Robert Jenson notes in his comments on the Song of Songs 8:1-2 that the lovers long for public recognition of their love. The bride wants to be able to kiss her lover in the street like a brother. Jensonn contrasts this to the contemporary claim that sex is a purely private matter between consenting adults.
For the Song, “however private the act of sexual union may indeed be, its existence and character is vital public information . . . . Where sexual union is conceived of as ‘private’ and so is legally unregulated and just so legally powerless, community can be held together only by arbitrary fiat and, if it comes to that, by force. Sexual ‘liberation’ and political tyranny are but two sides of one coin.”
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