on the dangerous slope of a "sexed" world

I was wrestling with the question of whether to post this: I have an extremely unshakable prompting to, yet even now I fear that these words may be misconstrued or personalized. This is not written for anyone in particular, though I expect that someone in particular will need to hear these words. It is not mine to decide who this rests upon. I must be willing to live with this…

Not so long ago in the scope of history (12 years ago, to be precise), I lived in a less “sexed” world. Shirts were lengthy or often tucked in. Pants rode at or above the waistline, doing little to accentuate any particular area. The internet was only in a small sample of wealthy homes, thus one had to intentionally set out to buy or view sexually explicit content. Because of this, a large number of people not having sex had little reason or opportunity to be distracted by it.

Sure, I was relatively innocent for an 18-year-old…but I was still an 18-year-old; there was nothing abnormal or underdeveloped in regards to my adolescent hormones. I was not naïve -- I knew that many of my peers were sexually active, but growing up in a small Midwestern town, I certainly didn’t have any reason to believe that remaining sexually pure was abnormal.

Our culture had a paradigm shift over the next four years -- many of you under the age of 25 may not even be aware that another world existed. It happened quickly and forcefully. This world (whether desiring of it or not), became fixated with sex.

We could attribute this shift to many subtle changes: dress, entertainment, political tolerance, and the like. But these changes had been occurring for years, and each generation had admonished its children during these progressions, to the gradual extent that the original cautions would seem silly and prudish to us today. So while these changes may demonstrate the shift and may have accelerated during this four year stretch, they are not exclusively representative of this four year period.

Rather, I care to focus on the events from 1997-2001 that serve as landmarks for the sexed world we live in today:

1. Dial-up internet became prevalent in private residences; colleges and universities began to install high-speed networks.
2. Globalization among strangers occurred, as a result of chat rooms and instant messaging
3. In these four short years, the pornography industry increased its clientele from those willing to shop adult bookstores to those willing to click an internet link in the privacy of their own home. (I want you to take a second and grasp the implications of this simple matter of access. This single-handedly changed the world for millions of people…practically overnight.)
4. The tale end of this era brought about the cell phone craze, which along with some of the other technological advances previously mentioned, allowed people to become more emotionally intimate at a quicker rate, without the natural in-person barriers that would have previously prevented this level of intimacy. Whether or not you recognize it, this is a BIG deal, and largely responsible for the dysfunction of many 21st century relationships.
5. Increased rates of divorce and unmarried inhabiting among Baby Boomers led to a general distrust and dysfunction of relationships among the next generation, providing very few good models of appropriate sexual behavior.

These are events that cannot be undone. Technology rarely works backwards. Innocent eyes are not easily restored. Working through the pain of your family unit does not happen overnight.

So the easier coping mechanism is cold justification. This generation’s moral relativism is not solely a response of rebellion to our parent’s authoritarian “truth,” it is also a means by which we push aside our past. Some of us have only been casual participants in this paradigm shift, and by causal participants, I mean victims. Others have participated willingly to various degrees. The expectations of living in this sexed world have placed us under its own version of absolute truth (which is absolute deception) -- that we can “move on” from painful sexual experiences without resolution and healing, that we can indulge in sexual desire without emotionally engaging, and that any man or woman has the right to view another in a sexual manner without their consent or at the expense of emotionally manipulating the other party. Any man or woman can speak as if this behavior is common and acceptable, but who of them are void of this pain? This is our world…the fact that this is perceived as normal literally makes me ill.

So why should this bother me? Why should I be given a burden and passion for helping the world work through this mess? After all, I am a part of an extremely microscopic percentage: a 30-year-old virgin in a sex crazed world. I cannot directly answer this question. However, I have the unique perspective of objectively seeing the pain -- to watch my friends, family, brethren, and co-workers dance around the issue: unable to explain their own misery, yet completely bound to the mishaps of their sexual past. I am certainly by no means without blame in this area as well; I can only thank God for His grace that has kept me from greater pain (and has granted me freedom from my past), for it is not through my own strength that I remain pure in some regards.

Any man or woman can attempt to will themselves towards appropriate relationships in the future, but regardless of what we desire, our experiences shape our future decisions. Patterns of behavior become patterns because the initial wound is still open. My heart breaks for the wonderful women in my life that continue to enter dysfunctional relationships because of these experiences. It becomes a downward spiral: sexual pain leads to an expectation of hurt which is covered by layers of emotional scars. Scars that say, “I won’t get close enough for this person hurt me,” or in contrast, “I can choose to not let sex get personal.” Neither leads to eventual healing.

It will be tempting for some of you to fake that there isn’t really a problem -- that a free and casual sexual lifestyle fulfills your needs. I challenge you to cut through the excrement. Still others that acknowledge their pain will be tempted to writhe in guilt…hear me today: this is not my purpose. I do not desire to place myself on a spiritual pedestal or remind you of things that are past or forgiven. I share these words to offer a change from the pattern.

Since I believe that utilizing politics in inadequate and irrelevant to changing hearts, transforming our minds from the commonality of the sexed world is solely on us. We cannot expect the culture to change for us. We must determine in our own lives to live according to a greater standard. I do not hide the fact that my motivation for sexual purity is to live according to the righteousness of Christ. This is not a burden or a “law” placed upon me, for I have willingly accepted a lifestyle that protects me from the pain of what I consider to be sin. This word is strong for some of you…already you may want to discard the message.

But there is nothing in this world that would have me believe that we have been bettered as a society through a less Biblical approach to sexuality. If you care to reject the authoritarian way in which the message of abstinence was previously approached, by all means do so. However, you will be hard pressed to argue any “good” in the rejection of the abstinence message. Step aside from your biases for a second and gaze at the world. Hear the stories of the hurting and watch the faces of the walking dead. In the truth of the ugliness, there is freedom.