Porn, Prostitutes, Strippers, Sex and Debt

No doubt at some point in your life, whether in school or in a job interview test, your comprehension of a particular subject or set of ideas was tested by requiring you to select the single item in a series of three or four or more that did not complete the pattern. If I were to ask you to select which item did not typically belong to the following series of items, sex, strippers, prostitutes, porn, and debt, most likely a high percentage of you would chose "debt" as the item that was dissimilar to the other four. If you selected "debt" however, you would have chosen incorrectly, since all five items seem now to be related. Let me explain.

A recent report from a British newspaper entitled One in four in debt blame sex establishes the connection between all of these ideas. This article states the shocking fact that "ONE in four people who contacted a debt helpline last year admitted that some of their financial problems were caused by spending money on sex." Those people who fall in the "one in four" category are predominantly men between the ages of 25-49, as the article states "Three-quarters of the people helped by the group who admitted spending money on sex were single men, with the rest either married men or women or single or separated women. The average age of people helped was 42." The two other most common reasons for debt that ranked first and second respectively above sex, were predictably, alcohol and drugs. Sex related debt reportedly, was not only on account of subscribing to internet porn sites, but also on account visiting brothels, strip clubs and paying high premiums for phone sex.

Without making it sound like I take any relish in the financial woes of these men, since it would be very uncharitable to delight in the financial ruin of others, I would like to point out the all too obvious fact that illicit behavior does indeed have serious consequences. In a previous post we pointed to the dangerous rise of STD's among 17-26 year olds in Los Angeles County, which is reaching near epidemic proportions, as an example of what happens when we dont follow natural law principles when it comes to sex. Here, I believe is just one more example of the ruin that comes from not following the 7th commandment which is a Biblical restatement of God's design for sexual intercourse embedded within natural law. I realize that a substantial portion of those who read such a statement will evaluate it as boorish, prudish, puritanical, and perhaps even repressed. But that won't deter me from stating the obvious: if you don't follow the 7th commandment and its prohibition against sex outside of monogomous heterosexual marriage you will end paying the price for it. This article on sex-related debt, the near STD epidemic and many other facts substantiate the claim.

Instead of fighting against the truth it is better, safer, and apparently financially expedient to acknowledge that though sex is an incredibly satisfying physical and emotional experience, just as alcohol, drugs, or food, it too is governed by natural law. Reason, prudence, and wisdom then, ought to be used to restrain your sexual appetite and admonish you to indulge your desires in the right place, in your bedroom with your spouse and not in strip club, brothel, website or over a phone line. Follow this principle and you will not only experience real satisfaction, but you just might enjoy the added benefit of being able pay your bills and keep a full bank account.

http://http//www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article713747.ece

How's Your STD?

If you are a 17 to 26 year old male reading this blog right now, and you live in the state of California, it is very likely that you are reading this in physical discomfort. A recent article published in the LA Times entitled “State and County STD Rate Soars,” October 10, 2007, states that 1 in every 4 or 5 people between the ages of 15 and 24 are estimated to have an STD. Now you will notice a minor discrepancy in terms of the ages I have given in this first paragraph. I said if you are between “17 and 26” and the story says the rate is soaring between 15 and 24. This discrepancy is resolved by noting that the study was conducted in 2005 and that the Times is merely reporting the information 2 years after the fact –so all those who fit in the 1 in 4 or 5 number 2 years ago are in the 17-26 category today.

Well, what then is the answer to such a menacing problem? You can guess what the typical proposals are: more condoms readily available, better sex education classes, transparency about former sexual partners before engaging in promiscuity with a new one, etc. But these proposals aren’t new, and they aren’t effective either. Public schools have been providing sex education programs now for 40 years or more, condoms are more readily available to young people than ever, and as for transparency, who really cares about that when the moment is right and you just feel like “getting it on.” None of these proposals are real solutions, they are band-aids at best.

So what is the solution? I think it is rather obvious, but not desirable: abstinence, except with your spouse! I don’t want to sound callous, but the hard fact is far fewer people would be itching, scratching, dripping and feeling intense burning when they urinate if they had sex in the right place, marriage. Notice here, I am not preaching “radical abstinence,” rather, I am preaching “limited abstinence.” Have all the sex you want. Enjoy it two, three, four times a day, however much you want, just limit sex to your wife!

Of course, I know this is going to be immediately discounted. It will be argued that sex is a basic human need, like eating or sleeping, and so going without it is out of the question. Again, let me reiterate, I am not saying “go without!” I am saying, “go have sex,” just make sure it is with someone you said, “I do” with. A lot of you will say that is totally unreasonable, because after all, since sex is a basic human need, it is ridiculous to limit yourself to one way of meeting that need. Comparing it to the food analogy again, it is argued, that you don’t limit yourself to only oatmeal for breakfast lunch and dinner in order to satisfy your appetite, especially when numerous alternatives are readily available, so why should you limit yourself to your spouse in order to fulfill your sexual appetite? My response is, yes, you would limit yourself to oatmeal to satisfy your appetite if that was the only thing didn’t seriously harm you when you ate it! Think about people with severe food allergies. Say someone enjoys cashews, and they want cashews on everything –their pancakes, their salad at lunch and their ice cream after dinner. Now they certainly have other options to complement a meal with, but they have an insatiable appetite for cashews, so that is what they choose. Then one day, they wake up to discover they have a deadly food allergy to cashews. Now, are they going to keep hitting the cashews because they are savory, and they have the freedom to eat them if they want? Obviously not! But why? The answer is obvious, natural law says these things are harmful for them!

We could multiply examples of ways in which we limit our choices in order to fulfill our desires and urges because we know that the things we want are physically harmful to us. So take that basic thought and let’s bring it back to sex. Why is it so hard to believe that natural law doesn’t work the same way with regard to sex? Honestly, why do we feel such a sense of entitlement to have promiscuous sex, free of harmful consequences, as if sex is so unique and so inherently necessary that we must be free to engage in it with anyone that we want, so long as they are willing partners? Just to say it out loud like that hopefully gets us to realize how ludicrous this idea of consequence free, promiscuous sex is. Promiscuous sex violates natural law, therefore it will always come with harmful consequences. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Its just like the cashew food allergy example above, you can enjoy cashews all you want, but that enjoyment is only going to last a moment before anaphylactic shock sets in. Promiscuous sex is no different, and inevitably leads to serious physical consequences as the LA Times article documents.

Sex is one of the greatest the greatest pleasures man can experience. But to enjoy this pleasure and find real satisfaction in it you better keep it within the law, that is, keep it with your spouse alone. That is the right way to do it, and the way God intended it to be enjoyed. Just as God has seated man at the table of life and gave him of every plant, tree, shrub or cow to eat in order to provide for the need of bodily nourishment, so He has established the provision for satisfying the basic human need for sex. But that provision is not found in multiple partners or a harem of lovers, its through monogamous sexual relations with your spouse. That is just the way things are, because that is the way God made the world. You do it that way, and you will experience all the pleasure and more that you receive from promiscuous sex, just minus all the itching scratching, dripping, and burning.

Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex

Few words in the English language catch a man’s eye quicker than the word sex. In some sense it is amazing that the word and the concept still catches our attention so quickly given that we live in a culture that is awash in sex. Television is more and more full of shows about sex. Whole radio programs are devoted to the discussion of sex, some particularly focusing not just on how to do it, but also how to get more of it. And then, of course, the internet has become the largest pipeline of access to sex ever ---- like drinking out of a fire hose. So that being the case, why is it that we are still so captivated by sex, if we live in an environment so saturated with it? I mean, don’t you think we would just sort of get burnt out on it? Why, given this sex-saturated environment, do men think about sex every seven seconds and never get tired of it?

We would not probably have to search too far and wide before we stumbled across more than one answer to the question. The Psychologists explain that it is all the result of repressed feelings, emotions and desires. Sociologists tell us that it’s the result of social conditioning. Darwinists, simply argue that the sexual instinct is an irrepressible primal urge for survival and the propagation of the species. Now, each of these points of view could be argued convincingly to some extent, but the view I find that offers the most powerful insight surprisingly, is found in the Bible. You see, the Bible gives an explanation for where the deep sexual urge comes from and teaches not only its purpose but points us to the sphere in which it is to take place.

To find the foundations of the Biblical view of sex, you don’t turn to the prohibitions against sex scattered throughout scripture, you turn to the beginning of the Bible, the book of Genesis. There in Genesis chapter 2 we are told why men are sexual creatures. Genesis 2:18 contains a very interesting phrase. It says, “it is not good.” You might say, “what is so interesting about that?” The answer is that it’s the first time in a whole series of verses that God said, “its not good.” Everything else that God had performed in the work of creation was praised as “good.” And now at 2:18 we see “not good.” Now, the thing that is isolated as “not good” is the fact that Adam was alone. God was not pleased to see Adam lonely. His answer to that problem is the creation of Eve, a woman, to be his wife.

These words first of all tell us that God has made man a social creature. God made humans to live in community and enjoy the company of other people. He made us so we could talk together, plan projects together, and understand ourselves, the world, and even God together. But the second thing to notice here is that, from God’s perspective, the most important way a man both expresses and experiences that social aspect of his nature is with another human, a woman, and more particularly through sex. See, when God saw that Adam was alone, he didn’t make him another man so that Adam would have a hunting and fishing partner or a beer drinking buddy, he made a woman for Adam. Then, He instituted marriage and commanded Adam to go in unto Eve and enjoy sex with her. Genesis 2:24 says, “for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” Well, apparently it didn’t take Adam too long to figure out what to do because v25 goes on to say “and the man and his wife were both naked.” Adam didn’t need a sex education course or “how-to” pornographic videos or even a fatherly discussion of the birds and the bees. He instinctually knew what to do: get naked with Eve. Where did the information come from? Well, no doubt he could see the anatomical compatibility, but it was more than that if read in context. Adam understood that the climax of his expression of being a social creature was found through experiencing sex with his wife. When the rest of the Genesis narrative goes on to speak of Adam and Eve’s sexual relations, it says “they knew each other.” At root, because of God’s ordering of creation and the human experience, sex is inherently a social and relational activity and it is experienced as that only in the context of marriage.

What does all this have to say to us?

1. First, God doesn’t hate sex. He is not some Victorian prude who blushes and breaks out in a nervous sweat when the word “sex” is uttered. He created sex and He is not a prude about it. In fact we are told in Hebrews 13:4 that the marriage bed is “undefiled.” When a man has sex with his wife, it is pure.
2. Second, we learn that sex is for married people. If we are to really enjoy sex, we better keep it in marriage. If God has ordered reality as we know it through His work of creation, and the result of that ordering is that certain things fit together on account of that ordering, then we better not mess with that ordering.
3. Third, this rules out homosexual sex. God could have just as easily have made Adam a male companion, but he made him a woman to complete him and to have sex with.
4. Fourth, it also rules out heterosexual sex outside of marriage. He instituted marriage and told Adam and Eve to take their clothes off only after they said “I do.” Sex is for marriage, period!
5. Fifth, sex between a husband and a wife is the most profound expression of their social experience together. That thought is worth repeating: sex is the most important aspect of our social relationship with our wife. With all the lecturing about how men need to talk and how much women say they just want a guy they can cuddle with and talk to, God says, no, the most important aspect of your social relationship is sex. Of course talking is fine and wonderful, but don’t forget that the Bible says Adam “knew Eve,” not after a romantic walk on the beach around sunset, filled with meaningful discussion, but after getting naked and having sex with Eve.

Men, you need to keep these very important points in mind as you face this oversexed environment in which we live. Sex will never be satisfying, and will never really fill that deep down sexual urge that you have, if it is with someone other than your wife. Sex is not just physical, it is also highly relational, and it is that relational aspect of it that makes it satisfying. If you separate it from the marital relationship, the satisfaction of it will be minimal, and you will find it empty. So the next time your motor gets revving after you see some scantily clad chick, or your girlfriend gives you the big tease and you start losing your grip, stop and think! Sex is for expressing your social nature with your wife, and it is only in that relationship where you will fully enjoy it and have your deepest urges satisfied.