Sex therapist Gina Ogden had known for years that sexuality and spirituality are connected. But when she did a national survey of almost 4,000 women and men on their attitudes toward sex, she was amazed at how strong that connection actually is for so many. She has published the results of her "Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality" (ISIS) survey in her new book, "The Heart and Soul of Sex: Making the ISIS Connection." Ogden spoke to Beliefnet about getting past the "cultural missionary position," and why God has a place in the bedroom.

Holly Lebowitz Rossi: What is the relationship between sex and spirituality?

Gina Ogden: I find so often as a counselor and an educator, it really is about shifting your belief system about what marriage is, and what sex is, and what spirituality is. All of these are loaded terms because we've been trained in this culture to see spirituality as very separate from sex. Spirituality is about being good, it's about being holy, it's about attending worship services, etc. Sex, the way the culture frames it, is a dirty word, and particularly for women. It's not OK for a woman to feel lusty, to feel open, to really love sex. So the first thing I would go over with couples who were planning to be married, is to be able to understand that sexuality is part of our spirituality. In fact, spirituality is also part of our sexuality. You can't remove the piece called sex from all that we are as human beings and as married beings, and still have a whole picture.

Rossi: What is the "ISIS wheel," and how does it help couples?

Ogden: The ISIS wheel is an acronym for my survey, which was "Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality." When I looked at all of the responses, including the 1,500 letters that people wrote, I had to find a way that I could put them all together. They fell together in a kind of medicine wheel pattern. [A medicine wheel, which originated in Native American communities, is a round form marked with spiritually-symbolic symbols.] One of the practical ways that couples can walk the ISIS wheel, or work the ISIS wheel, is literally through that awareness of placing themselves in its four quadrants -- body, mind, heart or emotions, and spirit. But another way that they can look at it is that most of us spend most of our time somewhere on the perimeter of that wheel. "Sex is meaningful, but it's not that meaningful. It's emotional and fun, but it doesn't open our hearts totally, or it's physically pleasant, but after a few hours we can do it again." I talk about how couples can move into the wheel towards the center, where maybe all of those emotions and physical yearnings and spiritual yearnings and ideas meet in the center. Where sometimes sex is transformative, it feels magical, it is a place of divinity.

It's no surprise that at those moments, we say, "Oh, God, oh, God!" In bedrooms all over the country, people are crying out, "Oh, God!" They're not crying out, "Oh, Devil!" So I remind people that our sexuality is sacred. It's part of our birthright, part of our commitment. It's part of our breathing, and that we need to broaden our definitions of sex beyond those few things scientists know how to count and measure and understand that there's a mystical element to it that we need to honor.

Rossi: Is there room for the occasional "quickie" in a spiritual sex life?

Ogden: Oh, yeah! If you really think on spirit, the changes happen in the wink of an eye. A quickie can be just as spiritual, just as enlightening, just as invigorating as an hours-long tantric session. What I'm saying again goes back to the ISIS wheel -- body, mind, heart, and spirit. Sometimes you're both really in that physical lust place, and you just need to "do" each other, and that's the closeness right there.

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