3 posts tagged “sexuality”

A the recent Exodus Freedom Conference, a general session was devoted to answering delegates' questions on an expert panel. There were, of course, far too many questions submitted for them to answer entirely, so Randy has asked me to help address some of them in the blogosphere. So here I go!

Q: Biblically it's written that when we commit sexual sin, we win against ourselves and God; would you please provide an explanation that would clarify what "sinning against ourselves" means.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 1st Corinthians 6:18

A: I honestly believe that in this verse Paul was getting way ahead of his time in matters of understanding sexuality. One of the things I've learned in my journey is what a powerful force sexuality is spiritually, mentally and physically.

One fact that this statement is (I believe) touching on, is how our bodies are affected by sexual release. We're wired to remember what we associate with orgasm--whatever person, scenario and/or image captured our attention during that ecstatic moment. The more it's imprinted on our minds through repeated behaviors, the more powerful the attachment becomes.

I think God made us that way so that, in the context of marriage, sex would have a transcendent effect--it would bring the spiritual, emotional commitment between man and wife into the physical in a powerful way. Imagine the impact on the intimacy between a man and woman if they associated sexual pleasure only with each other!

But in a broken world the design can work against us. We stumble into physical maturity often poorly guided--certainly in a culture that's a sexual mine field. Through no fault of our own we can associate sexuality with things we were never meant to--that's why things like homosexuality, fetishes and so on exist. Then through our own choices (the no fault part disappears here) we build on those bad connections and foul up what God designed for marital intimacy, because we become more connected to the counterfeit release.

In this way, when you sin sexually, you are totally doing yourself a disservice and making your own wonderful design work against you. You are sinning against your own body.

Boundless webzine has published the second article I've written for them, Bearing the Image. You can read it here.

There are Christians who strike me as something like freaks. Disassociated from society, they're committed todoing the "Christian" thing 1000% in every aspect of life, from sexuality to breakfast cereal. They seem so out of touch, so ineffectual. And yet, at times I find myself wanting to be the same way.

I went into a Borders bookstore last night to look for a cheap journal. I was in the bargain books section and was shocked to see several very large, very explicit books on display. There were several photo how-to sex books, as well as an "art" book that featured full-frontal nudity on the cover image. I didn't pick any of these items up--I could see all of this from where they were on the shelf.

The X-rated books were all on the top shelf, but that was no more than 5 feet off the ground, certainly accessible to shoppers far too young to buy them, and visible from any height.

I don't usually complain to stores that use sexual imagery (A&F) in advertising or sell what I consider to be inappropriate material (Spencer's Gifts); I just don't go. But this made me angry. It was porn, out in the open, while not 20 feet away there were children listening to a lady in a scarecrow costume read a Halloween book.

So this time I complained. I told an employee in a very polite manner that I didn't think it was good to have material of this kind so blatantly visible in a store where children were encouraged to shop around. He chuckled awkwardly and replied, "Well, we have the same stuff back in our sex section, and in the magazines for that matter. We have to put it out, but we try to put it as high as we can."

I knew they had a sexuality section (used to frequent it at B&N back in the day) and definitely knew some of the magazines were more than a little raunchy. But this was porn in an unexpected place, with very little caution put into its display. I let him know I realized he wasn't responsible for the displey, but just asked for my comment to be passed along to whoever was above him. He said there had already been previous complaints, and invited me to submit a written one, which I appreciated.

Still, I'm pissed off--and not just at Borders. I'm mad at the way so many of the companies that target young people are bent at raping their minds and destroying their sexuality for the purpose of earning loyal customers. I'm pissed because I've known so many men (of all orientations) whose jobs, marriages and lives were destroyed by sex addiction and porn. And with so many of them it started with a single sexual image they stumbled across at a young age that taught them a very powerful lesson: that people's bodies are objects and sexuality isn't sacred.

I saw it begin for a boy at a mall in San Diego, no older than nine or ten, who slowed his step and stared awe-struck into the window displays of the Victoria's Secret store.

I don't want to say society is totally to blame for the actions of myself and others who have lived sexually compromised lives--but in the grand scheme of things, those who perpetrate a culture of depravation certainly bear a share of the responsibility for people's lives broken by it.

Some will argue that it's not the store's or the advertiser's fault; if the image inspired me to think or act wrongly, that only points out that something is intrinsically wrong with me. And they're right, there is something very wrong with me--and it's wrong with everyone else, too.

Such people would probably say I'm acting holier-than-thou to call porn evil, deluded to strive to deny desires that are present within me. To that I would admit I am trying to be holier than my nature would be on its own--and the only difference between me and someone "worse" than me is really just the decisions we make. And I have come to make better decisions only because of the interference of God and those who love Him.

It's the ones who deny the existence of the sin nature that are the ultimate hypocrites. No matter what they say, you'll find they they really do believe in evil--it just belongs to other people. They refuse to see the fatal human flaw in themselves. 

But this is really about those who profit off our fallen state. They know we're wired to respond to sexual imagery--they know it's as addicting as drugs, so powerfully effective because it is intertiwined with our need for intimacy. Harnessing that weakness, they pimp us out to line their own pockets. It's a no-brainer really, if all you care about is money. It's the one way to supply where there is endless demand, and it always has been:

Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied. Proverbs 27:20

They know they're hooking men for life, making them slaves to perversion they have to pay for. As the Executive VP for Playboy recently said about a new networking website for college guys: "We're looking at this as a way to introduce and escort someone through their adult life."

I know what it's like to lose years to that life (even if it wasn't technically the Playboy crowd for me), and to still walk with something of a limp even after being freed. They took plenty of my youth; hell if I'll give them any of my adult life.

Really, why can't the bookstore seclude the adult section? Didn't they use to do that? I guess porn users never liked having to step through the curtian to the back room and feel the shame of publicly making that choice. I wouldn't have liked that. Maybe I would have stayed away if that barrier had been there.

But it's not. The back room is now in clothing stores and bookstores and home computers. Should the government stop it? No; they couldn't if they tried. I wonder if we could stop it? I mean, these jackals are unabashedly after our kids. And we're not holding them accountable; we're keeping them in business.