Does Sex Need to Be "Demystified"?

I do agree with where he’s coming from. Basically, the church as a whole needs to discuss this & be more open about the topic of sex because the way things are now are just not working. Having two children, I am open to being able to discuss these things to my children when I feel it’s the right time. I’ve learned everything about sex from pornography at a young age but I also didn’t get ‘The Talk’ until I was in my sophomore year in college! This brings me to to this: the church can only do so much in this. Even if the church changes and is proactive in the discussion of sex, it’s ultimately up to the parents to decide when the right time is & the best way to approach it. It comes down to parents being responsible for what God has given them & allowing prayers & listening to God through the Holy Spirit to guide them on discussing sex. I really do hope that the church does change it’s attitude soon on discussing sex but whether they change or not, it’s still my responsibility to talk to my two children when they get older & when the Holy Spirit speaks to me about it.

I think he has a point that obsessing about not having sex is about as productive as obsessing about having it. I recall reading a book (or was it a movie) where the martial arts teacher tells his student that when in combat he should not think about winning. “Why?” asks the student. “Because,” says the teacher, “thinking about winning leads you to thinking about defeat.”

Sex and marriage are entwined in the Bible, and there is a distinction made between lying with a harlot and knowing ones wife.

If we could recover the concept of honour and shame that dominated the ancient world then we could present fidelity as honourable, and its converse as shameful, but unfortunately the moderns are consumed with a belief in “guilty feelings” and consequently if an action does not arouse such feelings it becomes acceptable.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings…

I think he makes a valid point about why Christian sex education doesn’t work. And this for me would boil down to how we use God’s law to control the raging hormonalism of teenagers i.e. do not have sex. By using this command aren’t we encouraging sexual behaviour, as Paul writes in Romans 7 about the laws against covetousness:

Rom 7:8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

I disagree with him when he says the Bible is vague about premarital sex. Paul says that marrying our bodies with anyone outside of marriage is a disjointed and unholy union. I tend to think that even premarital sex is a form of prostitution, because even within a ‘dating relationship’, there is very little commitment involved. Dating couples can shack up and break up just as quickly as anyone who goes to a particular prostitute for a period of time.

1Co 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!

1Co 6:16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”

The author of that blog seems wayyyyyy off base and draws very poor conclusion. He also doesnt seem to understand the Old and New Testaments. I would deffinately love to talk to him in person, because Scipture is like, yea, I mean, come on! It seems redundant to even have to point some of the literal context out! But alas! Anyhow, thanks for the post! 😀

I’ll take all three, including the ice cream cone:)

That’s sort of like sex education in schools isn’t it? They’re teaching you what to do so isn’t that just like condoning it? I personally think this is the erosion of the Church, and we’ll start seeing more articles like this. People will start letting more things slide by until it’s complete.

I also agree with Zach that he doesn’t really understand the Bible.

First, I don’t understand why he needs a picture of two girls kissing at the top of his article.

Second, I don’t think encouraging teens to commit to chastity is really the obsession he thinks it is, nor does it make sex that much more appealing.
It may, however, lead to younger marriages (and even elopement) among Christians. And I suppose some would think that’s bad.

Anyhow, I think the focus on being committed to godly choices about sex at that age flows from the fact that sex, like drug use, is among the relatively few real choices teenagers in the US have to engage. They’re not going to vote, so there’s no real choice there. Driving age is getting higher and higher as far as I can tell. They live usually with parents, so they have a lot of day to day choices made for them.

I do agree with the author that his 7th grade sex talk was a joke. Really, the facts of the physical process should be dealt with before puberty really sets in. For girls you’re already going to have to explain the monthly cycle, and before puberty kids can learn the physical facts with less awkwardness. So if he had had that talk in 4th grade, his 7th grade talk may have made sense. If that’s what he means by demystify, ok, I think. Apparently his parents didn’t fill in any gaps for him either. hmmm. and “I kissed dating goodbye” . . . sounds like his school/church was as much fundamentalist as evangelical. Maybe they were even tertiary separatists and really were obsessed . . . .

But against some other elements of the demystification he espouses, the Bible (Lev 18; 20; Dt 22:13ff; Ezek 16; 23; Song of Songs) certainly doesn’t treat sex in general as a mundane biological function—it is highly charged, even if it is a small percent of the material. Of course, Leviticus also accepts polygamy, and this is a huge factor in thinking about why any man (married or not it would seem) would marry an unengaged woman he violated (Dt 22:28-29) and die for violating an engaged one.

And the Bible does value virginity: girls who “did it” once, were in big trouble — Dt 22:20-21. Guys not so much, 1st, you couldn’t really prove it; and 2nd, the possibility of polygamy comes in again.

well, this is getting almost too long. . . .

You left an opening there Michael.

I would not choose the ice cream cone!

* But would your wife?

* What about an ice-cream at the movies? Say the premiere screening of the new Battlestar Galactica movie?

* Why? Does it give you ice-cream headache?

I thought the person on the left was a guy.

There are several issues with this article. People write a short screed yet there are so many assumptions in each statement that need to be teased out.

I get what the author is getting at. I think there may be some reasonable thoughts to take away from it. Like be more open in discussions. Oppose but be less intense in opposition (perhaps). Mention the mundaneness of specifics so that kids are aware that the glam they see is unreal. Teach infections so they are aware, but in a way that is factual, not in a way that appears to them to be a scare tactic, and thus they ignore it (perhaps).

7th grade in the late 20th century! What is that? about 12? My children were asking at 6! They only get a little then and more as they ask questions as they age. Is the fact they find it gross helpful for future chaste behaviour?

Though my wife’s grandfather needed to have a talk about the birds and the bees to his wife on their wedding night!

Being frank may demystify it. So he may have point. However Christians are also responding to a culture that intensifies the discussion. What Christians are doing is responding and damage control to an extent. I discuss things I wish I could wait till later with my children but such is their exposure. So we must be careful about how we judge Christian response. Do we give the world a hard time for their emphasis on avoiding drugs, smoking, and alcohol? Bit hypocritical to tell off Christians for saying avoid extra-marital sex too.

However I think the author is a little misguided on Scriptural aspects.

It is clear that adultery is a major sin. Much greater than pre-marital sex. But this does not make the latter minor. Such behaviour would lead you into marriage quickly. And pre-marital sex may leave you unmarriageable forever in Hebrew society. It is difficult to translate to today’s society. So pre-marital sex then marriage may be more minor than we make it, but serial partners isn’t the same, and has some resemblance to adultery.

Analogies to lying and covetness are poor as Paul specifies that sexual immorality damages your body in a way that other sins don’t (1 Corinthians 6:18).

Paul throws “fornicators” in with a slew of deviants who “will not inherit the kingdom of heaven,” but he seems to be talking about people who love to sleep around, particularly with prostitutes, as a recreational activity. It’s more than a small stretch to extend that harsh imperative to over-eager teens in dating relationships.

But these are very similar. Okay there is no direct money involved. But the sex with dates and the frequent change in dating partners is very similar to people who frequent prostitutes.

we recently learned that teen pregnancies are just as prevalent among evangelicals as among non-Christians, and abstinence pledges are pretty much worthless.

I dispute the data he links to. Here is another study this week that shows intense intervention increases pregnancy rates. But this debate is too big to do here. I wanted to point out that pregnancy is not the outcome Christians are trying to avoid, it is pre-marital sex. Pregnancy is merely the consequent. Yes, a big one, but getting pregnant is no more sinful that not getting pregnant, it is the behaviour that is the issue. Likewise, sexual activity without intercourse is a big issue. Really, who is more chaste? the girl who has sex once as a teenager then never again till her wedding night, or the girl who avoids intercourse but goes to a party every weekend thru highschool and has oral sex with a different boy each time?

I think the author would be better to approach his thesis after he has developed a more scriptural approach to sexuality.

[…] marriage, Paul, premarital sex, prostitutes, sex, sex before marriage, solomon, women trackback Michael Patton linked to this post by Jon Busch. I have to say, he takes some interesting perspectives on […]

I’m just reiterating what most are saying here… I actually was arguing with a friend a couple days ago that we think about sex much too nonchalantly. If we pull together a picture of sex from the Old Testament it is a very pervasive theme – especially as it relates to the relationship between God and Israel. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, or the comparison in how sex was treated for the Israelites compared to surrounding nations.

So yeah, we need to teach about sex as holier I think. Not as less mystified.

I became a Christian in 2002 at the age of 28. To be honest, it seems like all we ever talk about is sex. We have marriage and family classes. We have Homebuilders and Fireproof studies. My church used to have a youth minister who preached entire sermons on sexual morality.

How exactly can sex be demystified? That’s the point I’m having trouble with. I don’t understand his point there, unless he’s trying to say that we should consider it of such little consequence that it’s barely worthy of our notice.

I agree with Eric. I’m trying to imagine how you would demystify sex to someone who has never had sex. His suggestions of talking about the details as if it was a mundane event was the sex education I got it the public school and hasn’t sex already been demystified?? How many teens do you think have not seen some form of porn? Teens are having sex and I’m sure telling and informing those who havn’t. Maybe he means deglamorizing sex ? I think the public schools have tried that as well. I think the only answer is arranged marriages at young ages, lets say twelve 🙂

I’m not a big fan of ice cream, chocolate cake?..hmmm

I am reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote (it may have been in Mere Christianity) about how we moderns (is it postmodern now?) were so sure that we were so enlightened about sex, that there would be no more problems. Since Lewis died in 1963, I’m sure he would have found the ensuing few decades fascinating…or horrifying. My point being, as much as people complain about the moderate position sometimes, it seems to me that the best road to steer through this often confusing sexual landscape is the middle way: i.e., if you talk about sex all the time, it becomes an obsession, but if you suppress any talk about sex at all, it can come an equally tempting obsession. Do you get my drift?

My daughter is only 2 1/2 right now, but I am already aware that some sort of discussion with her in sexual matters is coming soon. My parents never talked about sex with me at all, and although I was far from promiscuous, I was not pure when I was married. I want my daughter to understand some of the difficulties involved, the Scriptural context, the modern challenges, and the privacy of the issue. Just looking at that short list, it’s clear what a complex issue it is.

“Demystifying” may not be exactly the route I would take, but I can see some wisdom in putting the issue in its proper place. There are certainly more important things in the world to talk about, but there are some very real consequences that result from “sweeping it all under the rug.” Hope some of this makes sense…

The guy is mostly off base. He’s right that society has gotten this weird organ fixation but he’s wrong about the glory that is sex.

I mean, he doesn’t even mention how Solomon deals with it in Songs and instead focuses on how Solomon messed up. Songs is a triumphant, jubilant expression of erotic love between a man and his spouse. The book soars with the whole process.

Sex isn’t a mere biological function that eeks out on a lazy afternoon or something that aids sleep. It’s not even a choice among biological options: hrmm…should I poop, eat or have sex?

This is the God given gift to men and women as an expression of the Godhead. Be joined together, multiply: emulate me/us. There is a reason why homosexual sex is wrong, and that is partially biological. But theologically it screams a rejection of God: man enveloped in man…no further.

No, this guy is mostly off base. If we want to demythologize sex, we need to think about it in its proper celestial light.

Cory, you make a lot of sense. Balance is critical, and premarital sex does not automatically destroy a life.

Man, but even as I write that I think of a couple situations close to me. A family member got his girlfriend pregnant at 17 or so, but neither one had the maturity to raise a child or to be married, so the little girl grew up being tossed back and forth between whoever “got stuck” with her at any given time. Horrible situation. She is now past puberty and I’m waiting for her to turn up pregnant any time now.

Second girl had one serious boyfriend. It really only lasted a few months before his abusive side became obvious, but it was enough to infect her with a viral STD – no cure. So if and when she finds Mr. Right, their sex life will always have that hanging over it.

Regarding balance, as a teacher, both public school and private music lessons, I’ve been shocked at the pervasive sexuality kids have to deal with. I taught guitar, so kids would bring in music they wanted to learn. I was amazed at the explicit sexuality in the lyrics (and that’s after growing up in the sixties and seventies). Everything today’s kids are exposed to promotes sexuality – music, movies, the internet, magazines, TV, etc., typically because it makes money. Or makes a statement. Toddlers are now exposed to sexuality by the silhouettes on the mudflaps of the truck in the next lane, or the male genitalia hanging from the trailer hitch. And by their teens they’ve almost certainly seen porn.

So I think we, as the church, need to address sex, if only to try to balance the world, which encourages kids to “do it like the other mammals” (a rap song). We need to teach kids that it is not just a biological function. We need to be open and honest and graphic(when appropriate) in our discussions. And we need to start that when they are young, because that’s when the world starts trying to teach them.

Maybe sex needs to be, as Cory said, put back in it’s proper place. Not hidden, but moved back into a place of honor, seen as something special, maybe seen as almost magical. Sacred. Maybe it needs to be re-mystified.

I donj’t believe we should over catagorize sin but Paul makes it clear that “every other sin a person committs is outside the body” but sexual sin is a sin against our own body.

Having said that. Do we often in the Evangelical world make a big deal out of these sins while “ignoring the weightier matters of the law”? I think so .
Evangelical Christianity has made themselves a joke before the world by our huge campeigns to stamp out certain sins in our youth and yet say little or nothing about the terrible sins of gossip and backbiting. Why not have a campeign to encourage kids to make pleges to obstain from these sins?

I do however believe the author of the post to be way off base when he says that we should portray sex to our kids as no big deal.
It is huge deal. It can be the greatest pleasure on earth in the right context or an absolute nightmare in the wrong context.
Similar to fire or water.
The author showed a real lack of wisdom and outright stupidity by implying otherwise.
Scripture and common experience tells us that this intimate connection between two people is a unique experience. Just look at the psycological ramifications , especially for women who have been used.

Regarding engaged couples who induldge in pre marital sex, no one knows what may happen tomorrow. Any engagement can end before marriage and many do. Pregnancy doesn’t wait for a marriage license, necessarily.

Having said all this I do think kids need more information and they need it earlier. Do we give graphic deatail to 7 year olds? Of course not! The info should obviously be age appropriate and it should start at home. We need to teach our kids the truth: that it can either be bliss or a nightmare.

I agree with those that have said that this author is way off base. And you guys can all call me old fashioned if you like–after all I am a 59 year old grandmother!–but I have to honestly wonder why we as Christians who claim the Bible as our authority even have to have a discussion on this, wondering about this guys ideas??

After all, I Cor 6:18 tells us to FLEE fornication and I Cor 7:2 makes it plain that fornication is, or at least includes, premarital sex since Paul there tells them to be married to avoid fornication. And I Cor 5:1 makes it clear that illicit sex is fornication even if it is between just one man and one woman–it doesn’t have to be recreational sex with multiple partners as the author seemed to think. And yes, there is a difference between this and other sins as others have said above as this is a sin against our own bodies.

Even if one were to put those Scriptures aside, the ramifications for individual people of sex outside of marriage are huge. As others have said, it is a very intimate bond between people. Breaking that bond when a couple breaks up, or creating that bond between many partners, does cause emotional pain and damage. There is also the ever present danger of disease. And when you consider the results of pregancy and the often painful life of a child born from this situation, I don’t know how or why the author of that ariticle wants to make premarital sex no big deal.

It IS a big deal in many ways, in it’s consequences for folks in this life and because it is breaking one of God’s commandments to us. Certainly it can be forgiven and people can be healed, but it is certainly not something to be made light of or down played in any way.

Michael-

Since this fellow doesn’t seem to acknowledge biblical authority as having much significance, I wonder why he cares so much about what Christians think. Either the Bible has authority over our lives or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, then let’s forge the whole thing and let “every man do what is right in his own eyes” like the rest of our culture. But if it does, then let’s recognize the Bible’s treatment of sex as something high and holy. It seems to me correct that we haven’t given people enough reasons to wait, but that won’t be helped by demythologization as much as by better theology. The Christian church desperately needs a biblical theology of sexuality which takes into account its trinitarian implications, its “naked and unashamed” restoration of Edenic ideals, and it its unitive, protective, healing, procreative, and pleasurable functions as ordained by God. Our theology of sex isn’t too high, instead it’s too low.

All theologizing aside though, I agree with you that the ice cream cone hasn’t been created which is THAT worth it…

Here is where I would agree with him:

Our Christian community focuses on certain sins *to the exclusion* of other, equally important, sins. And, in fact, I find this one of the most serious problems with the Church today.

Pride, anger, lack of love for your neighbor, malicious tongues, etc, etc, are sins, and to my mind much more insidious sins than premarital sex.

Imagine one person found to be in a sinful sexual relationship and another with a serious pride and anger problem. Who is going to be judged as the “sinner” in our Christian culture?

I think the takeaway here is not to think better of premarital sex, but to realize that we are so hyper-focused on “sex, alcohol and swearing”, that we forget that there are other sins.

We will know that we, as a Christian culture, have it right when we have the same degree of negative reaction to gossip and pride as we do premarital sex and drinking alcohol.

Michael,

Joe Horn completely stole my thunder. I actually ditched work for a few minutes and went out to my car to read some of 1 Corinthians to help formulate my thoughts and, when I came back, he had already said what I wanted to say and probably said it better! =(

I’ll add a couple of practical thoughts though.

1) Like many have already posted, I don’t see how anyone could successfully argue that the Bible has a more ‘mundane’ view of sex than we do. And that’s WAY understating things.

2) ‘Demystification’ may make some things less appealing but everything from my experience tells me that sex is an exception to that rule (at least as far as men are concerned).

And on a less serious note…

3) I’ve been married for 8 years and, barring some kind of physical injury, an ice cream is a POOR substitute for sex. With sex? Sure. Instead of sex? No.

@cheryl — Agreed 100% Just wanted to remark on this:

And yes, there is a difference between this and other sins as others have said above as this is a sin against our own bodies.

People often miss this about the garden story. Adam had every reason to believe that eating the fruit would kill him. Self-destruction was as certain as could be. In the garden, Adam experienced God with more directness, and less ambiguity and subtlety, than any human since. People today might jump over a cliff, believing that they have a slight chance of living. But Adam had no such “probability-based” belief. He had the certain word of GOD that he would die. There was no ambiguity.

Thus, the eating of the fruit was the first mutual suicide pact in history. A sin against our own bodies, so to speak.

@Vance – All sins may be equal in the sense that they warrant the same punishment, but The Ten Commandments have an order. The first tablet is about “Love God with all your heart”, and the second is about “Love your neighbor”. In the “love your neighbor” section, only murder ranks above adultery.

Adultery is a *failure* to love your neighbor.

Joshua, yes, because adultery was seen as stealing another’s property (his wife), so yes, it was seen as seriously not loving that neighbor. And, I will not bother getting into the relative ranking of premarital sex v. adultery. They are both sins.

But, so is pride. A prideful person is sinning as much as person who has premarital sex (and more than the person who drinks alcohol, since that is not even a sin). Same for a person who spreads false information about someone.

Our society is so obsessed about sex that we, as Christians, have come to view sexual sins as more shocking and blameworthy than other sins. We shrug off (or don’t even recognize AS sins) things like pride, anger, gossip, etc.

And let’s not forget religious pride. While Jesus gently told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more, he reserved his harshest words and greatest outrage for those who would were highly religious and followed all the “rules” of lifestyle, but were like white-washed tombs.

BTW, I speak as a person who is not having premarital sex (and who has kids coming up into the teenage years – yikes!) and as a person who has never drank alcohol. So, my position is not self-serving in the least.

[…] like to thank Michael Patton and Damian Caruana for a link to an article on evangelical obsession with sex. Not so much for the […]

Re: All sins being the same or not

Any sin does condemn us. But that doesn’t imply that all sins receive the same punishment; the Bible does talk about greater punishments. (Matthew 11:23-24, Matthew 23:13-14, James 3:1)

Here are the two problems pop out at me the most to me after reading this article –

1) He uses pragmatism (or lack thereof) to defend his case, seemingly throughout the entire article

2) More importantly, he blatantly shows that his personal viewpoint on sex is extremely shallow and void of any emotional depth – and that seems to be where his entire argument originates. His view diminishes both the positive side of sex in marriage (comparing it to having an ice cream cone? c’mon…) as well as the negative consequences, both emotionally and physically, of sex outside of marriage.

His logic is completely counter-intuitive. “What if we begin to treat sex as the relatively mundane biological function that it is?” That would work for about a day… why? Because it’s not.

Jugulum, which would lead to the next obvious question: which sinner would receive the greater punishment, the woman caught in adultery or the prideful religious person Jesus condemned? It sounds like if there is a greater judgment, it would be for the latter.

And, yet, our Church culture seems to have this reversed.

I’ll go with the consensus here, and say that the author seems to be off-base enough to be not worth consideration.

Yes, some areas of Christianity focus too much on sex; and some do so by ignoring it whatsoever. But I just can’t get around Paul’s rhetoric concerning “one flesh” being an indication of the divine mystery, or of sex being the sin you commit inside your body.

I’m not saying that a certain level of practicality isn’t healthy and necessary; Lewis wrote of the physical inconsistency of sex (specifically the tendency for one’s “sexual appetite” to fluctuate just like one’s culinary appetite) as a sort of divine joke against our tendency to place sex above God. But to put sex in the same category as going to a movie or eating ice cream is absolute balderdash. Many people have truly healthy marriages without ice cream or films, but I would gently question any marriage in which sex wasn’t involved. It simply isn’t in the same category.

Here are the two problems pop out at me the most to me after reading this article –

1) He uses pragmatism (or lack thereof) to defend his case, seemingly throughout the entire article

2) More importantly, he blatantly shows that his personal viewpoint on sex is extremely shallow and void of any emotional depth – and that seems to be where his entire argument originates. His view diminishes both the positive side of sex in marriage (comparing it to having an ice cream cone? c’mon…) as well as the negative consequences, both emotionally and physically, of sex outside of marriage.

His logic is completely counter-intuitive. “What if we begin to treat sex as the relatively mundane biological function that it is?” That would work for about a day… why? Because it’s not.

I agree with others concerning the demystifying and reducing sex to the lowest common demoninator, so to speak. It sounds like a form of surpression to face the reality of what warm blooded humans have to deal with on regular basis.

I do think sex education to sustain morality is a tricky balance. On one hand, I can see the guys point of oversaturation but on the other hand you want to counterbalance society’s obsession with it, that young people (heck all people) are confronted with on a regular basis. Just say no doesn’t work and whetting appetites through continual reminders of legitimate fun doesn’t seem to work too well either. I dunno, seems like the best thing might be to keep lines of communication open and when challenges present themselves or someone just wants to talk, there is an easily accessible channel. Rather than bombard people with contant messages. Just a thought

Regarding the aggrandizement of sexual sin compared to others, I do see Vance’s point about religious pride. However, I do have reasons for believing that sexual sins have a consequence like no others. For starters, I Corinthians 6:18 indicates sexual sins go against our own body. I’d me interested to know what others make of that. Also, in Acts 15, when Paul and Co were confronted with the judiazers, they had to come up with absolute no-nos for the Gentiles. The very short-list included sexual immorality-they must flee fornication. Maybe because it has something to do with the joining of two people and illegitimacy proves quite destructive for all involved, like no other sin. I’m not exactly sure this is right, but it sure seems that way.

I think this is an area that the church spends too much time preaching about pre-marriage behavior, all the “dont’s”, but not enough time talking about the post-marriage limits of a healthy marriage. I wrote a four-part series of blog posts about this on Theologica. Search the blogs for “Sex in the Church”, “Lust”, & “Sex and the Single Life” as well as “Straight Talk about Sex” in the Straight Talk group.

@Vance — I don’t see pride listed in the ten commandments, but pride could certainly be an occasion for breaking any of the commandments, so it’s a biggie. But it’s very clear that adultery is considered a far graver sin than anger or gossip, for example, so the church’s preoccupation with adultery over the past 2,000 years seems warranted. I’m very suspicious of anyone who claims that 2,000 years of church tradition were mistaken.

FWIW, adultery is a sin for a lot more reasons than property theft. Marriage is symbolic of the bond between God and man, and monogamous marriage is a reflection of monotheism. Throughout the Old Testament, idolatry is equated with adultery and prostitution, while faithfulness to God is equated with marriage.

And I speak as chief among sinners, so my comments are not in the least bit self-serving, either. 🙂

hey-

while we’re on the topic, a friend pointed out this site.

perhaps controversial in the other, post-marital direction. I didn’t read too much yet.

http://christiannymphos.org/

J…..actually that’s a guy and a girl kissing at the top of his site, not 2 girls…Men sometimes have long hair these days.