What I didn't know I had wrong about sex
There’s a line in the movie “French Kiss”… a rude desk clerk at a fancy hotel tells Kate that Americans are a “nation of puritanical hypocrites.”
It’s funny because it’s true. We’re obsessed with sex… and simultaneously really prudish about it. And by “we,” I mean the prevailing culture, the one that makes you feel cheated if the hero and heroine don’t end up in bed together (even when you know they have no business being there—gah! they barely know each other!). Where women’s breasts are fair game but men’s genitals are not. Where sex is so pervasive in ads and entertainment, surely no one can deny that women have been made into objects to use, rather than people of value.
You might think I’m getting ready to bash secular culture, but I’m not. Christian culture has plenty of its own hangups & dysfunctions, not to mention violations of human dignity, surrounding sex.
I still struggle sometimes to grasp just how different my outlook on sex is from the cultural norm. Once, my critique group was discussing something in that realm. I don’t even remember what it was, only that the discussion led someplace that made me shake my head and say, “I’m SO grateful I’ve only ever had one sex partner.”
Which resulted in a brief, slightly shell-shocked, silence. Ha! TMI, I suppose. As an NFP teacher/promoter, I’ve always said there was no such thing, but maybe I’m wrong. (Say it ain’t so!)
Anyway. I’ve always had this idea that acceptance of sexual promiscuity was a relatively new thing. Yes, there were always men going to brothels, having affairs, etc., but it was always an aberration, something scandalous and immoral. Always.
Except that’s not true.
I spent December reading a book that rocked my world. I’ve struggled with Paul for a long time. For a start, the man desperately needed an editor; who can follow all those 75-word sentences? But this book made even that make more sense. He was speaking aloud and someone was transcribing; of course it reads like stream of consciousness.
N. T. Wright’s biography of St. Paul required me to go all in, mentally, but from page one I knew it would be worth it. Over the coming weeks… and probably months and years… I will break open more of what I learned, but today I want to focus on one piece of cultural context that had never occurred to me.
According to Wright, the polytheism of the entire ancient world was saturated with sexual immorality, and EVERYONE was expected to participate. In fact, in the eyes of pagan historians, what distinguished Jews, and then Christians, from everyone else was their insistence on sexual purity… because every other part of the culture took promiscuity for granted.
This mattered because the Jewish people had petitioned for an exception to Roman law. Rather than pray TO the emperor, they were allowed to pray FOR him. They didn’t have to participate in the pagan (sex-drenched) festivals.
And so when Gentile Christians, not circumcised, not following the Law, start opting out, it’s a big deal. The Jews had an exception. If, suddenly, anybody thinks they can opt out just because they conveniently picked up a new belief system… well, the whole system is in danger. Which means the authorities might crack down on Jews, too.
Of course the Jewish Christians wanted Gentile Christians to become Jews!
This sheds so much light on the early Church controversies. But it was that piece about the pervasiveness of sexual promiscuity that rocked my world.
See, I’ve always feared the world is on the decline, an era of disintegrating morality, based on the increasing acceptance and inevitability of sexual freedom. I suspect I’m echoing a lot of Christians in this perception.
What reading this book made me realize is that the Judeo-Christian view of sex has ALWAYS been outside the norm.
For me, this eases a ton of pressure. I’ve felt a great need to save the world from its rapid decay, as if this is some new threat since the sexual revolution. But it isn’t. This is standard operating procedure for fallen humanity.
I’ve always known this on some level. The world view that looks longingly back to some nonspecific point in time where families were intact and healthy and everyone went to church… that world view ignores a lot of inconvenient realities. Domestic abuse that was hushed up, women told to stay with abusive husbands. Boys molested in private spaces by men who were supposed to be their shepherds. Affairs and mistresses. Girls sent to “the country” to hide out-of-wedlock pregnancies. To step outside the realm of sex, as a reminder that Christian living is not limited to this one area: how about Mass-attending mobsters for whom robbery and killing fills the 167 hours of the week they’re not in church?
The times we look back on so fondly weren’t largely free of immorality; the difference today is we’re more honest about habits and choices that contradict the Gospel. If that hallowed society of high morals ever existed (which I doubt), it was the aberration in history.
You may think that sounds depressing, but I actually find it liberating. It eases the pressure on me— on all of us, frankly— to try to “fix” the culture before some dreaded apocalypse happens that we could/should have prevented. I don’t have to live in fear of being called on the carpet at the end of days because I didn’t do enough to pass X law or extinguish X cultural influence.
Jesus calls us to leaven the culture, to show a better way, a healthier way. But in this, as in all things, we are always going to stand OUTSIDE the culture. It’s our contrast to the culture that enables conversion.
I like this insight, because it makes me realize that simply living the Christian life is the most important thing. We are never going to convert the culture by law or by finger wagging or by general condemnation (AKA “canceling”).
And in fact, if we hope to inspire conversion in others, our vision has to be way bigger than how we view sex. Living the Christian life in joy is a holistic thing. It’s about sex, yes, but not JUST about sex. It’s about simple living rather than opulence, servanthood over power-seeking, integrity over self-aggrandizement, etc., etc.
Living the whole works with joy, without resentment— That’s how we leaven the culture. When people see us and think, “I want what she has,” that’s when conversion happens.
I think that’s liberating. Don’t you?