I received this irate letter from a young person in response to last week’s column: “Dr. Dixie, I’m healthy, just out of college, newly employed and self-supporting. I like sex! I’m tired of religious “dinosaurs” like you trying to make me feel guilty. It’s time for you to come out of the dark ages and realize you can’t make us hate sex. Give it up!”
My response: Of course you like sex! Not liking it would contradict your God-given design. Enjoying sex is not the problem; what has become so abnormal and destructive is the cultural push to awaken children to sex long before the development of emotional maturity necessary to fully enjoy God’s design for a sexual relationship.
Because children, teens and uncommitted young adults, including you, are not prepared for the built-in emotional involvement of the physical sex act, the focus tends to be on immediate, selfish physical pleasure, rather than the lifelong, unselfish commitment that’s needed.
I’m sure you’ve heard warnings about the obvious risks of promiscuity: namely, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. But justifiable fear of the risks has been almost obliterated by the determined, intentional promotion of the “safe-sex” myth.
However, even if we could guarantee no disease or pregnancy, there is so much more to the downside of young, uncommitted sex.
One recent study of sexually active adolescents proves sexual activity has consequences beyond the physical; showing that both boys and girls who have early sex are three times more likely to be depressed than their friends who are still virgins. The study accounted for other factors in the lives of young people, ensuring an accurate comparison with their peers. Sexually active girls were three times more likely to attempt suicide as their virgin friends, while the sexually active boys were seven times more likely to have attempted suicide. (Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children; page 20) You are far more than a highly developed animal in a physical body driven by allegedly “uncontrollable” desires. The eternal reality is that you are an intelligent being designed and created in the image of God; vastly different and far above animals. Not believing this fact doesn’t make it untrue.
Created in God’s image, you have been given the ability for cognitive thought, including judgment, abstract thinking, future planning and moral intelligence. This decision-making ability can guide you to a lifelong, deeply rewarding sexual commitment, unless premature sexual behavior has occurred in adolescence, causing the brain formation for healthy decision making to be damaged. (The Primal Teen; Peter Benson pp 34-35) Every time you have sexual intercourse or intimate physical contact that normally leads to intercourse, permanent emotional bonding takes place—even in a “one-night-stand.” Because we’re designed to be committed to a sexual relationship for life, promiscuity causes enormous confusion andpainthatcannotbehealedwithmoresex. However, because our culture insists that “getting on with your life” means finding someone new, most quickly enter into another affair, starting sexually where they ended with the former partner. In each new relationship, the time is shorter before sexual activity begins with the “new” partner, making no allowance for the emotional damage from each relationship to heal.
If you continue to think of sex as only a physical act to be indulged whenever you want and believe that your human purpose is limited to satisfying appetites, you’ll wrongly assume you can sever the physical sex act from the rest of your human design. The built-in negative consequences of broken relationships, depression and anxiety become a guaranteed part of your future.
Next week: Healing sexual hurt. Infinite Grace Ministries provides Biblical Guidance to those who have been hurt by sexual misuse and abuse.
