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(a) Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. But above all, we tried to be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off the track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes-absurd extremes, perhaps. One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it, or that it isn't the right kind. They see it's significance everywhere. One school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. (b) What can we do about them?

    (c) We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. (c) Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? (d) Where were we at fault? What should we have done instead? (e) We got this all down on paper and looked at it.

    (f) In this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. (g) We subjected each relation to this test-was it selfish or not? (h) We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. We remember always that our sex powers are God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed.

   (i) Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. We must be willing to make amends were we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come, if we want it.

    God alone can judge our sex situation.   Counsel with persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or advice.

    Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble? Does this mean we are going to get drunk? Some people tell us so. But this is only a half-truth. It depends on our motives. If we are sorry for what we have done, and have an honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. These are the facts out our experience.

    To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing. If sex is troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.
(end big book text)

Workshop Notes:

Page 69:
Again we are asked:
"Where were we at fault?

"We got this all down on paper & looked at it"

We will need a 4th piece of paper to review our sex conduct.

a- we are told in this paragraph that people are so far apart on their ideas about sex that they are not going to tell us what is right or wrong.

b- instead we will be shown how to do this for ourselves.

c- here we are asked to review our sex conduct over the years past. We are then asked the same kind of questions as we were when we analyzed our resentments.

d- once again we are asked to look for our faults while reviewing our sex conduct indicating that we should look for faults throughout the searching part of the inventory.

e- again we are asked to write it all down, this means we will need one more piece of paper- see layout below.

f- task 5 below

g- precisely how to review our sex conduct is not clear. For the                purposes of this workshop we used this question

g- "We subjected each relation to this test-was it selfish or not"
This helps us address questions asked in the previous paragraph- see layout below.

task 1. List relationships,
first colum

task 2. Was it selfish?
second colum

task 3. Was it unselfish?
third colum

task 4. Where were we at fault? "back to fault sheet"

task 5. f- above- after reviewing our conduct and finding our faults we are asked to shape a sane and sound ideal for the future sex life.

h- as it was with resentments and fears we have our prayer for help to mold our ideal for our future sex conduct.

i- The word ideal or ideals is mentioned five times in four paragraphs. An ideal is like perfection, here we are told to work toward whatever we think that is, like- We are not saints. The point is, we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.