Six on Sex 5: Addition or Multiplication

The nun was pushing a baby in a buggy.
Alison and I went for a walk in Golden Acre Park yesterday. Coming toward us was a nun pushing a baby along in a buggy and walking beside the mother. I didn’t know them but I wondered… quite possibly all three were single. One from choice, one because she was only 12 months old, one because maybe the father had left. But then again; they weren’t single. They were together, connected, in deep relationship. Mother, daughter, friend/counsellor/confidant. You could see deep intimacy and yet the only sex on show was maybe in the tainted memory of a failed relationship.

Physical sex is appropriate only in marriage. But, connectedness – genuine concern for each other, serving one another, communicating our inner self with each other – is possible in all relationships. It is because we have such a twisted view of intimacy that we think that it is exclusively tied to sex. “Being intimate” is a euphemism for having sex, even though the two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. There is a lot of sex in a brothel but not much intimacy or connectedness between people. There is a difference between sexuality as connectedness, and physical sex.

7 False stereotypes about being single

First, it is worth dealing with 7 false stereotypes about being single in this community:

1. You are in a transition state – no, being single is being you and that is great
2. You are half person – no, you are a whole person
3. You can’t contribute – yes you can, you have much to offer
4. You can’t be a leader – yes you can, leadership is not restricted to couples
5. Singleness is a disqualification from life in this community – wrong, you are welcome
6. Your value is only in having children – no, you are valued for who you are
7. You must be asexual – no, you are definitely sexual

But can we be single and sexual if we don’t have physical sex? Perhaps we fear being single so much because we have confused sex with finding relationship and meaning. The problem is that the world’s megaphone shouts, “You have to have sex! There is nothing else!”

Shirley’s story

Shirley was our guest at a dinner some time ago. Another married male guest, a senior consultant at the hospital, was sitting next to Shirley. At one point the conversation went something like this:

Guest: So where is your husband?
Shirley: I am not married.
Guest: OK, where is the man in your life?
Shirley: I don’t have a partner.
Guest: Are you a lesbian then?
Shirley: No I am not.
Guest: What do you do for sex then?

For the next two talks I want to shift away from thinking about what makes good sex to thinking about the place of sex in our lives. This week, for the single person facing up to the issue of life without physical sex (for a while or forever).

6 lies about sex

Sex is given an overvalued currency because of the following lies:

1. Sex is a personal right
2. Sex is a mark of freedom
3. Sex is the ultimate fulfilment
4. Sex is the chief way to find pleasure
5. Sex is a way of validating and affirming myself
6. Sex is the most important marker of intimacy with someone

None of these have anything to do with sex. In fact part of having good sex is to understand that sex isn’t the most important thing in our relationships and our lives.

Paul, one of the very earliest, and most important, theologians in the Christian church, wrote a letter to the Christian community in Corinth, where he addressed singleness and marriage.

1 Corinthians 7

Paul makes the following two points:

1. It is good to be married and has many advantages: It can provide companionship and provides the possibility of children. It provides a safe place for sexual expression. It comes with major responsibilities and lifetime commitments (next week’s talk).

2. It is good to be single and has many advantages: the two dominant characters of the New Testament story, Jesus and Paul, were of course both single. Neither could have changed the world the way they did if they had been married. Modern equivalents are Mother Theresa and John Stott.

However, our culture’s preoccupation with meaningless and low-grade sex makes being single particularly challenging for people who are committed to keeping sex within marriage, knowing that sex in that context is how it is meant to be and how it can be good, and knowing that sex in any other context is at best something to regret and at worst deeply and possibly permanently damaging.

Multiplication or Addition + or X

Let me explain the title of the talk at this point. I don’t like the phrase, “my better half” or even, “my other half”. The point is, you are not a half person. Neither is anyone else. It may seem that I am playing word games but I think the use of this phrase hides a major falsehood in how we think of ourselves and each other.

The lies about the incomplete person:

Lie no 1:
"You are not whole until you have found someone else."

That is so demeaning to the human being. And it is also wrong.

David, probably the greatest king of Israel, sang in one of his praise songs to God:

Psalm 139
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God created you to be you. Special, individual, unique. He loves you as you are. Just as we say to the children – as Maggie and Alison taught us last week. The issue of secure identity as a man or woman carries on into adulthood. You are whole when you know the love of your creator and saviour.

Rob Bell, in the book "Sex God", talks about sex as being an awareness of being separated from others and from God and being a mechanism by which we get re-connected. The essence of the word is secare (Latin) – to separate or cut off. Sex identifies that we are separate, individuals with our own identity. It is also the means by which we reconnect.

Which is what makes the five loves so important (romance, security, companionship, unconditional love and sexual love). And it follows that what we search for is to be connected – for my individual person to be connected with my creator and the others He has created.

Many whole people relating together and getting deeply connected is thus, in a way, sexual. Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other and with God.

Some people who seem really connected, in tune with themselves and God and others are committed to staying single. They forego physical sex but are amazingly connected in every other way.

Lie no: 2

"There is only one person out there with whom I can be happy. If I don’t find that one perfect partner I am doomed to eternal pain and suffering."

But there is no perfect partner – the one with just the right look, personality and bank balance. But there may be someone to whom you can commit yourself sacrificially, unconditionally, for life. And of course you can fancy them!

You can take a risk and create a marriage relationship in which physical sex can be a wonderful and legitimate overflow. The “one true love” myth pedalled by Hollywood and Mills and Boon is as dangerous as the myth of the sexually adventurous and available woman or man on the webcam or porn mag.

Rob Bell
Sex is not the search for something that is missing; it is the expression of something that has been found.

Lie no 3:

"The husband or wife is dependent on the other for their identity."

I love seeing healthy, mutually supportive marriages where each partner, whilst knowing the other really well, warts and all, still loves and cherishes the other.
But sometimes you can see a marriage where one or other gets their worth and identity not from God, not from each other but from the fact that they are a wife or husband. They become half a person because they lose their individuality, uniqueness, separation in a mush of co-dependency.

Gen 2:18
The Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.

The woman was not created to complete the man but to help him. This is not a hierarchy by the way – it works both ways. He is there to help her too.

Neither does it imply physical sex, yet – that comes later, after relationship becomes marriage. “Woman and man together” is an image of God and refer to our communal relationships as much as it does to our marriage relationship.

Naturally, over the course of years, a married couple may become very close and certainly interdependent. They find it most difficult when one loses the other. But their value and identity lies not in their marital status but in their being a unique creation of the God who loves them.

So addition is not the appropriate mathematical device – it is multiplication. It isn’t half plus a half to make a whole. It is a whole, multiplied by a whole, to make another whole marriage.

Getting back to sex: there are a wide range of experiences represented here today. Some have already made mistakes and we talked about that a couple of weeks ago. There is grace and forgiveness for the things we have got wrong. God is indeed the great healer and we can go to him with our confession and receive mercy.

Invitation to single people – Keep your sex life good

Notwithstanding that I want to speak briefly to those of you who are single about your sex lives:

1. Enjoy your sexuality. Find your identity in your relationship with the loving God who created you male or female. God made you a man or a woman and that is great. Learn to love what he has made you and share it with others generously – without sharing physical sex. Men, affirm the femininity of women. Women, affirm the masculinity of men.

2. Stay pure when it comes to the physical act of sex. As we have tried to demonstrate over these talks, your loving Father, the God who created you and knows you, also created sex. But he created it in such a way that it can be a wonderful thing in the right context – whereas in the wrong context it is worse than abstinence. So my encouragement to you is to stay pure. If you don’t marry (or re-marry) it will provide you with a history free of sexual regrets and baggage. If you marry it means you can offer something unique and utterly special to the one to whom you commit your life.

3. Stay pure in your mind too. If you are not in a relationship, develop personal disciplines that keep your eyes and your minds away from seeing others as sex objects (as mentioned in the previous talk). This has an extra dimension for those who are single again – controlling your thought life. Know where your weaknesses are and deal with them. Stay accountable. Stay pure in your mind as well as your body.

4. Seek your fulfilment in knowing God - not in the lifelong companionship of another person. Whilst you may be seeking a husband or wife avoid thinking of your life as incomplete – in a state of transition.

5. If you are in a relationship: stay away from the edge of the cliff. As soon as a relationship develops something happens with our bodies and we become less and less able to judge what is right or wrong. The physical side becomes confused with trying to please and the fear of losing acceptance - never mind the desire itself. In particular, the sex drive for a man is quick to be aroused and very difficult to stop.

Song of Solomon 2:7
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

Make a pre-meditated principled decision. I.e. decide beforehand what is and what isn’t appropriate so that you are not trying to decide in the heat of the moment. Don’t walk close to the edge of the cliff – it is too dangerous – stand well back.

6. Prepare. If you are planning to get married, make sure you do some form of marriage preparation (we can help). That must include a robust discussion about sex – your expectations, experiences, family history etc.

7. Seek your satisfaction in knowing Him, your creator and the lover of your soul – not from having sex. There is no secret enlightenment in sex. It is not the highest human act, not the ultimate fulfilment. Not some semi-mystical experience.

Apologies and thanks

I want to take this opportunity to say sorry. On behalf of this community and indeed all church communities. I am sorry where those of us who are married have undervalued those who are single. Where, deliberately or not we have caused hurt through assumptions and insensitivity. Please forgive us.

And thank you for all you bring: you, your time and energy, your money. Whatever you have available and which you share with this community

Invitation to married people – affirming those who are single

How can we affirm and build relationship with each other? How can we support single people who may not be seeking a marriage relationship and also those who are? Those who have committed to a life without physical sex until they are ready to make that heavyweight commitment to another person for life. How can we support them?

We commit to the following as a comunity of faith:

1. We will get to know you;
2. We will include you within our marriages and families and housegroups as whole people;
3. We will offer advice – but only if you ask for it;
4. Talk about us - We will try not to go on about our romances and our children too much, and only when you invite us to;
5. We will support you through tough times;
6. We will pray (either secretly or we will ask first – we won’t just announce it).

David Flowers, 09/11/2008

Tags: relationships topic, sex, sex topic, single