Religious Studies

• Human beings are a combination of different characteristics
• Characteristics that make up a human being


  • Physical (bodily)
  • Spiritual (beyond the body)
  • Emotional (how a person responds to situations)
  • Mental (how a person's mind works)
  • Sexual (sexual instincts, physical attraction, sexual interactions)
• Sexuality is as important to the individual as any other of these features and it never leaves the individual
• Heterosexuality


  People who are sexually attracted to people of the opposite gender
• Homosexuality


  People who are sexually attracted to people of the same gender
• The legal age of sexual consent for heterosexuals in the UK is 16
• In 1994 a further change saw it reduced to those aged over 18
• The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000 made the ages of legal consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals equal and the legal age of consent for homosexual people was changed to 16
• This change came into effect in Northern Ireland when the Sexual Offences Order was passed in 2008
• Genesis 1:27: 'God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.'
• The creation story in Genesis shows how male and females are intimately connected to each other
• Genesis 2:21-24: 'So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.' Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.'
• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: 'Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.'
• Most Christians accept the teaching that sexual relationships should only happen in marriage
• Exodus 20:14: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
• Fidelity


  Being faithful and sexually loyal to your relationship partner
• Chastity


  Commonly refers to the decision not to have sex before marriage