Men think about sex and in sexual pictures and types a lot.
When I was young, I heard that men think about sex every seven seconds. This was somehow evil.
Now I realize God made us like that and sex is not evil. Fallen humans are evil and we need to navigate carefully and let the Spirit and the scriptures guides us but to simply try to reduce sex and sexuality without understanding it is simply does not work.
Statistics say that 80% of “Christian” men including 80% of pastors, struggle with pornography. This topic is raised at practically all men’s meetings. As an aside, is a pastor wants huge alter call he simply needs to mention pornography. Then all the men feel guilty and join the altar call, including the pastor more often that not. In all my years in ministry it has always been obvious that few pastors or leaders were whole, holy and happy in their sexuality.
So why mention this? To make the point that whatever we are doing isn’t working. We need a much better strategy.
Sex is good and fundamental to all of life and must be celebrated and understood. Young men & women must be taught how good sex is, and then the boundaries will be by the Spirit, not by the Law, and we will have a totally different experience and holiness and spirituality.
Sin (including sexual sin) must be dealt with, by the Cross & the Spirit, but sex and men’s sexuality and sexual focus is not sin, it is design.
Many years ago a famous man of God (FM J), said that he realized the church has lost the plot in talking about sex and the prophetic edge has gone to the pagan media. He mentioned something, which I, as a young man bristling with testosterone and other wonderful male hormones could not believe at the time, but I did not forget his statement. He said that a man’s sexdrive is about children and about reproduction.
Now no hot-blooded young man when he sees a nubile young woman consciously thinks about children. He thinks about sex, and maybe romance and love, but not about children. And yet! Why are the young men drawn to the beautiful women? Beauty represents healthy genes and therefore healthy children. Therefore, despite the passion and attraction of sex, the underlying force is about healthy kids. Many Christians will probably struggle with this because it sounds a bit like evolution, but make no mistake, God created sex, beauty and reproduction.
Years later, my favorite Christians psychologist, Dr. Jim Wilder, also said that in all his research he discovered that older men are extremely engaged emotionally with their children. Sadly, many males were still infants or boys when their children were born and often failed horrible as fathers, leaving malfunctioning children, but still the daddy issue is huge. Who is your daddy and who’s daddy are you?
Males who stay infants into their seventies are still self-absorbed (that is the definition of “infant”: selfish and powerless) and might not care or worry, but boys who are slowly becoming young men of early stages of being “fathers” become conflicted and remorseful about their failing as dads and try and make amends.
Men who were “fathers” (adult) when their children were born and managed by the grace of God, to make men out of their boys have a wonderful time knowing that their sons are weapons in God’s hands in this lost world.
3. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
4. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
5. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5
In our world of overpopulation and abortion, children are not valued like they were originally. A man with no sons was shamed and depressed and a woman who had borne no offspring was seen as cursed and barren. The poor in the modern world still think like this, but the rich have been so removed form the realities of life and from God’s creation that children are no longer the reason for your life and certainly not the reason for your sexuality, fun and orgasm and romance aside.
Men’s drive to move towards target markets, whether it be by ship to foreign lands or into new technology is also sexual. The penis is a type and shadow of Godly things that God put in male psyche. Women cannot begin to understand how much value men place in their penises and testicles and when they have some glimpses into male thinking and conversation they are shocked and disgusted. Men however know something very simple, “with my brain and all my skills I can create a Billion Dollars, but with my testicles I can create 1000 men”. Which is ultimately more powerful? This logic is lost on women but totally ingrained in men. Little boys value their genitals greatly, often to their mothers’ horror.
Men see target markets, pursue them, penetrate them, do their magic in them, impregnate them and then watch to see if the market is barren of fruitful. A fruitful market produces offspring, whether it be money, machines, or children, the male sex drive sits behind all the creativity, productivity and fruitfulness of the world.
Women are vital in all these ventures whether was wives or as co-workers, but the overwhelming initiative in creativity and productivity has come from men for the last ten thousand years. Feminism in the modern technological world is trying to deny this and claim oppression of women to be at the heart of everything, but that feeble argument does not explain 10 000 years, 50 odd major civilizations and hundreds of smaller ones created and driven by men.
Men move, see, hunt, penetrate, impregnate, and this is by God’s eternal design.
PS: the visual part of man brain that enjoys women’s beauty and sexual appeal is also the part that enjoys Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche. A high performance beautiful thing that a man can look at, desire, buy, own, enter, warm up, rev high and get to make the most amazing noises. You can ride it. It’s also like surfing.
Solomon unashamedly compares the Shulamite to a mare that he can ride.