Singleness and sex
Forty years ago the best way of avoiding sex before marriage was just to get married, normally in their early twenties. In our Parents' day te accepted wisdom from friends, teachers and the media was that sex should be saved until the wedding night. Nowadays avoiding pre-marital sex is seen as unrealistic, perversely, society sees our self-control as dysfunctional, nor virtuous.
Acceptance
of sex before marriage and tolerance of samesex partnership rests
on the assumption that sexual intercourse is
"psychologically necessary". That is vertainly what our
sex-obsessed culture says. But is it true?
Christians
must surely understand that that is a lie. There is such a thing
as the call to singleness, in which authentic human fulfillment
can be obtained without sexual experience.
Our Christian witness is that Jesus himself, though unmarried,
was perfect in humanness. There is nothing wrong with Same-sex
friendships, which may be close, deep and affectionate, But
sexual union, the 'oneflesh' mystery, belongs to heterosexual
marriage alone.
But still no one said it was going to be easy to live without sex. The average person has sex 117 times a year, the average single Christian aims at having sex zero times a year, and while no sex before marriage might be a novelty, no sex before death is not something to laugh about.
Most of us
are looking forward to having sex, but at the same time most of
us realise that its wrong use can destroy the very relationships
we are trying to form.
If your relationship is not strong enough for marriage now, then
it is not strong enough for sex now.
If we don't
think that we can control our sexuality, then we fall into one of
two traps: we either excuse unholiness, saying, 'I couldn't help
it', or we avoid relationships because 'they always get sexual'.
For not only is immorality breaking up romance, the fear of it is
stopping a lot of relationships from forming. You and I have to
stop believing that when men and women go out, things have to get
very physical. very fast, I't a lie!
So how far should I go?
I can give all kinds of answers here, for example that hugging is
alright on a first date, or that you should wait for your first
kiss till you met the parents of your partner.
I can;t make the rules, because whatever the rules are you will
probably be able to talk yourself out of them.
Maybe the
two keyrules that most teenagers are taught helps us to know how
far we should go:
Don't take any clothes off, and don't touch anything that you
haven't got.
The basic premise behind the "How far should we go?" question is about setting our limits, have you ever thought about thinking, how much intimacy would my relationship need to work, instead of how far can I go without going wrong?
If you want
a relationship to continue, then don't be so stupid as to risk a
friendship that could offer a lifetime of happiness for the sake
of an orgasm.
So next time the hands are wandering under the clothes, or
fumbling with buttons, STOP! Stop now, because in a few seconds
time it will be even harder to cool down!
But not to put you down completely, there is a concession, I think hugging is wonderful. O how we single people need to be hugged! Having long since left behind the hugs that parents, hopefully gave us, there is often a great lack of touch in our lives. But be careful that you don't allow selfish lust in our hugs.
Sexual purity is much more than a physical state. It is a declaration of vision, a demonstration of character and an example of wise judgement!
© 1998 Emy Böning, last updated 1st November
1998
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