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03/28/2003 Entry: "Sex"

In the course of preparing my cache at blogs4God I came across this interesting article about premarital sex. It's a thoughtful article well-written. That's why I'm mentioning it. Not because it gives me the excuse to write "sex" and maybe boost my traffic from the search engines. If that were the reason I'd probably include "nude' and "porn" too, but I'm not going to do that.

Posted by dj chuang @ 04/03/2003 07:52 PM CST

I have always had problems with this issue - not just for myself but for people that I come into contact with. I think that there are really good arguments that the church's attitude to sex is, well, repressed.

So who am I to say to someone else that because they are having sex before marriage, that is wrong? Especially when those people might have thought about it and considered that it fits for them with their beliefs?

I have my personal opinions about my own judgment for my own life. That is one thing. But the church can get so hung up on sex, when Jesus didn't seem to be (in fact, quite the opposite).

My worry is we end up spending so much time jumping up and down about pre-marital sex that we lose sight of issues that really matter to people. If we were as quick to chastise people for being materialistic (which seems to be much more of Jesus' focus) then maybe that would be an interesting church to be a part of.

Posted by dan @ 04/02/2003 08:46 AM CST

That's what a comments section is for Irene - thanks for contributing.

Posted by Richard @ 03/29/2003 06:44 PM CST

I can see where he's coming from, and his reasoning makes sense, but it feels dangerous to me.

In today's society sex is taken pretty lightly - women's magazines openly discuss the benefits and pleasures of one-night-stands. Precisely because marriage and sex have become disconnected in people's minds, very few people believe that having sex with another person binds you to that person, or constitutes a commitment to that person.

Marriage, however, is seen as a commitment between two people. That is why sex becomes "good" in the context of marriage - because of the notions of commitment that are attached to that institution.

Of course, it can be argued that marriage is not much of a commitment these days, what with 1/3 of them ending in divorce. But by entering into the marriage, the couple indicates an intention of being committed to each other. Which is something you don't see among co-habiting couples, no matter how committed they may actually be.

Since having sex is not seen as a form of commitment whereas marriage is, I don't think it is a question of "pitting marriage against sex" at all. I see it as a way of putting sex back in its rightful context - in the context of a couple who is committed to each other.

In other words, it is because we have failed to take sex seriously that we now have to place boundaries and say that it is only "good" in the context of marriage. It has become an issue of chastity and self-discipline vs. self-indulgence and self-gratification.

And I believe that to say that pre-marital sex in the context of cohabitation is "OK" (or, as he puts it, "good, though not yet ideal") because you're already married in the eyes of God anyway and the eventual church ceremony is a mere formality, is to encourage people to continue taking sex lightly. It's like saying, "OK, you guys couldn't keep your hands off each other, but since you know you are committed to each other, you're fine. You don't need to make a formal commitment." Firstly it makes us seem no different from the rest of the world - that we, too, blindly go ahead and indulge the lusts of the flesh. Secondly, without the formal commitment of marriage, there is no accountability to the body of believers. Or at least, that's the way I see it.

And that's why sex is only "good" in the context of marriage.

Sorry to hijack your comments section, Richard :)

Posted by irene @ 03/29/2003 06:13 PM CST