Sacred Sex: Part II - Pornified and Prude-ified: When Sex Gets Distorted

Genesis 3:1-13; Matthew 5:27-30

A few years back there was a media report going around about the rock singer Sting who, according to the report, claimed that he was a practitioner of an ancient eastern form of Tantric sex and could “make love for eight hours a night.” This was big news in the entertainment world, where sexual prowess is seen as one of the keys to success. Sales of books on the Kama Sutra and other eastern forms of spiritualized sexuality soared. Everybody wanted to know the secret.

Awhile later, though, Sting made a cheeky confession. Apparently, he had bragged about his ability to have sex for eight hours a night to Bob Geldoff, singer for the Boomtown Rats and organizer of the Live Aid concerts. Several years after the story broke, Sting confessed that he had "sexed up" the story to impress his fellow musician. "I think I mentioned to Bob I could make love for eight hours," he explained. "What I didn't say was that this included four hours of begging and then dinner and a movie!"

Fantasy vs. reality. When it comes to sex, our culture is all about the fantasy. Last week we talked about God’s design for sex—that it is part of our whole created being in God’s image, that it’s good when put in the context of committed relationships. Today we look at how that image got distorted and how we turned from the beautiful reality to the airbrushed fantasy.

To do that, we have to begin with a little history. The ancient world was no less sex-obsessed than we are today. In fact, ancient pagan cultures essentially constructed their theologies around sex and fertility. Most ancient near eastern religions were polytheistic, with many gods who were considered to be both male and female. Sex between the gods was a given and was seen as benefiting humans in some way. If an ancient near eastern farmer needed rain for his crops, for example, he knew that the sky god and the earth goddess would have to get together sexually somewhere in the spirit world (the rain was the, well, the “byproduct” of their sexual union). In many ancient cultures, getting the gods together involved the human intercessor enacting a sexual ritual in order to make it happen. There were temple cults in ancient Greece and Rome, for example, which housed sacred prostitutes who offered ritualized sex to worshippers of that particular god or goddess.

When the Bible talks about idol worship, then, it’s primarily talking about the human obsession with sex and fertility. Ancient cultures worshipped their fertility gods and made wood and stone representations of them, often with oversized genitals. Read the Old Testament and you see a lot of references to “Asherah Poles,” which were objects of worship that looked like…well, let’s just say that if they were being put up today they’d be called “Viagra Poles.”

The Hebrew people and their Bible landed in the midst of that ancient worldview and claimed something quite different—that there is one God, not many, and this God is neither male nor female nor does this God need a divine sexual consort in order to be creative. This God is not able to be manipulated by rituals, nor is this God represented by wood or stone. This God, the one God, is personal and relational, creating the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing). This God created humans not for manipulation or control, but for relationship—a relationship of deep and abiding intimacy. As we said last week, God blessed the sexual union of these humans, but within the context of their deeper relationship with God—a relationship marked by covenant, fidelity, and commitment. To that end, God gave the humans the ability to choose, knowing that love is only authentic when it is chosen and not coerced.

Genesis 3 tells us that the first humans exercised their gift of choice by choosing to reject God and the gifts God had given them. The snake, who merely reminds them that they have a choice, suggests that Adam and Eve could be gods themselves. They have it all, yet they want more and so they violate the only rule that God had given them. Notice what happens. Immediately, says the writer of Genesis, “their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked” (v. 7). In other words, they now see their world and each other differently. Before, they relied on God to care for them and enjoyed a face to face relationship with their creator—now they saw what life would be like when they had to decide and do everything for themselves. Before they were “naked and unashamed”—not comparing themselves to each other and to God. They were fully open and intimate with each other. Now there was a secret. They now compared themselves to each other and hid from God. Their bodies were now seen as being separate from their spirits—something to be ashamed of rather than celebrated. They covered their nakedness but exposed themselves. They had exercised their choice to worship the creature over the creator. We’ve been doing it ever since.

It was at this point, Genesis tells us, that the purity and mutuality of sex became distorted. First, the man and woman engage in blaming—Eve blames the snake, Adam blames Eve. Instead of self-giving love they engage in self-preservation and self-interest. Next, a hierarchy emerges—the woman will be tasked with pain in childbirth and the man will “rule” over her. A lot of Christians think that male domination was God’s intent, but here we recognize that it is the family of the Fall. Instead of giving themselves to one another, the humans would learn to use each other for their own gratification. Sex, out of God’s created context, would now be potentially problematic. It’s little wonder, then, that humanity drifted toward worshipping sex as something that we do with our bodies apart from our souls. We’ve been like this from nearly the beginning.

The Asherah Poles and objects of sexual worship may be more sophisticated than they were in biblical times, but they are no less prevalent. We’re still very focused on bodies. We live in what author Pamela Paul calls a “pornified” world — a culture where sexy images and titillating talk dominate the landscape from TV to the Internet to billboards to the magazine rack at the Gas & Sip. Everywhere we turn we are confronted with someone’s body parts (often surgically enhanced) in full view for our inspection and entertainment. Sex is a product that sells and sex products sell just as well.

How pervasive is pornography in our culture? Says Paul: “Imagine if Starbucks offered a shot of alcohol with your morning coffee. Then there was beer in the office and at lunchtime we all automatically ordered a bottle of wine rather than sparkling water. If alcohol were that available we’d all start drinking more and any stigma would gradually disappear. And that’s how things are developing with porn.”

Just a note here—I’m using the word “porn” in the broadest sense of the word. The word actually appears in the Bible—it’s the Greek word porneia, which is often translated “fornication” in the King James Bible, but its meaning really encompasses any sexual activity or expression outside the marriage covenant. Using that definition, we begin to see how prevalent porneia is in our culture at large, not just on web sites and seedy video stores. A pornified view of sexuality sees people as mere bodies and love as a naked contact sport where the winner receives a pleasurable prize.

Interesting statistic: revenue from various forms of media pornography totals $10-12 billion in this country every year. That’s more than the revenue of professional football, baseball, and basketball teams combined. Sexual addiction is on the rise and affects just about every part of society and, increasingly, both men and women. The effects can be devastating in terms of broken relationships, shattered families, and distorted views of humanity. Truth is that many, if not most of us, in this room have had to deal with the affects of a pornified culture in very personal ways.

Advocates for the porn industry and even those who put sex in the forefront of prime time TV say that all this is simply harmless, healthy fun. We said last week that God’s gift of sexuality is just that, a gift—something to be enjoyed. But these media moguls are promoting a dangerous half-truth. What we do with our bodies affects our spirits and when we separate sex from the deep intimacy of committed relationships we, like Adam and Eve, suffer the consequences.

Jesus understood this very clearly and warned his disciples about it in the Sermon on the Mount. The Old Testament Law about adultery was very clear—sex outside the marriage covenant was (and is) a sin against God’s created order. Violate that covenant and you pay a steep price, not only spiritually but also in terms of brokenness of families and relationships. But Jesus takes the prohibition against adultery even further, saying that just looking at the spouse of another person with lust is the same as committing adultery with her or him. But notice the location of the lust—in the heart. It’s not only the physical act of adultery that makes one guilty, it’s also the intention of the heart—what we do with our bodies affects our spirits!

Jesus isn’t talking here about natural sexual desire. That is, after all, part of what brings us together. But, again, that sexual desire is to be enjoyed within a covenant relationship. When we allow porneia to enter our hearts and minds, we’re moving off the road to wholeness that God has mapped out for us from the beginning.

Sexual addiction has become more and more prevalent in our culture and the easy availability of pornography, particularly the internet, has fed the problem. Part of it has to do with physiology. The physical act of orgasm releases a chemical in our brains called oxytocin, which results in a feeling of well-being, a “high” if you will. That “high” is enough to burn a pathway in our brains and creates a significant physical and spiritual bonding experience. When that bonding occurs within the context of a committed relationship, it can strengthen the relationship itself. Outside of that relationship, however, the “high” can become as addictive as alcohol or drugs. When that happens, sex becomes a way of medicating ourselves; a way of escaping or avoiding the issues going on deep inside us.

Problem is that medicated “high” wears off quickly and is replaced with a lower “low”—a feeling of guilt and disgust. It becomes a vicious cycle. Guilt creates bad feelings which addicts then medicate with the behavior that caused the guilt in the first place. When you’re feeling bad about yourself, it’s too easy to just go boot up the computer and re-medicate.

A lot of you here today, especially the men, know exactly what I’m talking about. Because we’re wired more visually, pornography can hit us where we’re most vulnerable. And because many of us have not had role models to show us that it’s okay for a man to think about and address our deepest emotional and spiritual needs, it’s too easy for us to seek a way of medicating the stress and anxiety that we feel. Some in this room are fighting a secret war within themselves today.

Sexual promiscuity has also lost its stigma in our culture. When we fail to see sex as a bonding experience and simply as recreation, we distort the gift. When I was a youth pastor I used to do an exercise where I’d draw circles on a chalkboard representing different people with whom one might have a sexual experience, then I’d take a ball of tape and stick it on each circle. Eventually, the tape wouldn’t stick anymore. When we don’t use sex within its intended boundaries, eventually we aren’t able to bond with anyone. We can become slaves to sex instead of enjoying the freedom God gives us within the boundaries of covenant.

Cohabitation—living together in a sexual relationship before marriage—has also become standard practice in our culture as people assume that it’s better to “try out” the relationship before making a commitment. The statistics, however, prove that the Bible’s prohibition of pre-marital sex is not only theologically but sociologically sound. Cohabitating couples, for example, are twice as likely to experience infidelity in the relationship, and they are 46% more likely to get a divorce if they do get married. Why is that? Well, it’s putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. Without commitment, sex is an activity, not a deep and abiding bond. Despite popular opinion, long-term, committed, married couples have the best sex lives, hands down. That shouldn’t be surprising—we were created this way!

How do we deal with all this distortion and begin to change it? Well, it begins when we name our problems with sexuality. It’s interesting that in the ancient pagan worldview of many gods, knowing and invoking the name of that god meant that you could somehow manipulate him or her. Naming the god put you in a position of power. The Hebrew God, by contrast, would not give a name—“I am who I am,” is the name God told Moses to refer to when talking about God. The one God could not be controlled like the pagan gods could. The point? When we name our idols, when we name our addictions, it is then that we begin to have power over them and it is also then that we begin to see that they have no power in comparison to the one true God, the God who created and cares for us.

Whether you’re married or single, it’s important for all of us to have someone to whom we can confess our deepest needs and fears. I have personally been blessed with good counselors and, even more so, with a wife with whom I can share the tough stuff going on within my spirit. Cultivating intimacy, openness and honesty with a significant person or people in your life is essential to our spiritual, emotional, and even sexual health. Even more than that, we must come to realize that the only one who can truly fill the deep holes we have in our spirits is God, who created us for relationship with him. When I cultivate my relationship with God, spending intentional time every day confessing my sins and hurts, learning God’s promises, and relying on God’s grace, it’s there that I find those deeper needs met.

While our culture has certainly bought into the ancient pagan worldview and largely “pornified” sex, the church has most often gone the opposite direction and prude-ified it. Separating the body from the spirit is something the church has been guilty of, too. While the culture puts too much emphasis on the body, the church has often eschewed the need for bodies and their activities in favor of a purer spiritual state. As we said last week, however, God gave us bodies and gave us sexuality—not just as a utilitarian way of procreation, but for pleasure. We need to see ourselves as God sees us—as a unified, whole person whom God created for a purpose—to love and be loved.

We were made for relationships, not for disconnection. When sex gets distorted, it becomes an isolated event instead of an integrated part of the whole human experience. God created sex to be enjoyed within the context of relationship and community. What we have to remember when we talk about sex is that our cultural fixation on privacy is not a biblical value—community is. What we do with our bodies affects our spirits, and what we do as persons affects our communities. I like how Lauren Winner puts this in her book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity: “Sex is communal because it is real. Sex has consequences. Sex is dangerous and delightful and tempestuous and elemental, and it matters. What we do with our bodies, what we do sexually, shapes who we are. If we believe that sex forms us, then it goes without saying that it is public business, because how we build the persons we are—persons who are social and communal and political and economic beings—is itself a matter of concern.”

When sex gets distorted, it affects all of us. I’ve met with many people who have felt the betrayal of adultery. On TV and in the movies, adultery is inconsequential. In real life, it is devastating. When people will risk the destruction of an entire family system or their career just to experience an orgasm, we have a community problem. When people spend hours using exploitive sexual imagery to get a high instead of dealing with their inner lives, we have a community problem. When our children are exposed to day after day of sexualized talk, images, and behavior everywhere they turn and no one is there to speak the truth to them about it, we have a community problem.

My friends, we need to talk about these things with each other, with our children, and especially with God. We need to be honest about our sexuality and perceptive about the ways in which God’s good gift has been distorted. We need less discussion about sexual technique and more discussion about sexual theology. It’s not about how long we can make love every night, but about making true love last a lifetime.

Next week we’ll talk about how we can be healed from the shame that often accompanies distorted sexual experiences. There is a way to mend our brokenness and enjoy the health and wholeness God intends for us. In the meantime, I urge you this week to have some good, open, and honest conversations in your house. Maybe you have some questions to ask, maybe you have a confession to make, maybe you need some extra time working on your primary relationships.

Sex need not be pornified or prude-ified. Instead, may it be purified when we enjoy it as God intended.

Sources: Paul, Pamela. Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. New York: Times Books, 2005

Winner, Lauren, Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005, p. 50.

Comments

[Luke]

I just picked up Pornified and I am looking forward to reading it. Thanks for your article!

Have you ever heard of accountability software? Accountability software is specifically for adults who want to guard where they go online without any blocking or filtering. Combined with filtering, it's a great Internet safety solution for the whole family. If you want more info about it check out my post "Breaking the Lure of Internet Porn" - http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/07/11/breaking-the-lure-of-internet-porn/