Taboo

I've given a lot of thought to why so many Christians who attempt abstinence fail. I don't know any actual stats, but I read an article in a leading magazine recently that proffered some discouraging numbers. Many teens who made pledges of purity (a la "True Love Waits")a few years back have broken those pledges, and are unmarried.
My own church, several years ago, faced the issue of not being able to take sexual abstinence for granted among its members when a young couple (dating, not married) confessed that they were pregnant. The pornography industry is booming, as usual, and if we think that Christians don't contribute to that seemingly unstoppable machine, then we are choosing to be in denial.

I have a good friend who commented to me once that she noticed that sexual innuendo flowed freely among me and my Christian Fellowship friends during our undergrad days. She also noted that among her friends, most of whom were sexually active, that it happened markedly less. I suspect that was because our only outlet was those jokes. It was perhaps our way of dealing with this lumbering unknown. People who talk about things a lot are almost certainly not actually in the know... and that sets the stage for failure in most cases. I know most of the friends went further sexually [prior to marriage] than they intended in relationships.

I am not suggesting that abstinence is impossible, though I know it is difficult--even more so in a society that won't sell milk without infusing the idea of sexuality into its campaign. Sex and sexuality are at the core of our identity as people. It's not all that we are, but so much of how we determine who we are is filtered through that lens.

I think a lot of Christians are confusing honoring the sanctity of sex, and their abstinence from it until the right time, with denying its potentially staggering beauty, the unparalleled intimacy it can offer two people. It is perhaps an oversimplification of the issue, but most people would better be able to handle themselves in their efforts to refrain, if they didn't think of sex as something that is taboo. For the Christian to think, not "I can't have sex until I'm married," but rather, "I respect the act of sex so much, that I won't partake of that outside of God's provision, because I don't want it to be broken, out of synch, or defiling for myself or another person."

We have not put sex in its proper context, and that is the rub.

My middle sister asked me once a few years ago if I even have sexual feelings, if I, as someone who was then in my late 20s who'd never had the pleasure, even cared. The idea that one would only abstain if sex didn't matter to him or her is prevalent, unhelpfully, I might add, among many who are abstaining. Sex and sexuality are of paramount importance, and therefore easily corrupted.

I told my sister that I am excited about sex, conceptually. That I hold it, as an expression of a covenant between a man and a woman, in the highest regard--not just as a means to procreate, but as one of God's most lavish gifts. I respect sex and myself too much to have it capriciously, with someone who has not made a covenant with me before God and our friends and family. I take it too seriously to open myself up to any number of people. Just how many others should see me naked? Should have access to something so mysterious and hidden? My answer is of course, just one.

I wouldn't get a video rental card with someone if it wasn't serious, let alone enter into the very spiritual connection of sex without a mutual desire to be committed in marriage.

But, I have to admit, sometimes I think "Okay, well what if I die never having had that experience?" There are times when I cannot believe I'm in my early 30s, and have never been properly kissed. It's hard not to feel like a mutant freak. Worse, unfulfilled on a primal plane. I think "oh, is it really that big a deal?!"

It would be easy to sublimate, decide that sex is unimportant, dirty... the very trap that will lead to indulgence, I'm sure. There is a time and place for everything. I believe that I will be married, but that the time for that is not now. Delayed is not denied. There will be point at which that part of myself I have reserved for one man will be something I can offer, untattered and unreservedly, but not now.

In the meanwhile, my personal challenge is to regard sex frankly, informedly, spiritually, whatever... To remember its origin, not what we, as a society, have made it. The disconnect is significant.