...continued from Part I.
In Eros Defiled, John White suggests that our sexual attitudes and practices get “set” by the same mechanism that caused Pavlov’s dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell: habit, and association with pleasure (pp. 40-42). Orgasm, being a very intense physical, mental, and emotional pleasure, is no doubt a strong behavioral reinforcer that helps establish both healthy and unhealthy sexual patterns. Yet as Lauren Winner suggests in Real Sex, discipline of the body, mind, and heart can help guide the creation of healthy patterns and provide a positive kind of positive reinforcement.
Awhile back I wrote some posts on masturbation (three links). These were mainly responses to some excusatory posting and other writing I’d seen done by several Christians – even James Dobson -- which prompted me to try and develop a sort of apologetic for the non-masturbatory life. After doing this I found that others had done it too. Most recently, via a Google search for commentary on Eros Defiled, I found Derek R. Iannelli-Smith's Reflective Review (pdf), in which he quotes J. Robertson McQuilkin in Introduction to Biblical Ethics:
...self-stimulation, at least apart from sexual play in marriage, violates two probably all three [sic] of God’s purposes for marriage. The first purpose of marriage is oneness; sex was designed to cement and promote that oneness.
Before continuing the quote, a comment: some may wonder what this has to do with, say, someone in their teens, or someone older who is not married. I think the assumption here is that marriage is the only place for sex, period. In keeping with the theme of sex as a language, consider sex as a specific and exclusive language spoken as one between two people in the covenant of marriage. Specific, because this same language can never be spoken by these or any other individuals in any other context or with any other people. Just as a sperm and an ovum come together to make a unique individual, the married couple’s sexual language is all their own. Exclusive, for the same reason. Exclusive to that marriage, that two-becoming-one. To take one half of this language and speak it with another is to corrupt the language, as is beginning to create a language with someone outside of the complete two-becoming-one of marriage.
(Update: I just realized that this argument must be qualified in order to accommodate legitimate re-marriage. It should be re-defined according to the matter of fidelity, which will be discussed in part III).
Masturbation runs in the opposite direction. It is sex stripped of love, stripped of commitment, stripped of all the purposes for which sex was created.
Quoting Jay Adams in The Practical Encyclopedia of Christian Counseling:
Masturbation is a self-oriented pleasure brought about by autoerotism, in which, contrary to Paul's assertion in I. Cor 7:4-5, one assumes rights over their own body that belongs to his spouse...Masturbation is a manifestation of the desire to "get"; true biblical sexual relations are governed by love and the desire to "give."
(I’ll say more on that later.)
Iannelli-Smith adds,
Masturbation reveals a heart problem and a disorder of worship in adults [as opposed to that done innocently by children].
Masturbation reveals a heart problem. Not a mortal, unforgiveable sin that will irreparably wreck your life, but let's call a spade a spade: indeed, a disorder of worship. Life, in many ways, is about worship. Everyone worships something, or a lot of things. What is being worshiped in the case of solo sex? Well, perhaps self, and sex, rather than God, if, as I believe, and as Iannelli-Smith upholds, God is a God Who’s set forth right and wrong attitudes of the heart, and judges according to these. For example, the sin of adultery lies not so much in the committing of the act as in the consideration of the act, which reveals an allegiance (worship) to something or someone other than God. It is not mere temptation; it’s already an indulgence of temptation. (In the review, though I think some parts could be worded better, Iannelli-Smith makes some good points about right and wrong ways of being let off the hook for immoral sexual behavior, and includes words on homosexuality. )
In Real Sex, Winner makes a case for the necessity of being chaste in the context of the Body of Christ. I think this is important; we are all part of this Body, which, as a whole, must support the chastity of its members. However, taken too far, it might lead one who fails in chastity to blame this failure on lack of support from the Body. In such a case the Body may indeed be partially to blame, yet the matter of where one’s heart is lies solely between the individual and God.
Referring to the Body of Christ, Winner says that “sex is communal rather than private, but it is still personal rather than public.” That may seem like a tricky statement to navigate, but she explains it in the book. Christians have an obligation encourage one another to do what pleases God, because we exist together to honor His purposes. Therefore we should talk about sex, appropriately, together, as part of our spiritual discipline. We cannot use the privateness of our sex lives as an excuse to escape accountability.
However, “personal” does not necessarily mean “not public” – “private” means “not public.” Most if not all of the personal aspects of a married person's marital sex life and all of the private ones must be very carefully guarded. Boundary-keeping in this regard is also necessary for the Body of Christ, which in part is what can make talking and writing about sex difficult for the married person. In my own writing, I've shared personal aspects only when I felt it would be appropriate and lend credibility and accessibility to what I was saying.
Unfortunately, the term “private” can also serve a double-standard. “Private” might be something one shouldn’t, or doesn’t care to, share with another; an excuse to cover a sham; or “evidence” that something doesn’t exist. It seems that, in our culture, one has to advertise one’s sexuality in order to prove that it exists. Well, I’d like to think that my wedding ring advertises as much as needs to be advertised. I don’t have to wear revealing clothes in public, or “talk dirty” in public, or divulge personal details in order to prove anything. God sees and knows who I am and what I do, and only my husband (and perhaps other family members and close friends, or a pastor or counselor, in the case of trouble) need be privy.
Back out in public now: I’d like to address the tired, tired old canard that “sex in marriage is boring.” Says who? Perhaps some people who enjoy sex outside of marriage, thinking that they’ll at least have some exciting sex in their lives before they get married. Perhaps some married people. Well, if sex in marriage is dull, perhaps it’s because both spouses have settled for something without being able or willing to work their way out of it. If sex is perfunctory, endured as an obligation or expectation, then spouses have become (or always were) distant. Or perhaps the focus is on sex and not on loving God and each other.
This is one of my arguments against autoerotism, or solo masturbation (not a redundancy; see quote above). Autoerotism makes sex about sex, or about any number of erotic things, or about relieving and gratifying oneself. Orgasm becomes a tool for managing one’s life rather than something that celebrates a marriage or expresses ultimate love for a spouse. A person who becomes used to “taking care of herself” in this way may have to rework her use of sexuality when married; she may need to learn to connect her spouse, the person, to her spouse, the sex partner. A person used to sharing her sexual feelings with herself may find it hard to share these openly with a spouse, or to incorporate her spouse’s into her own, or even to make sexual feelings be about honoring him rather than herself.
Why? Because sex is a language. When indulged in outside of marriage, it is spoken brokenly, or only partially, or in a garbled manner. In solo sex, it’s spoken to oneself, in a particularly individualistic way. (I’ve heard some say they commune with God during solo sex, but...uh...next topic). Everyone wants to be loved, and (most) everyone wants sex, so when the married couple uses sex to truly commune, to express this love at its deepest, it can’t possibly be dull!
Perhaps, though, spouses may be hindered by worry that they are, even in marriage, doing something they’re “not supposed to do.” This is certainly a legitimate concern; for some, nothing but the missionary position is “sanctioned.” I’m not going to say that every married sexual act is healthy, but, I don’t believe that a couple must limit the healthy expression of the language of sex in their marriage to some other person’s definition, as long as it’s mutually spoken. I.e., nobody’s making anybody do something they don’t want to do. ‘Nuff said.
If sex truly is dull, as opposed to anything from “routinely comforting” (Winner) to intensely wonderful, then there must be a problem in the marriage. A problem of general intimacy, not just sexual intimacy. I dare say the sexual relationship is the barometer of the overall relationship. At its best, sex is a place for intimate emotional sharing, a cocoon in which to find shelter as well as process things in safety and security; this sharing is what builds and strengthens the marriage as well as the spouses. Desires, hopes, frustrations, angers, stresses, pleasures, etc. can be dealt with mutually and deeply, playfully and soberly, in a mutual ministry.
Becoming fluent in this language, however, is an ongoing process. As a marriage progresses, it goes through stages. Spouses change and adapt as individuals, kids come into the picture, life “happens.” The way spouses relate to one another also may change, and the sexual relationship reflects this change. Because of this, maintaining or gaining fluency in the language of sex in marriage can be challenging enough without learning it in a pig-Latin sort of way prior to marriage, and then having to unlearn that as well.
Dawn Eden quotes Ed Brenegar in The Corruption of Human Intimacy at The Presbyterian Polis:
Most of my work is centered in solving problems. I have seen just about everything. Nothing surprises me. At the heart of so many of the problems in which I deal are problems with relationships, and with those there is a corruption of the ability for people to be honest, open, forth-coming, candid, humble, vulnerable and open. There is a real problem with the ability of people to trust other people and consequently for them to be trust-worthy.
A compelling reason to reserve sex for marriage, then (in my view), is this: if one does not first learn to abuse or hide behind sex of any kind, then one has a much better chance of learning to speak its language honestly, openly, candidly, and humbly, in the only environment which can truly foster it.
(Yes, there’s more...on it’s way in part III)
