It’s back! After a lengthy break, mostly due to my having a week away with Sam (see here), I’m back at the keyboard and back into the Dating series.
I have to take a moment to say that this series has surprised even me with its popularity. You guys seem to be loving it, and I extend a personal thank you to each and every one of you who has come back to read each of these posts.
As for this particular post I would give one warning – it may be a bit unsuitable for anyone of a more sensitive nature, or for those under the age of 18. If you are a younger person reading this, God bless you for being here, but please get one of your parents to read this and make sure it’s suitable for you before you go through it.
With all that said, let’s get into the nitty-gritty.
What is sex?
Sex was made by God for pleasure, oneness and procreation.
A lot of people get this wrong, siding with one of God’s motivations for creating sex to the exclusion of the other. For instance, the hardcore Catholics believe that sex is only for procreation, so if you’re not popping babies out then you shouldn’t be doing it. Others, namely pretty much everyone who is agnostic/atheist or not practicing a faith (the general public), believe it’s for fun and, sure, sometimes a baby happens.
Curiously, most do not ignore the oneness and closeness that sex brings to a couple, this seems to be a generally accepted truth, regardless of culture.
God did not create sex so it was something we could see as gross or horrible unless we’re trying to get pregnant; nor did God create it to be had outside of marriage for fun or recreation.
Here are a couple of passages that show God’s intent for sex as procreation:
Genesis 1:28 –
“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 4:1 –
“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.””
And there is scriptural evidence for sex being for pleasure and for oneness:
Proverbs 5:18-19 –
“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.”
1 Corinthians 7:5 –
“Do not deprive one another [of sex], except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
Genesis 2:24 –
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Song of Solomon 1 – well, pretty much the book’s entirety.
So we can see that God had a few purposes in mind when he designed sex.
Don’t fall into the trap that a lot of Christian churches have fallen into, where the women believe sex is just for the men, a gross thing that they have to just endure for their men. This is just so wrong! It is not gross, it is not something to endure; hey, if you’re husband’s doing it right then it’s something to most definitely be enjoyed. Beyond this, if you don’t think you’re allowed to enjoy it you won’t be inclined to do it, which is in direct contradiction to 1 Corinthians 7:5.
Also, don’t be suckered into thinking that it’s only for procreation. If that was the case then all of the scriptures I quoted for evidence of sex being for pleasure and oneness would be followed with “if you can afford a lot of kids”. Have sex to make babies, I couldn’t recommend that more, but don’t think you have to do it loads for oneness but can’t take precautions against pregnancy if you just can’t afford one more baby.
On the subject of contraception
Ah, this is such a minefield.
I’m not going to go into this in a lot of detail, otherwise this post will be hideously long.
My rule is (and if you want to know why pick up a copy of God, Marriage, and Family by Andreas J. Kostenberger) that if it isn’t abortative in nature, then it’s okay.
What I mean by that is this – if at no point does the male sperm actually interact with the female egg, causing conception (the fertilization of the egg and the attaching of the fertilized egg to the endometrial lining) then it’s considered contraceptive in nature, which is fine.
Just to be clear, if the sperm is able to fertilize the egg, which is known as conception, then it’s out. If the method used does not allow this interaction between swimmer and egg, it’s okay. So this means condoms, the rhythm/calendar method and diaphragms are, to my mind, fine. Things like abortion, IUD and the pill (both types, regular dose or ‘morning after’) are out. Here are my reasons:
Most contraceptive pills these days are designed to work in 3 ways – to stop ovulation (which is a contraceptive method), to make the cervix harder for the sperm to enter (contraceptive) and the third is to make the endometrium incapable of supporting the life of a newly conceived child. The last of these three is abortative in nature, as it makes it impossible for an already fertilized egg (therefore beyond the point of conception) to survive. So, despite the first two measures being safe and sound due to their being contraceptive in nature, the back-up to those is abortative and is therefore not acceptable.
There, I hope you learned something new today!
On the subject of sex outside of marriage
Everybody knows why sex outside of marriage is bad, but 90% of the time no one can tell you why. I’ll do my best to give some reasons now.
Let’s start with the Bible.
1 Corinthians 7:2 –
“But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3 –
“God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin.”
Hebrews 13:4 –
“Give honour to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.”
These were the best I could find among the clearest I found.
Sex outside of marriage is considered sexual immorality, along with all other sexual acts outside of heterosexual marriage. God calls us away from this immorality, and calls us to marry, so we can enjoy the gift of sex within marriage.
Furthermore, sex before marriage, statistically speaking, lowers your chances of having a successful marriage.
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Culture will always tell you that you need to practice something before you do it for real, or you need to test-drive it before you buy it, but this just isn’t the case. For a start, sex really isn’t something you need practice at before you do it with your wife, especially if it’s her first time too. It’s pretty straight-forward as to what goes where, and if it’s your first time then you’re going to enjoy it because there’s no comparison to be made. Win-win, right?
In addition to this, research has shown that having had multiple sexual partners before marriage can actually have a detrimental effect on sex within marriage.[1]
Does that sound right? Probably not, but think about it.
The more sexual partners you have the more sex you’ve had (theoretically), therefore the more past-experience you have to compare it to. So say you marry a Christian gal who’s never ‘rocked the Kasbah’ before and she doesn’t know that one thing you love, or she’s not as free as the other ‘loose’ girls you’ve been with before, so it’s a little disappointing; isn’t that going to breed discontent? Won’t that cause upset because you’re not getting it as good as before? Will that maybe lead to looking for it elsewhere?
I’ll move on.
Pre-marital sex has been shown to detrimentally affect sexual quality, relationship communication, relationship satisfaction and perceived stability.[2]
Basically put, people who wait until they’re married to have sex are happier than those who don’t, and their relationships last longer.[3]
Finally, the Bible clearly states that one of the purposes of sex is for oneness.[4]
On the subject of oneness
So what, exactly, does it mean to say that sex is for oneness?
I’ll start by bringing it back round to Genesis.
Genesis 2:24 –
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Here’s what we’re looking at – “and they shall become one flesh”. Okay?
What is basically being said here is that man and wife become one, one flesh, one person.
The best illustration of how this kind of works came when I was talking to my uncle and best friend, Chris[5], about something personal. It was an update of what had happened since we last spoke on the subject and he said he had asked his wife what she thought of the whole thing. I was mortified. I hadn’t sanctioned him to tell his wife, this was personal! He reminded me that he and his wife were one, so if I told him something it was the exact same as telling her something, they may as well always be together because they’re the same person.
Another illustration of this is the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all one, though separate persons.
So, if sex creates oneness, where two people become one, doesn’t it seem seriously important who you do it with?
Paul addresses this in his letter to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 6:15-16 –
“Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.””
What Paul’s saying is that don’t join yourself to someone sexually if you don’t intend to stay with them. When you have sex with someone they take a little piece of you. Not in a weird mystical force kind of way, but in that moment you become one with them and when that’s over that bond doesn’t just separate.
Why do you think rapes are the least reported crimes?
Why do you think sexual abuse is the hardest to work through and most damaging form of abuse?
Why do you think rape victims require such intense therapy (often, not always)?
Because sex isn’t just physical. When you have sex with someone you join yourself with them.
If that’s not warning enough to you then you’re on the wrong team.
There’s also the fact that this bond is stronger in the gals than the guys, it’s hormonal. Repeated sex with someone creates a hormonal dependence for women, meaning that when that dependence is broken, let’s say the relationship breaks up, then that hits the gals way harder than it hits the guys.
That’s worth remembering the next time you fancy sleeping with your girlfriend.
On the subject of practicality
To finish, I’m going to go through a couple of practical ways in which to avoid going too far.
Let’s start with the best place to start, the Bible.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 –
“God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body – and live in holiness and honour – not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in this matter by violating his wife, - for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before. God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.”
Let’s review the basic points here:
- Holiness
- Honour
- Self-control
- Purity
- Obeying God
That’s what we’re called to in our relationships.
So, let’s have a brief look at a scenario where this can be applied.
You can’t keep your hands out from your girlfriend’s shirt, maybe even her pants. Does this show holiness? Nope. Honour? Nope. Self-control? Not if you were trying not to keep your hands to yourself, which I would recommend. Purity? Nope. Obeying God? Probably not, let’s be fair.
So practically, what can you do to encourage these 5 principles extolled by Paul?
To encourage holiness, try reading your Bible with your girlfriend instead of ramming your hand up her shirt. If temptation arises, get out your Bible and read something cool, get some conversation going.
To encourage honour, it’s just as simple as trying to find ways to limit the temptation. Where are the places/when are the times you are most likely to be tempted? Work to minimise those risky times or places.
Self-control can be developed over time, through continual attempts to seek out God and work past temptation. Read your Bible, read books on subjects like sex (Christian books), and above all just work on controlling yourself, minimising the risk of temptation.
Obeying God is fairly obvious; read your Bible and learn what it says (I hope this post has been helpful for that). This will bring about purity, as this is developed over time and keeping your hands to yourself.
So, practical principles –
Minimise risk of temptation by locating the times and places you are most often tempted, and remove these risks.
Keep reading your Bible and pursuing God, finding out what his call on your life is and how he wants you to behave in your relationship.
Read your Bible with your girl/boyfriend, check out together the Biblical callings on relationships.
Some people may be reading this, thinking “it’s all good and well him telling me this, but what does he know anyway? It’s hard to not have sex!”
I have to say, I know just as well as anyone how hard it is to keep yourself to yourself, so to speak. Sam and I struggle with these issues a lot. We get frustrated, we get anxious, and we get fed up, but we love one another and we love God so we keep striving toward a holy relationship. There have been times where things have gone farther than we’d like (not too far though, don’t worry) but we learn from those mistakes and work in earnest to ensure we don’t have a repeat of them.
I know this is hard, I know how difficult it is, but please hang in there.
A few more practical tips, before I wrap this up:
Get some friends
Here’s a great idea for you – if you’re going through a phase of being incapable of keeping your hands off one another then spend time with friends. If friends are there then you won’t be tempted to ‘get rambunctious’ because, let’s face it, PDoAs[6] are most often like a fart in an elevator – pretty unwelcome.
Buddy-up
Think admitting to a future girlfriend or boyfriend[7] is awkward? Try admitting it to a buddy who has the job of praying through those sexual problems with you.
These dudes/lifelines are called Accountability Partners, and they’re a great invention. The idea is that you get in touch fairly regularly and basically ask for prayer for any problems you’re having, and also tell one another what you’ve been up to behind closed doors. All of it.
It’s a great sort of safety net, so I’d recommend buddying-up.
Is this for marriage?
Most people have an idea what marriage is, and what the special parts of it are. For some it’s waking up together in the mornings, getting to cuddle in bed before you fall asleep, being comfortable with one another in the nude and just generally the closeness[8]; for others it’s sex, being able to belch in front of the other without embarrassment, being able to see the other naked and being able to talk to them whilst on the toilet.[9]
But all of these things are for marriage, both lists of special marriage things are right. Problems arise when you try to transition this stuff into your dating relationship.
Don’t be getting naked in front of one another, don’t sleep in the same bed as one another even if you’re not having sex[10], etc. This stuff is for marriage and letting it bleed into your dating relationship is not only taking the special parts of marriage out of marriage (making it less special as a whole), but it also builds a heavy temptation to go further.
On a side note – any dude who’s belching or farting with total abandon in front of their girl needs a slap. Any dude who talks to her whilst he’s on the bog also needs an equally large slap, though in an emergency (such as bog roll shortage) this can be permissible.
I hope this has all helped. I hope I’ve been clear enough and answered enough questions satisfactorily; though it feels like I may not have.
I pray that God helps to enrich the lives of the readers, and that everyone feels God’s call on their relationships. I pray this helps people understand the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and that people feel built-up to continue their relationships with Jesus as the centre.
[4] As stated, see further up in this post.
[6] Public Display of Affection
[7] You never know, who you’re with and doing it with now may not be the person you’re with forever.
[8] This is primarily the women.
[9] The blokes… Okay, probably a bit harsh.
[10] Fair play to you if you can sleep in a bed together and not get really tempted, but still don’t do it.
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