In 1928 Bessie Smith, the Empress of Blues, sang “You’ve Got to Give Me Some” filled with sexual euphemism as well as others like “I’m Wild About That Thing.” What makes sex so attractive to the popular culture that it becomes lyric content decade after decade?
Today’s popular charts are filled with sexual content. Some have said Americans have become overexposed to sex. A recent HBO documentary on pornography reports that “porn has become mainstream.” It is in over 50 percent of American homes in some form whether it be print magazines, videotape, DVD, or streaming video through the Internet. “Porn is no longer taboo,” says the documentarian. (Real Sex Xtra: Pornucopia)
As we launch into moral issues around human sexuality all kinds of topics emerge: pornography, premarital sex (fornication), homosexuality, adultery, bisexuality, sexual conduct in work settings, transgendered surgeries, abortion and the list goes on. Some of you may feel that even talking about sex openly as I have here in the opening paragraphs is “inappropriate” or morally questionable for a clergyman to say or write.
Sex stirs up all kinds of emotions and passions. It is a realm where people think “bad is good” and “good is bad.”
Ida Cox sang in 1924…
You never get nothing by being an angel child
You better change your ways and get real wild
I wanna tell you something, I wouldn't tell you a lie
Wild women are the only kind that really get by
'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues
You better change your ways and get real wild
I wanna tell you something, I wouldn't tell you a lie
Wild women are the only kind that really get by
'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues
And in my time Billy Joel crooned “Only the Good Die Young.”
They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
the sinners are much more fun...
you know that only the good die young
Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
the sinners are much more fun...
you know that only the good die young
The first hint of sex in the Bible is found in creation stories. God made humans in the image of God and told them to be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:28). Since we are not asexual, we reproduce through sexual union. In the 1970’s it was popular to think of the Adam and Eve story as a sexual tale. Forbidden fruit was fornication, sex for sex sakes, not for procreation, but for the joy of sex. A popular text by Alex Comfort became sort of a Bible for the sexual revolution. It was simply titled as the “The Joy of Sex.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joy_of_Sex
Sex is not simply for procreation. The erotic imagery of a Bessie Smith tune is not only found in pop songs, it is found in the Song of Solomon also known as Song of Songs.
Sg 4:10-16
How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!
11 Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.
12 You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
13 Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruits,
with henna and nard,
14 nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes
and all the finest spices.
15 You are[b] a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from Lebanon.
Beloved
16 Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread abroad.
Let my lover come into his garden
and taste its choice fruits.
O love, with your delights!
7 Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
the fragrance of your breath like apples,
9 and your mouth like the best wine.
Beloved
May the wine go straight to my lover,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.[a]
10 I belong to my lover,
and his desire is for me.
11 Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside,
let us spend the night in the villages.[b]
12 Let us go early to the vineyards
to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates are in bloom—
there I will give you my love.
13 The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
and at our door is every delicacy,
both new and old,
that I have stored up for you, my lover.
Sg 8:6-7
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy[a] unyielding as the grave.[b]
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.[c]
7 Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
its jealousy[a] unyielding as the grave.[b]
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.[c]
7 Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
Sex is erotic and well as procreative. It is an expression of love and of lust. Sex is both animal and spiritual. Sex involves the whole of who we are in its purest form. Sex is in one sense self-giving and therefore an act of love consistent to the agape love shown us in the cross of Jesus Christ. It can be a beautiful pure, lovely gift of intimacy and joyful surrender to a partner.
But Sex can also be an expression of anger, hatred, self-abasement, loathing, visceral domineering and drunken power as one uses another for one’s own selfish reasons. Rape, incest, child sexual molestation, consensual forms of bondage, sado-masochism, and masturbation are all forms sexual expression. Some are criminal. Some were once taboo. What is the moral perspective from a biblical sense?
Let me take a moment to apologize to those who have already had their fill of this dialogue. I am sensitive about the emotional stress this kind of talk may cause us. And I wouldn’t be as forthright if it weren’t for the fact that sexuality is such a public topic. Sex is a multibillion dollar enterprise. And for the right price one can buy sexual slaves through the black market. Children and women are abducted or even sold by their families into a life of sexual servitude to wealthy and lusty men and women. This is a hideous ugly underside to the sex industry that few of us have the stomach to talk about.
According to RAINN, Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network
· Every 2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted
· In 2007, there were 248,300 victims of sexual assault
- 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police
- 15 of 16 rapists will never spend a day in jail
The Gift of Sexuality
Sex between husband and wife is the biblical vision lifted for Christians. We have already discussed the concept of marriage in a former blog in our discussion of divorce. http://moralmade.blogspot.com/2011/07/d-i-v-o-r-c-e.html
Suffice it to say that sex is to be enjoyed only within the bonds of a heterosexual couple committed to lifelong fidelity is the Biblical norm for Christians. Sex beyond the marriage covenant is considered sinful fornication. “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Heb 13:4)
Liberal society today would look down on such puritanical restrictions and say that sexual experimentation is healthy and crucial for developing teens and young adults. So called fornication may eliminate failed marriages by learning through the proverbial “trainer spouse.” This idea is false. The statistics on people who live together before marrying are more likely to fail at marriage than those who remain abstinent.
This is likely more to do with the selfishness and habits toward self-indulgence of the persons involved than the act of cohabitation and fornication itself. According to one study…"Cohabitation may not be making some relationships more risky," University of Denver psychologist Scott Stanley says. "What it may be doing is making some risky relationships more likely to continue."
In essence sex creates a physical connection that affects us spiritually, mentally and emotionally. Genesis describes the first man and woman.
“And the LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Gn 2:22-25)
Paul writes the church in Corinth using this very understanding about why fornication is wrong.
“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1Co 6:13-20)
Nickey Gumbel of ALPHA uses the illustration of gluing two pieces of corrugated cardboard together. It is impossible to pull them apart without bits of each sticking to the other. Because the sexual act involves all of who we are, sexual partners become connected at deep mysterious levels. Even a drunken night sleeping with people one does not remember does not male this less true. There can be guilt. There can be more abandonment to avoid or rebel against feeling guilt.
“Sexual regret is a common phenomenon, arising even from mutual and safe hookups. Some 70 percent of young adults, in one study, think they should have waited longer to lose their virginity. And in a national college survey, nearly as many men as women—73 percent of them—regretted at least one hookup.” (Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying, by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, Oxford University Press)
But when sex is enjoyed before God in a marriage covenant blessed and approved by one’s community, it is a wonderful means by which to cleave to one another in intimacy that expresses the heart of love and not simply the need for sexual release. Sex is meant to be a gift for married couples and perhaps for the betrothed. Divorce statistics show that cohabitation after engagement shows no ill effect on the stability of the marriage. The couple has already thoughtfully considered a lifelong commitment to one another. This, however, does not make sex before marriage sacred or morally appropriate.
Sex is nothing to play with when it comes to human hearts. When sex is shared and the relationship goes south hearts get hurt, victims are left behind. This seems to be more the case for women than for men. But men will regret "empty sex" that lack meaning. King Solomon wrote,
I refused my heart no pleasure....Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind (excerpts from Ec 2:8-11)
“Do not stir up or awaken love
until the appropriate time..” (Sg 2:7b)
until the appropriate time..” (Sg 2:7b)
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