YouGottaHaveFaithaFaithaFaithAh vs. Let'sTalkAboutSex,Baby: A MashUp

So, in the next few days, I want to use this space here to start unpacking this wonderful, evergrowing collection of truths I’ve been gathering up about me and men. But, before I do that, I feel like now is as good a time as any to wander off on a little tangent.

As many of you know, I grew up in the Church, like, really grew up in the Church. We’re talking a church service every Sunday, and then also Sunday School, youth group, bible study, care group, summer camp, youth conference, church retreat, mission trip- full on, head to toe, all the way! This means that my worldview, my values, my way of approaching myself, others and the world, my work ethic, my belief system- all of it- have been very heavily steeped in the evangelical subculture.

What many of you also know is that me and the Church- well- we have had a bit of a tenuous relationship for a good, long while now. I keep leaving and coming back and leaving and coming back, and my faith- while strong and solid- is also very uncomfortable; so uncomfortable, in fact, that I am even resistant, at times, to identifying myself with the label of “Christian”. If we were to sit down and really analyze the itty bitty details of what I believe, the most fitting description for my faith system would definitely be Christian. I mean, I believe in a good, kind and living God who deliberately created me, who is tangibly involved in the lives of the people He loves. I believe that we all have the capacity for wholeness if we accept the wonderful gift of God's love, and I believe that I've personally experienced the healing touch of this compassionate and gracious God. I also very much like the idea of belonging to something bigger than myself, and of living a life rooted in love.

So what’s the problem? Well, the problem is that even though my faith can very obviously be defined as Christian, I feel like I often don’t identify or agree with many of the elements of the culture of the Christian, like some of the ways of being a Christian, of living the full-on Christian life, just don’t fit me. I don’t like many of the connotations attached to adopting the label of Christian, so much so that I actually considered calling myself a monotheistic humanist instead for a while, to quite obviously separate me from the evangelical subculture, but that just seemed pretentious and silly, so now, when someone asks me what I believe, I heave a great big sigh, roll my eyes, and launch into an explanation of how, essentially, I feel most comfortable living “in the grey,” how I am resistant to this tendency of the Church to evaluate everything as right and wrong and black and white.

This discomfort I feel isn’t new. It has been present since my teenage years. I have felt for a long time like the Church makes a really big deal out of things that I just don’t think are issues we need to waste our time and energy on, and then I feel like there are these great big huge issues like social justice and stewardship and real-life practical expressions of love that the Church often completely ignores. I guess I feel like- generally- the time, energy, money and resources of the Church are often invested inappropriately and ineffectively, and I feel like certain cultural elements of the Church have taken greater priority than their original theological intent, that we have often seriously confused tradition with truth.

Now, I’m not a theologian at all, and I don’t really have any interest in debating with somebody what the original Greek text in book so-and-so says about this-and-that. My faith is largely experiential, much more experiential than it is analytical. I feel like the truth that I know, that I have experienced, in terms of my God and my faith, is very much connected to intuition and gut reactions and is an almost physical feeling. My gut is my internal barometer, so to speak, and it’s in my gut that I connect with truth, so when I hear something and it clicks, then I go with it, but when I hear something and it twists me up in a knot and makes me uncomfortable, I tend to reject it. Now, obviously, I am not the BeAllEndAll knower of what is true and right and sound, but when it comes to understanding and applying MY faith, I choose to trust a combination of my intuition, the opinions of wise and kind souls who I trust, and my own understanding of the original intent of some biblical advice. Now, I realize that might sound a bit hippy dippy or wishy washy to some people, but I don’t really care. I live from my heart. I make decisions from my gut. And I figure faith is personal- personally created, personally applied, personally lived out- and my way of appreciating and experiencing my Christian faith is going to be different from that of someone else.

So, a long preamble to lead to the essence of my tangent.

One of the issues that twists me up in a knot and doesn't sit right, that I feel the Church has gotten so completely and utterly wrong, is its approach to the discussion of S-E-X. Here’s what I think: the way that Christians currently talk about sex (especially with our hormonal teenagers and frustrated single adults) is ineffective, unrealistic, unhealthy and completely not helpful. I don’t really know what a better (still biblical) alternative is. I just know that what we’re doing now doesn’t really work.

I remember sitting at youth retreats and summer camp, listening to yet another speaker talk to us kids about sex & love & relationships, and even before my lips had ever so much as touched a boy’s lips, before I’d had the opportunity to do anything “wrong,” I already felt confused and uncomfortable with the message we good Christian kids were being given about sex, because the message was essentially this:

1. Any sexual activity before or outside of the covenant of marriage (publicly declared in a wedding ceremony in a church), even if that sexual activity is with the person you will be marrying in said wedding ceremony, is sinful. Basically, sex is dirty; keep it for the one you love.

2. Thinking about sex, wanting to have sex, having sexual feelings (even if you don’t act on them, even if your feelings are directed at someone you love) is lustful thinking, and that is also sinful.

3. Masturbation??? Don’t even go there.

4. If you sin by having premarital sex, you can (obviously) be forgiven, but sex is incredibly powerful, and each time you have sex with someone, you give a little piece of yourself away, and if you give too much of yourself away, when it comes time to actually committing to the person you will love forever and ever and ever, you won’t have a pure, whole self to offer up.

I have a serious problem with these messages, because first of all, I feel like a lot of it is bogus, and, secondly, because the result of hearing these messages over and over and over again, and of trying, through the power of prayer and self-discipline and creative make-out sessions that dance around the definition of “real sex”, is the following: sometimes early marriage, sometimes unplanned pregnancy (because using protection would mean acknowledging that you are having sex, which would mean admitting that you are sinning), but, most often, “failure” & “sin” and its accompanying shame. Heaps and heaps and heaps of shame.

I lost my virginity at the age of sixteen, to my French Canadian boyfriend, surrounded by vanilla-scented candles and the voice of Enya streaming out of his ghettoblaster. It was a monumental experience, not because my first sexual encounter was mindblowingly awesome (quite the opposite, actually), but because with it came an overwhelmingly massive burden of guilt and shame that I lugged around with me. For years. Unnecessarily.

If I could go back and talk to my younger self, I would tell her to relax. I would tell her that there was absolutely no reason to feel guilty or ashamed. I would tell her that she had done nothing wrong. She had protected, consensual sex with a boy she cared about. There’s nothing wrong with that. I would tell her that what she did was totally natural and normal. And I think I would maybe even tell younger me to feel free to go out and do it again, that it’s totally okay to explore and experiment (with certain disclaimers, of course, about how and when and why she is making those decisions).

I got married at 20. I don’t really regret getting married at 20. I was, after all, madly and deeply in love. But looking back now, I see that 20 is kind of a young age to be making such a massive, long term commitment, and that maybe marriage then and there was not really necessary. Early marriage is kind of the norm in the culture of the Church. Just to be clear, kids aren’t getting married only because they want to have sex. I mean, I certainly didn’t. I loved my soon to be husband and I couldn’t imagine life without him. I wanted to be with him forever and always. But expectations and teachings of the Church concerning sex & love & marriage certainly factor in.

You see, I wonder what would have happened if living together was an acceptable alternative in our subculture. I think that if it had been culturally acceptable for us to move in together first, if we had felt like we could have done that with the blessing of our parents, without fear of judgment from our church communities, that maybe that might have been a healthier option. There are, after all, so many things to get used to when you are a young couple getting married. There are the adjustments and lessons that take place when two people become husband and wife- a significant change in roles, definitions, expectations and trust. If you throw the issue of sex in there- getting to know each other sexually, exploring and experimenting; and then you also add in the massive shifts and learning curve that happens in simply figuring out how to run a household together- well- it’s just a lot to take in and learn all at once. Finally, add to the whole mix the fact that these two young people are also still discovering who they are and what they want and need out of life. It’s a lot all at once; maybe even, dare I say, too much!

I would much rather that a young couple who care for each other feel free to become sexually involved and wait to marry (or not marry), or that they live together to see if it works and then decide to marry later. They need time to get to know each other and themselves, to negotiate roles, to learn how to deal with confrontation and disappointment, and also to learn the difference between sex and love. Sex and love are obviously connected but they are not the same. I think that sometimes young people confuse sexual feelings with love, and I think a little experience helps them figure that out. Learning the connection between the two is both important and empowering. And, really, I think a little heartache (not a lot, but a teensy weensy little bit), as well as experience with the negotiations, compromises, and sacrifices of a serious relationship, helps us set better boundaries and make better decisions and participate in better relationships.

Marriage has a place, certainly, but if I look back at me and my friends who married young, the truth is that the majority of us are divorced, and many of us stayed in unhealthy relationships for far too long because of all the complicated layers of what it means to be both a Christian and a wife.

But maybe I’m projecting.

Anyways, I bring this all up because, obviously, now that I am unmarried again, the whole issue of sex and faith resurfaces. How do I negotiate the teachings of this evangelical subculture I kinda sorta belong to with my own feeling of what is morally okay and my understanding of my own desires and needs and limits? Some folks have actually suggested that the answer to my single life sexual conundrum is to essentially reclaim my virginity and to remain abstinent, keeping myself “pure” until I maybe someday possibly meet another man who wants to be my husband.

Well, to that I say…and it might make some of my churchfolk uncomfortable….um…I don’t think so. Forget it. Not gonna happen. No way. In fact, the idea is completely ridiculous!

Now, I have no desire to develop a reputation as a “slut” nor do I wish to treat sex as a recreational activity. I respect sex, its purpose, its power, and its place. I recognize that sex can be a significant tool in creating and maintaining intimacy, and I recognize- from my own experience- that decisions about sex can impact the heart, the mind, the soul- both in negative and positive ways. But I absolutely refuse to own this idea that my decision to participate in consensual, protected sex is immoral. I refuse to give sex so much power as this sacred gluing force that I should only reserve for my next husband, whoever he is, wherever he is, whenever he shows up, and I just don’t buy this idea that sex outside of that sacred, committed context, is always and inevitably damaging. In fact, I would argue that on many occasions, sex for me, even out of the context of a committed relationship, has had an almost healing quality- empowering, invigorating, and freeing- reminding me again, at long last, what it’s like to feel attractive, confident and desired, what it means to be a wide awake woman.

So what it comes down to is this: I realize that it can come off as a bit hypocritical or weak to pick and choose which of the guidelines of my faith system I am going to follow, that doing so might concern some of my fellow Christians, who will surely now be praying for my troubled soul, but I also, in the spirit of integrity and being true to myself, don’t want to follow guidelines that I don’t actually understand, agree with or believe, ideas that just don’t fit me or the world I live in, that don’t sit right in my gut, ideas that simply don’t work or make sense.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Hopefully, someone out there is feeling it and can give me an “Amen.”