Those expecting to get the lowdown on good sex from Maura Ryan last night might have been disappointed.

Ryan’s presentation, titled “Good Sex: Intimacy, Love and Marriage in the Christian Tradition,” instead focused on the problems young adults are having in intimate relationships.

“It is very difficult to sustain long-term relationships today, and there are no road maps,” Ryan explained to the crowd of nearly 250 in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

Ryan, a professor of theology and associate provost at Notre Dame, backed this up with statistics from the National Marriage Survey.

The survey was taken from a sample of 1,000 people between the ages of 20 and 29. According to the survey, 60 percent of the young adults questioned said their biggest fear about marriage was that it would end in divorce.

Cultural and family relations are two of the biggest factors that can persuade young people when it comes to relationships today, Ryan said.

People may think they are ready to make the commitment, but they have never had the experience of living closely with someone and are not comfortable in the situation.

The National Marriage Survey was Ryan’s evidence: 80 percent of the first year college students interviewed had never shared a bedroom.

We also live in a highly sexualized culture, Ryan said, and it isn’t always easy to cope.

When asked by an audience member how a young Christian should deal with these cultural influences, Ryan compared it to the hardships of being an athlete. Athletes must make sacrifices such as healthy eating and working to be physically fit. Young Christians must sacrifice and ignore cultural pressures.

“You have to know the relationship between the set of choices and where you want to be,” she said.

Much wisdom can also be found in traditional Christianity for the problems facing today’s youth, Ryan said. She gave three specific ideologies that apply to the relationship between sexuality, intimacy and marriage.

First, the foundation of humans is fundamentally good. Second, human nature is in need of health and transformation.

Finally, there is an intrinsic relationship between marriage, intimacy and sexuality and between marriage, intimacy and parentship.

Ryan strongly believes there are too few outlets for young Christians to hear messages besides those of popular culture hotbeds such as MTV.

Danielle Kraehling, senior in advertising, was among the Christian students who attended.

“I think she brought up a lot of good questions,” she said. “It was really nice to hear a Christian perspective on the whole thing.”