So, this week many things have transpired which would all be interesting to blog about. Perhaps this weekend shall see more updates from me. For now, though, that which is pressing on my mind is a video which was watched in class today. It was called "Sex has a Price Tag," and was about what might be expected from a Protestant college. It was a woman speaking to a crowd of high school children about sex, and explaining why abstinence is a good thing.
The message of abstinence has been oft-repeated throughout WASP culture in the USA. Probably most of us, when we are young, have sat through an analogy in which the speaker relates our love to a box of chocolates, or a baseball card, or to duct tape--each time we do the deed, a little bit of our love, or our heart (whatever noun the speaker has chosen, really), is torn away or sullied. After a while, we meet the love of our life, and what do we have to offer them? Tatters, or mush, or tape covered in arm-hair.
Standard stuff. It's what we're all taught. I just happen to think that it's wrong. Don't take me the wrong way, though--I think that responsible and mature sex is fine, but that chastity and restraint are generally "safer." However, that age-old presentation on why we should abstain is wrong. It misleads us. It says, "You are worth only as much as your chastity/virginity/heart." It also automatically includes the notion that sex outside of marriage decreases what we have to offer--"a person may love with all their heart, but they've had sex before, so they're not as desirable in a relationship as the completely apathetic virgin." That's horribly misleading. It results in an unstable self-confidence; an easily-shaken self-confidence.
Being sexually pure is hard. It is challenging. Apparently, as a male, it is sometimes considered a weakness (I have never experienced that aspect of male culture, though, so who knows?). Sometimes people stumble. Sometimes we sin. Well, let's be honest--we sin all the time. However, we have a God who loves us. He has told us that we are forgiven. His son died for us to have this forgiveness. If God does not hold our failings against us, why should we evaluate others based on their failings? We Christians can rest in the knowledge that it is what we do that matters--not what we have done in our pasts. We don't need to feel sullied and broken due to our sexual transgressions. God has washed us white as snow. Yes, we should practice safe sex. We should be chaste and loyal within and without the bounds of marriage. What we should not do is to present chastity and abstinence in a manner which demeans those who are no longer virgins, or who do not regularly practice it. We do not know their reasons. Frankly, their reasons do not matter. God loves us for who we are in each moment. God loves us despite what we do. Our self-confidence should not be built on such flimsy and fragile things as our chastity, because that can be easily taken away. An identity built around such has no lasting strength in difficult times.
I'm not satisfied entirely with what I've written here, so I will come back later and edit it a bit. For now, though, it feels pretty good to get some of this off of my chest.
The message of abstinence has been oft-repeated throughout WASP culture in the USA. Probably most of us, when we are young, have sat through an analogy in which the speaker relates our love to a box of chocolates, or a baseball card, or to duct tape--each time we do the deed, a little bit of our love, or our heart (whatever noun the speaker has chosen, really), is torn away or sullied. After a while, we meet the love of our life, and what do we have to offer them? Tatters, or mush, or tape covered in arm-hair.
Standard stuff. It's what we're all taught. I just happen to think that it's wrong. Don't take me the wrong way, though--I think that responsible and mature sex is fine, but that chastity and restraint are generally "safer." However, that age-old presentation on why we should abstain is wrong. It misleads us. It says, "You are worth only as much as your chastity/virginity/heart." It also automatically includes the notion that sex outside of marriage decreases what we have to offer--"a person may love with all their heart, but they've had sex before, so they're not as desirable in a relationship as the completely apathetic virgin." That's horribly misleading. It results in an unstable self-confidence; an easily-shaken self-confidence.
Being sexually pure is hard. It is challenging. Apparently, as a male, it is sometimes considered a weakness (I have never experienced that aspect of male culture, though, so who knows?). Sometimes people stumble. Sometimes we sin. Well, let's be honest--we sin all the time. However, we have a God who loves us. He has told us that we are forgiven. His son died for us to have this forgiveness. If God does not hold our failings against us, why should we evaluate others based on their failings? We Christians can rest in the knowledge that it is what we do that matters--not what we have done in our pasts. We don't need to feel sullied and broken due to our sexual transgressions. God has washed us white as snow. Yes, we should practice safe sex. We should be chaste and loyal within and without the bounds of marriage. What we should not do is to present chastity and abstinence in a manner which demeans those who are no longer virgins, or who do not regularly practice it. We do not know their reasons. Frankly, their reasons do not matter. God loves us for who we are in each moment. God loves us despite what we do. Our self-confidence should not be built on such flimsy and fragile things as our chastity, because that can be easily taken away. An identity built around such has no lasting strength in difficult times.
I'm not satisfied entirely with what I've written here, so I will come back later and edit it a bit. For now, though, it feels pretty good to get some of this off of my chest.
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