Our theme for the month of June is “sex and the church.” To read posts from our first pass at this theme, check out our June 2018 archives.
(Title borrowed from a great Joy Williams song)
Wow, this is a broad topic. Maybe that’s somewhat obvious, but I think it explains part of the reason that our churches so often handle the topic of sex badly. If we’re going to talk about sex, we also need to talk about love and relationships and body image and lust and gender roles and biology and culture and self control and shame and assault and sin and creation. It’s difficult to handle any one of these with nuance and clarity, let alone all of them and their interactions with each other.
That’s not an excuse to skip this topic. The fact that sex touches on so many other pieces of human experience means that it’s extremely important to talk about and talk about well. I’m just saying that it makes sense that it’s hard.
It’s something that involves the most vulnerable parts of ourselves—our bodies, yes, but also our desires and fears. It’s the thing that’s so shameful we’re embarrassed to admit we feel shame about it. I’m imagining bringing up something sex-related after any number of Bible studies I’ve been a part of:
The leader, soft-spoken and wearing a shawl: “What prayer requests do we have?”
Person to my left after a polite pause: “I’m really struggling to be patient with my roommate.”
Sympathetic nods and mmhmms from around the circle.
Me after too long of a pause: “I’ve been really horny lately.”
A plate shatters. Cheeks flush. We sit in a dense, dense silence. I take a sip of room-temperature tea.
Can you imagine?? I’m sure some people have places where they can do that, but it’s not been the norm for me.
There’s an important theme lying beneath this topic that gets mishandled by Christians: how do we think about desire in general? Explicitly or implicitly, I was taught that you should be wary of any desire that’s too strong. If you want success or money (or a boyfriend) too much, you probably need to get your priorities in a more spiritual order.
This merged with the general cultural message that lauded independence: you are preparing yourself to venture forth into the world, alone, but instead of feeling weak and lonely without any relational support structure you will feel FREE and STRONG. To want to not be alone…means you’re needy…and not the confident, world-conquering woman that you thought you were.
I learned that it wasn’t okay to want things. God gives us what we need, so if he’s not given us something, then we should learn to be content with our circumstances. If I don’t pursue the things I really want, then I must be making sacrifices that are pleasing to God. But that leaves us only feeling content if we’re discontent. If I’m miserable that means I must be doing something right.
But what about desires that are godly? The ones that God put in us before sin entered the picture, that are a reflection of who made us—relational, creative, just, loving? God said it’s not good for us to be alone. Therefore when I want to not be alone, that’s a godly desire. I absolutely believe there is a time for denying yourself things—and plenty of desires aren’t godly. But I don’t think it’s helpful to pretend you don’t want the thing you desire, even though it feels easier to ignore it, it’s still there on the surface, raw and screaming. If something is good, it’s good and if something is bad, God wants to redeem it—pretending something doesn’t exist won’t bear any fruit.
Where does this leave us? Whether it’s for sex or children or justice, how do we live with desires? How do we juggle “the heart is deceitful above all things” with “he will give you the desires of your heart?” How do I know if I’m wanting a good thing or if my desire is twisted by the Fall? There’s lots of theology there that I don’t have the expertise to dig into, but I can say that living it is confusing and exhausting.
And then we introduce the Church into the mix, with its trademark graciousness, unity, and tact (*cough*). I’m not even going to dip my toe into the waters of what Christians should believe and teach about when and why to have sex, but whatever conclusions we reach, this has to be a place where the messiness, pain, and beauty of being a human is acknowledged reality. It’s an area where we feel embarrassment and shame and thus embarrass and shame others. What if the first place kids felt shame was also the first place they truly experienced grace?
I realize I’m not offering any solutions (nor even adequately articulating the problem). It’s way too simplistic to say, “We just need to talk about it more,” because often when we talk about sex in church we do more harm than good, and as is exposed over and over, there are people in authority in churches who should not be the authority on a righteous sexual ethic.
I’m probably not going to bring up sex or its related desires in my next prayer request circle, but maybe someday. It’s a start to remember that God is not embarrassed by sex and it’s not unrighteous or weird to feel needy. I still might not know what to do about the gap between my desires and my reality, but I can at least complain to God honestly.
Christina Ribbens (’19) graduated with a major in history and minors in studio art and data science. After working in campus ministry for a few years, she’s getting her master’s in public humanities at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She has a benevolent dependency on tea, is always down for a game of pick-up basketball, and would love to have you over for pancakes sometime.
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Yes! I really appreciate your point that “just talk about sex more!” is not the solution we think it is. No amount of theologizing can turn us into self-sufficient little human-bots free from vulnerability and fragility. And that’s a good thing.
This is so well articulated. Gracious and incisive, funny and relatable. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!