A Moral Science of Sex

Abstract

“Close your eyes, everybody close your eyes. Now put your hands up in the air, like that. OK. I count to three, and then I want everybody to put your hands on your biggest sexual organ. OK? OK, everybody close your eyes, nobody’s looking at me.” It is early Friday morning, time for a “life orientation” course for the students, aged between 16 and 18, of the Bella Vista High School in Cape Town’s Bo Kaap district. Most of them are still talking when Mimi, an instructor from Think Twice, starts the class. Think Twice is a relatively small Cape Town-based FBO, has seven employees, close ideological ties to the globally active Pentecostal church Jubilee and is committed to youth education.¹ Some of them are couples, sharing a bench and more or less ostentatiously kissing and caressing one another. “OK,” Mimi continues, “One, two, three. Put your hand on your biggest sexual organs!” Now the students are laughing, partly because of the apparently bizarre instruction, partly out of embarrassment. Not all of them obey but instead peek to discover where their classmates are putting their hands. “Don’t be shy,” Mimi encourages them,

Don’t be scared to do it. OK guys. Now sit down. I saw that some of you put your hands all over the place. And some put your hands on your head. Why did you put your hands on your head? Why do you think my brain is my biggest sexual organ?