When sex becomes your god

I imagine this page is going to be pretty unpopular. It will probably get the most hits and yet be the least liked of all the pages in this site. It may even offend some people. But it reflects the viewpoint of a growing number of Christian GLBT people.

Let's face it. Sex sells. You see it in advertisements for anything from perfumes to pagers, cars to cottage cheese! You'd be hard pressed to name a movie that wasn't put out by Disney, in which the main characters aren't doing it within 5 minutes (or a couple of days, at best) of first seeing each other! And the common tragic consequences such as deeply hurt feelings from being used, a loss of any kind of special meaning for sex, sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS, and unwanted pregnancies (often leading to a heartbreaking decision between abortion of the baby, adoption, or a child with no mother or no father around), somehow never surface anywhere in these films. Everyone in this entertainment industry's fantasy world is shown getting "free love," with no price to pay, ever. Why? Not because it's the truth. It's because that's what sells! The fact that there is high demand for quick, meaningless gratification is evidenced in all the "hot chat" rooms and 1-900 numbers, porn websites/magazines/movies, swingers' groups and bath houses that exist to cater to the public's desires.

Instant pleasure, no commitments. It is widespread in the straight community, but it unfortunately seems to be even more so sometimes in the GLBT community. We have been demonized and taught for so long that we are perverts, maybe some part of us begins to believe it and act the part. Granted, we are each responsible for our own decisions. But it certainly doesn't help that most of us grow up with our churches, families, friends and neighbors talking and preaching about "those people," depicted as "faggots," "dykes," "sick perverts," "predators," "abominations," "child molesters" and "a waste," and somewhere along the way silently realize that we are in fact whom they're talking about! Of course they assume that we are heterosexual also, never dreaming that the person they're talking to might happen to be one of those people, never knowing the brutal spiritual and emotional beating they've just inflicted upon us. At this point we certainly aren't about to enlighten them, either, since we already know the type of response that would elicit.

In addition to this, some apparently well-meaning "Christians" expend large amounts of energy preaching that "the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin," and dedicating their time to "converting" gay people to heterosexuality. We may be tempted to reject not only their homophobic statements (as we certainly should), but also any other message Christianity represents, thus throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Whatever the reasons, I am here to say that seeking this "free love" kind of sex is just flat out wrong. Treating anyone like an object for one's own gratification is wrong. This applies to sex as well as other forms of using people, such as milking them for freebies or sponging off of them instead of working a job or doing our part when we are perfectly capable of doing so. It's one thing if we are confined to a hospital bed and really do need others' help, or have been laid off work and just need some assistance until we find another job, for instance. And it's a beautiful thing when people who care about each other help each other out when they're in a jam. But we have no excuse for just using other people for their time, effort, money, skills, or any other thing they can give us. This includes sex. Furthermore, it doesn't matter whether it happens to be heterosexual or homosexual sex. Using people, regardless of gender, is still using people.

What Sex IS and Is NOT

Sex is a relatively small part of the human experience compared to our relationship to the Lord; spiritual, mental and emotional growth; witnessing and ministry; learning to consistently treat ourselves and others with respect and love; as well as more earthly things such as building a career, fixing meals, or paying the bills on time. Sex is not something to be pursued in and of itself. It is not something we should expend time and energy to attain. To do this is to commit idolatry, since we are making sex our god!

Idolatry is not just creating graven images or a golden calf. It includes anything that we put our trust, hope, and joy in instead of God. Our god can be career, our lover, money, drugs, our physical fitness, our parents, or sex. What happens if we are laid off, our lover leaves us, we go bankrupt, we can't get our fix, we are injured and can't work out any more, our family rejects us, and no one wants to have sex with us? If we are rooted in the real God, we aren't stuck on these things. We don't need them so badly that to lose them is to lose our will to live. We may really want them, and it may seem very difficult for us to do without them, but our faith in God keeps us going because we know He is a waymaker. We know that even if the door slams shut in our faces, He will open another one we didn't even know existed.

If God is our god, we know that He will never lay us off; He'll never leave us; we can never go bankrupt of His love; our fix is His loving presence in our lives which is never out of reach; stretching ourselves to always get closer to Him is the only truly important workout; He is the perfect loving family Who never rejects us; and that He pours blessings down on his followers until our cups overflow, far outweighing the short-lived pleasures of "getting our rocks off."

Seem lofty? It is, and with good reason. It may even sound like I'm not in touch with "the real world." It's true; I'm not. I've tried living life in "the real world," living by worldly "reality." I've made plenty of mistakes trying to make it make some kind of sense. It doesn't. But I am more in touch with reality now that I've come to the Lord than I've ever been, by a long shot. Reality is, if you don't have God, you don't have squat. No one else will save you. Nothing else in the world will make you happy for long. Worldly pleasures won't satisfy the hunger in your soul. There will always be something missing. Worldly things are hit-and-miss at best; disaster can strike at any time, and it's all gone. If you've been relying on them instead of God, what do you do when it all slips through your fingers? You have to look higher than that for true fulfillment. It's this type of thinking that makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between Heavenly thinking and worldly thinking. That is why Jesus said:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  ~ Matthew 6:19-21

Sex is meant to be part of a loving relationship between two people who have a lifelong commitment to each other. It is meant to be set aside only for the person we commit to for life. In this way it becomes precious and sacred, a special part of ourselves that we share with only one person in the whole world, the one we love enough to spend an entire lifetime with. Any animal can have sex. Dogs hunt for other dogs, mount each other, and then as soon as they are done they go looking for more. We are so much better than that! What makes us unique as humans is that we have the ability to elevate it to a loving act of sharing, baring the deepest part of our hearts, our selves to the one we love. It is no longer a desperate, depraved quest to satisfy animalistic urges with anyone who will cooperate, but something to be celebrated as a healthy, caring, and lasting expression of love. Sexual desire, if expressed properly, is a joy and a blessing to the heart, soul, spirit, and mind. This is what God intended for us. It's such a shame that we have often elevated it to a level above the One who created it in the first place.

Loveless, no-strings sex leaves a trail of emotional turmoil, pain, disease, spiritual and even physical death. Sex without love and commitment is like an apple pie without the apples: an empty shell that may seem pretty good when you try it, but it's very much missing the most important ingredients.