'The plain, sad fact is that we do not always feel bad after we do something wrong. To acknowledge that premarital sex - or any other sinful act - might feel good is not to say that premarital sex is good. It is rather to say that our feelings are not always trustworthy. Our emotions and our hearts were distorted in the fall, which is one reason we need the community of the church and an articulated Christain ethics in the first place. If our feelings could be trusted - if we felt good every time we did something good, and felt bad every time we did something bad - we would need neither biblical guidelines of right behavior nor a community to help hold us accountable to those biblical standards. In other words, if we felt lousy every time we sinned, there would be a lot less sinning in the world. And if we felt great every time we did something good and worthy and true, there would be a lot more prayer and giving of charity.'
Lauren F Winner, Real Sex: the naked truth about chastity, p.89.
