital ethics with language for body-affirming sexuality and frank and accurate information, teach this book!

Traci C. West

author of Solidarity and Defiant Spirituality

The digital revolution has added another dimension to the already complex area of human sexuality. Kate Ott provides a well-informed survey of the central issues at stake that will immensely improve readers digital literacy. Offering a values-based framework, Ott has managed to avoid a laissez faire approach by which anything goes, while at the same time not becoming prescriptive. A first of its kind, Sex, Tech, and Faith is a valuable contribution to discussions on sexuality in the digital age that will assist Christians to navigate this aspect of modern life.

Jonas Kurlberg

Centre for Digital Theology, Durham University

Kate Ott, a leading Christian sexual ethicist and educator of our time, makes sexuality in the digital agea prevalent hidden curriculum of Christianityan explicit subject with which contemporary Christians must engage. In this accessible and profound book written for both adults and youth, Ott successfully persuades Christians of the need to be fluent in this critical but often-avoided topic to live an ethical and faithful life with powerful, bold, and realistic stories and challenging questions. Beyond the precious content, the beauty of this book is Otts showcasing of embodied learning in her writing style through a multifaceted social-justice lens, a pedagogical principle that she advocates throughout the book. Theological teachers, students, pastors, and lay Christians alike will be equipped with both the what and the how of sex, tech, and Christian valuesa rare gift readers will gain from this book that is both academic and practical.

Boyung Lee

Iliff School of Theology

With frankness and nuance, Kate Ott investigates the potentials of digital technologies for exploring and expanding sexual pleasure, identity, and care. Unabashedly sex- and tech-positive, Ott is at the same time highly sensitive to the complicity of the same technologies in racial, ableist, and gender-based injustice and violence. As she invites the reader to ponder novel and often-scandalized phenomena like sex robots, online matchmaking, cyberstalking, and digital pornography, Ott subtly recasts age-old questions about human relationality, vulnerability, curiosity, and embodiment. The double pursuit of digital literacy and a values-based theological sexual ethic nudges readers to cultivate their own erotic attunement through and beyond particular technologies. The shame-free yet deeply reflective tone, the sexual storytelling and cultural illustrations, and the accompanying discussion and reading guides make the book eminently accessible and implementable. The youth study guide in particular will be an invaluable resource for progressive faith communities.

Hanna Reichel

Princeton Theological Seminary

Kate Otts Sex, Tech, and Faith: Ethics for a Digital Age offers clear instruction providing readers with the tools they need to cultivate their own thoughtful and faithful approach to sexuality in this digital age. Each chapter presents case studies and discussion questions to ease into sexual topics that are seldom discussed in Christian communities. Her frank delivery, her compassionate concern for bodies, minds, and souls, and her skill with practical advice make this book a must-have for anyone daring to learn about creating healthy sexual relationships.

Monique Moultrie

author of Passionate and Pious: Religious Media and Black Womens Sexuality

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2022 Kate Ott

All rights reserved

Published 2022

Printed in the United States of America

28 27 26 25 24 23 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ISBN 978-0-8028-7846-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

I N HER NEW BOOK on digital sexual ethics, Kate Ott asserts the following:

Sexuality includes spiritual, emotional, mental, and tactile experiences. This is what I mean when I say sexuality is embodied. The teaching of imago deihumans created in Gods imageforms the theological understanding of what it means to be human. When we speak of the imago dei in one another, it is a theological connection to or explanation of our embodiment. It doesnt reduce us to flesh, blood, and bones that are an exact replica of God. The imago dei is knowing and being known by God, evidencing Gods presence in the world through embodimentthe tangled, integrated, and complex mess of spiritual, cognitive, emotional, and physical existence. (25)

With the emergence of a wide variety of digital and media technologies, the landscape of intimacy is rapidly shifting. It can be overwhelming. It can be exciting. For the church, it can often produce anxiety. And yet, what feels sadly lagging are the necessary fruitful conversations on how to engage these questions about what it looks like to navigate these changes in honest and compassionate ways.

Thankfully, in Sex, Tech, Faith Kate Ott gives us an incredible resource to question, to reflect, and to participate in these conversations. She does this by including topics that are often on the periphery of conversations about sex because of their taboo naturetopics like digital pornography, VR, and even sex robotsand by offering wise guidance on issues that have now become ordinary and everyday, like online dating apps. These are more than case studiesthey are phenomena that are becoming deeply embedded in our culture and are shaping our identities and relationships. Otts courageous approach pushes us to think ethically in a way that creatively considers the theological possibilities of the imago dei, embodiment and incarnation, creation, and ultimately questions about humanity in fresh ways. It is truly exciting. Her compassionate and thoughtful presentation not only shows us the complicated intersections of sexuality, technology, and theology by giving us relevant data; she also gives us language to use that is accessible and generative as she pulls insights from a wide range of sources.

If you are looking for a book with easy, straightforward answers, a black-and-white framework, or even simply a manual for behavior, this is not it. If instead you are like me and need a guide for asking new and different questions in faithful ways, Sex, Tech, Faith will be the book. At the end of each chapter she provides bullet points with strong, clear takeaways and gives us questions we can ask to cultivate our own thinking and reflection within our own contexts. At the end of the book is a wonderful and extensive bibliography as well as carefully prepared youth studies to be used in group settings with young people who are certainly navigating a similar landscape. Ott explains her goal for the book in this way: This books purpose is in part to inform the reader, but it is also to invite them into considering their own Christian digital sexual ethic