Sex and Sexuality
I’ll be speaking about confronting our culture’s biggest assumptions when it comes to sex and sexuality during our church’s next sermon series, “All in the Family.”
In my preparations for said talk, I stumbled across and was reminded of God’s unending love for us. And, as Creator, He has already defined what sex and sexuality ought to be. Sex and sexuality, at its core, stems from God’s love for us. Unfortunately, because of our culture’s redefinition of the matter, because of, perhaps, our distortion to understand God’s love for us, we’ve resorted to defining sex and sexuality on our own. We’ve been forced to learn about the birds and the bees from a definition far removed from its origins. We’ve traded in true intimacy with mere physicality.
Sadly, we’ve defined our sexuality by who society says we should be and not by who we were created to be.
So, I turn to you.
What is culture’s biggest assumptions when it comes to sex and sexuality? What shaped your definition of the matter?
Let’s talk.
The biggest misconception in my opinion is that sex should be something sought that gratifies ones self and causes them to feel pleasure on their own terms.
Right on Dave. I think we’ve viewed sex as the pinnacle experience of intimacy, when it’s more than that. in fact, I think sex is actually a small part of the whole of intimacy, but we’ve made sex as the ultimate goal.
I think sex is definitely a big part of intimacy. But gratification is not the main objective as stated in the Bible (I was never one for multiplication). Some have quasi-justified sex out of marriage as sex with a girlfriend/boyfriend being an extension of their intimate love, but would not entertain the idealogy of having sex with someone they don’t love. Another common world view is that LGBT is a normal way of life as it stems from a natural attraction towards the same sex, an association with the opposite gender, etc. If it’s natural, it must be right… right? What shaped my definition on the matter was hormones. It must be right… right? haha jk. sort of. nah just playing. or am i?
I hear you David.
One interesting thing I’ve come to realize when it comes to this whole discussion is that God created humanity “male and female”. He didn’t create humanity “gay or straight”. I wasn’t created straight or gay. I was simply created male. Having that understanding puts a lot into perspective.
As far as sexual intimacy, when God created the universe, He created everything good in relation to one another. Once disobedience made way for sin, our working order in relation to one another was thrown off track and life as we know it, from God’s perspective, is no longer good. Because of that, our perception of natural is somewhat skewed. So, “natural” becomes relative to each individual. Having said that, I’m not concluding that relativism is right and we should go with how we feel. Having a relationship with God should steer us toward His original intent as much as possible. As followers of Christ and children of God, knowing that we are fallen and have a skewed perception, we should strive to pursue His way. Why? Knowing that He originally created everything good in relation to one another should excite us to seek that goodness, rather than our skewed version of “good”.
I think that our culture’s misunderstanding of sex is a result of the larger misunderstanding of love. Western culture tends to see romance/desire as the totality of love. So most of our society (including Christian culture) have given in to the “romanticization” of love, if you will allow me to create my own word. The whole concept of love has come to be a glowing picture of romance (for women), sex (for men), kissing, holding hands, dreamy eyes, and glowing plans for the future. Love has become an emotional/relational anesthetic.
It seems that as a society, we have slipped into the deception of a love based on our sexual and romantic ideals. The reality of love could not be farther from the truth. Not only has our romanticized concept of love allowed deception and inaccuracy to slip in, but it has largely replaced the truth of love to such a degree that when presented with the true concept of love, we have trouble accepting such a foreign idea. Romance (although an element to healthy love) is largely about pleasure, through emotional engagement and physical intimacy.
As a majority, we tend to seek romance instead of love. Where love hurts, romance excites. Where love sacrifices all, romance seeks pleasure. Where love does the best for someone, romance seeks to please (very important difference). We want the feelings, the circumstances, the glowing ideals, the sweet words, the butterflies in the stomach. We want the ideal, our prince charming, or hot princess. Why do we seek such ephemeral things instead of what is truly important? Because we aren’t looking for love. We’re looking for a self-pleasing emotional high. We want something that makes us whole, happy, content, and satisfied. We desire something to stimulate us, to feed us, to make us feel good.
It’s not wrong to want these things, just as it is not wrong to want chocolate or nice clothes, but when this is what we seek over the things that are important and true, then we’re headed for disaster. When the lack of these things becomes a source of discontent or even misery, we have lost focus on love and are focusing on self. God desires for us to be happy and satisfied, but when our happiness and satisfaction is dependent upon this shadow-play of love we’re missing the point. When we seek certain characteristics in a person instead of character, we have abandoned truth and what is profitable for what is deceptive and self-pleasing – and that’s our culture’s greatest defining characteristic of sex (pleasing self). It has become cooperative self-pleasure instead of an expression of healthy spiritual unity.