The Internal Sex Script

loves labours lost

Is really there anything as powerful as the sensual when it comes to getting our attention? Aside lies and propaganda, sexual images seem to do really well as click bait. I am yet to know how far ladies go down this road, but most men are almost helpless when a naked woman's image is strategically placed before them. Once in a while, we'll look away, but most times, curiosity, and that voyeuristic urge that is the master of so many men, does the bidding, and it feels impossible to say no. For one thing, I have enjoyed a number of great shows in my opinion, but it's difficult to speak of them without a sense of shame when you remember all that was packed in there. The intense portrayals of sex in such otherwise amazing and great works of art often leaves one, if they are a Christian still keen on the health of their souls, in some bit of despair. We then would be in agreement that in such circumstances, the child must go out with its birth-water.

That might probably be a little towards the extreme end. When we ratchet it down a bit and consider the beautiful love stories we stumble upon as we stare at our screens or pore over pages of our romantic comedy novels, suddenly we realize a yearning awakened in us, and we imagine what it would feel like to fall in love in that same way, desperately craving for the high that promise to come with it.

Sadly, however, while we watch, and read, all this, our internal love script gets slowly but successfully rewritten so that it corroborates with what we have given our time to witness, and even if unconsciously, appreciate. Pornography has a lot to offer us, in terms of how sex can be done, in terms of all the variations and styles we could employ, but do our minds ever recover from what we get to see. Maybe after much intention and discipline, the addiction may stop, but afterwards don't we end up developing an indelible list of expectations about how things are done so that when we finally do have someone in our lives, we get frustrated at their being unable to deliver what we desperately long to have? As it is, we have known so much to be at peace with so little. Such frustration is never because the match is a wrong one, only that our minds have been altered to expect pleasure and fulfillment to come in a certain way.

It's a bit remarkable how media, or even literature at times, quickly erases the difficult and slow parts that in reality are requisite if in the end, a couple is ever to build a truly enamoring love story together. We are always drawn to results, because they are much more easily summarized and understood; if a relationship fails, it was never meant to work; if it does work, it was just the perfect match from the start. At medical school christian union, we frequently have the privilege of listening to couples' stories, yet beautiful as they are, I am always afraid that too often they only end up painting a grotesquely incomplete picture of what romance really is. Very quickly and aptly people romanticize and brush over the frustrations and disappointments, mentioning very little indeed about how they almost broke up, how for a whole year there was a going back and forth. We hear nothing of all the fights they had, and the counselling sessions they ended up attending.

I confess that such an analysis of circumstances I know very little of, probably stems from my pessimistic tendencies and inclinations. Yet, I also like to believe that being pragmatic to such a degree as to confront the reality of many relationships doesn't have to be equated with pessimism. Soulmates, automatic falling in love, happily ever afters, those things work well for shows and movies. In real life it isn't all so glamorous, the sinners— and imbeciles?— that we are, we too often hurt and disappoint one another, even people we sincerely adore. As it has been said, marriage is two sinners saying yes to one another, and if things do work out between them, it's because there's much grace given, and much work that's being done. Things never just work, they are always made to.

Sex as the world understands it

The world is always making promises it is unable to keep; it's how sin works. Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst, said Buechner. Just like our Saviour, we are promised the whole world, only that in the end, a six-foot deep grave fits us so well. And given that we never learn our lessons, the world will not stop its publicizing. I am not so good with history, and I might be making one more assumption in thinking that this might be among the most hypersexualized times of our lives. After all, don't we read how in times past God burnt up a whole city to ashes on account of their wickedness? Sexual wickedness.

Granted, in times such as these, if not flagrant, there is always some tacit admittance of sex that even among people who profess salvation, is usually nicely wrapped up in some jesting or sarcastic comment. Otherwise, Paul might not have had to say: let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:4) But mine isn't to play the self-conceited, self-acclaimed puritan pointing out fellow believers for their sin and warning them of hell. God knows how much my heart would condemn me as I am not entirely guiltless as to do with this worrying perversion that now has the Church in its grasp.

The world unceasingly reminds us how we could experience things in a better way: more, more, higher, better, deeper— be it in advertisements, or some campaigns and appeals on self-love and about how we deserve better. With nearly all things now commodified, women, especially, have been objectified so that many a relationship is held together, and its fulfillment judged, by the quality of the sex. It would be naive to feign surprise at such rampant wickedness that is now in the world. If it serves any consolation, the whole sex thing, like I have alluded to, was present during the Bible times; Sodom and Gomorrah. Now with their end known to us, we shudder to think of the terror God means to finally unleash on account of our sin.

Is any relationship ever completely tolerable? I doubt it very much. But having been fed on the blancmange that there's someone perfect out there who's just meant for us, someone who is able to love us into our nirvana, it feels like it has to be that way. And so it is that we are so quickly frustrated when our sand castle threatens to fall apart. Yet the secret is to build the castle again after it has fallen, each time doing it with stronger material, and putting ballast with it. As we try to make sense of the disappointment and hurt that romance drags with it, we just might not be wrong in thinking that just as the children of God came down to earth and got involved with the beautiful daughters of men, so also a slew of demons have come up from hell, are walking the earth in their numbers, and doing their seducing.

To Love is to be Vulnerable

My argument, which fails in so many ways, might not so much serve non-believers, but I hope everyone sees the point. For Christians who are called to walk in love, and to bear with evil, we know there's everything wrong with our current sexual landscape. Our concept of love and how marriage should work now seems eternally marred after being shaped and reshaped by a world that grows more wicked by the day. But here I am, among those who believe that we can still do it right. We can fall in love with the right people and live very great and fulfilling marriages. Only insofar as we surrender ourselves back to our God, and allow him to judge and transform our now imperfect worldviews and ideas of what love is. Ours would be to return to the ancient paths, to ask of the Lord which path we should walk, and to follow the example of Christ in the fierceness of his selfless love. It always is in the nature of true love, and the purity of it, to want to give without expecting to receive; to lay down self on another’s behalf. In the end the question becomes; how much do we love? how much are we willing to be inconvenienced by it? C.S. Lewis’s words serve us well on this account:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

— The Four Loves

While we wait, we are not called to live in caves, instead we are required to actively and fully participate in the activities of this world. As we do so, the king’s food will be offered us. Will we, like Daniel and his friends, say no and stand by our word, because with every bite we only will forget ourselves more and more, and plunge deeper and deeper into iniquity. Aren’t we already so far down this road of perversion? Haven’t we already seen so much that defiles, and dirtied by so much filth that we feel ashamed and unworthy of God? It is for such as us that Jesus came, only he can handle it, if we let him have the reins. From him we should learn what it means to love, and to forgive.

Sex is a beautiful thing, it should remain so. It isn't meant to make us ashamed, it isn't meant to make us hide. When it comes to love, sex really is beside the point. There are ways to enjoy someone's company that has nothing to do with ever having sex with them. Everything changes when we get to see things in proper perspective, that what God really is calling us to do is to love one another fervently, and he rightly gave us his example. As the enemy never will stop dangling his carrot before us, ours would be not to forget that mere satisfaction is too little a want to ask from a relationship. The luscious carrot that gets us so panting is in fact non-existent. What we need is something bigger; to be loved and treasured, and just not to be sexually satisfied. To know that someone cares for the whole of us, and that not because of the high that we make them feel. It’s time to smash those butterflies.

Finally

It's easy to think the way the world does, and like dead fish, to be carried along by the current. No, the world isn’t to tell us what we need. What’s with it creating all these urges and expectations that ruin the best of marches? Why do we soon have to be dissatisfied with our relationships because other people shout about alternatives. She truly is beautiful, but the world insists that you think otherwise. You are happy, but your friends promise you you could be happier if you had sex a certain way. It’s all just one more scenario of greener grass and the other side of the fence. Pornography, and society with its slew of romantic comedies teaches us to judge beauty only by physical features and to insist that character takes the back seat. But surely, is there really anything desirable about being married to a beautiful but narcissistic woman? A gorgeous mistake you say?

Continually, again and again, we will be made to sell our birthright for a bowl of soup, and afterwards, even if we weep more bitterly than Esau did, no respite will be offered us. While we allow the world to reward us with its pleasures, we are trading away destiny and happiness, and soon the honey in our mouths turns into gall in our stomachs. Men and their inventions have already taken us so far from God's original plan, but whatever they promise, they cannot give. While our lives are broken and destroyed, we are left longing for something that doesn’t exist. Let us allow ourselves to be taught by God. It will take intention and deliberate effort to unlearn all those things the world has taught us. So much has gone into our hearts and the springs that now gush forth are defiling and sickening. But where else are we to run to if not to the one who is love in all its perfection?

That we would know the things that make for love, and labour in those things, seeking to possess them. That love’s labours would not be lost.