The positions of Christian leaders on the "management" of young people's sexuality, as contextualized within the sexual politics of the state, are discussed. They are the result of an ethnographic study undertaken through archival work, participating observation and interviews with 47 religious leaders in Recife PE Brazil. Analysis shows the space of religion as a disciplinary site, operating through transcendent reasoning ("responsibility"). The person is expected to incorporate such reasoning and make the appropriate differentiations between "right" and "wrong". AIDS and adolescent pregnancy appear as a result of "temptations of the erotic flesh". From the perspective of human rights and health, the article deconstructs the idea of the "flesh" as dominated by "temptation," and as an "essential force" which leads the person to stray/sin/"risk". It re-situates sexuality as a positive instance for the subjects (with rights) and a condition for social fertility.
Young people; sexual socialization; christian religions