Perhaps an uninspired title for such a broad and human topic, but simplification is the point of my thoughts.
Human behavior towards sexuality is easily one of the biggest areas of social reaction and behavior we can observe on any given day. We hear jokes about it, see billboards, overhear people in lunch lines and watch television programs filled with sexual references, some in the form of advertising, others based in personal concern, needs for guidance or curiosity. Sex literally fills our world in ways most people simply fail to appreciate on a basic level. The Zoey 411 post in the very blog is an example of how sex creates issues to multiple planes of discussion.
Human beings are driven by the fundamentals, sex is one of those but the issue unlike many others is charged with prequalifiers and long-standing debates.
I’ve been a Christian all my life and like most have had my faith challenged and aside from being raised in the faith, I came to my own individual conclusions on why I believe. Faith without conviction is meaningless, I discovered, reasearched and discussed until I realized what I felt was the correct path in believing. Being in the greater Christian community I’ve come to observe the behavior and reactions to sexuality from multiple standpoints. My family has been involved in some activities most diehards of the faith would consider quite scandalous. My cousin became pregnant out of wedlock, my one uncle has issues with pornography. All of this and the reactions from my family has helped me to understand and reconcile the human and the spiritual being.
That being said, I’ve taken a great interest in the opposing viewpoints on sex, sex education and the nearly constant sale of sex to consumers and teens because of it’s (to them) still mysterious allure.
Sex to me is combination of passion, biological drives and a expression of love between two people. Honestly, neither side of the debates on sex really have it right or understand the issue to me. Given sex has been around since the beginning of time, I’m a tad surprised we haven’t come to a great appreciation or understanding of it as an integral and complex system. Sex is akin to politics, even if someone gets close to consensus, there is usually some issue that causes the common ground to be cast aside.
I think the wider Christian community needs to take a deep breath and calm down about sex as a whole. I’ve seen the various approaches and heard many stories. My great uncle told me one where he was threatened as a child to have his mouth washed with soap for saying the word “pregnant” in front of company. This type of behavior (even in the past) does little to convince people we are not a religion of prudes who shame even appropriate acts of sexuality. My grandmother is still uneasy by the way women these days display their pregnancies . Is a child not a blessing of God? Apparently some cannot see past the act of physical contact used to create said blessing.
Innocence is a term that has far too much importance and is often as misunderstood as the word meek. I believe small children are innocent in such matters, I know in my teens that innocence was long gone. What many fail to appreciate is a healthy dose of reality burns the widely held vision of innocence away at a certain point. To many, innocent means naive. What makes a Christian strong is not being unaware of the dark side of the world, but knowing what makes their faith strong and why they should not give in whenever the urge captures them. Trust me the urge will capture you. I was given tools to work with by my family, fear and abuse of shame were not among them.
Can someone care to explain to me the dread over “the talk” with your teens? I grew up with a Catholic mother who grew up in the closed door system to sex. She never needed to have the talk with me, by the time I was a teen I knew what the essentials were. Afterall, having sex isn’t rocket science. This self-enforced sense of discomfort is growing rather trite with me and plays to a host of personal conflicts that often have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Most parents aren’t ready for their young adults to have sex, the kids were ready a long time ago, they’ve just been wandering in the dark due to mom and dad’s discomfort.
Did Jesus not talk to prostitutes to save them? Once more, he could identify them as such. I don’t believe this was because he had access to a higher power, Jesus was in the world but not of it afterall. Jesus knew a prostitute when he saw one. That is not the innocence so many people preach and seek.
This culture if filled with sex, its is rather tiring and lazy way to sell ideas and products this way. Still we will never be able to shelter ourselves from it because in the end we become sexual creatures as a certain stage in our life and there is a universal understanding advertisers can tap in to. The simple fact is, sex sells because everybody past puberty gets the joke or innuendo.
What we are left with is teaching our children responsibility to themselves, their faith and their community instead of fear. Too many Christians are afraid of this topic. We frankly fear teen pregnancy for all the wrong reasons. The responsibility aspect knows no faith or creed either, this is common sense.
I know of adult men who refuse too glance at women in bikinis because it is not chaste. I love and appreciate the female form, but to always associate sexuality with lust constantly is simply silly and I find that to be absurd. To appreciate is not leering. I don’t look at the female body as a “temptation” but a thing of beauty to be appreciated. Appreciation is a world away from lust.
Sex is not “bad” , it never was and never will be. We are not going to raise balanced and capable people if we keep sending these conflicting messages. If we do not teach from a position of strength we will never create strong people with the ability to make wise decisions. Sex in culture peaks and falls, but a quick glance at history reveals people in the past were never as pure as many seem to think, people are the same and always will be and we need a healthy dose of pragmatism when we talk about sex. Sex is as ancient as man (for obvious reasons) and someday maybe we will come to appreciate it, respect it and deal with it in ways that will solve more problems than they create. Frankly at this point as Christians, I think we’re doing a pretty poor job.