Craig Gross - Questions You Cant Ask Your Mama About Sex

INVERT

QUESTIONS YOU cant ask your Mama About SEX
Copyright 2005 by Youth Specialties

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition June 2009 ISBN: 0-310-86367-8

Youth Specialties Products, 300 South Pierce Street, El Cajon, CA 92020 are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Avenue Southeast, Grand Rapids, MI 49530.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible:
New International Version (North American Edition), copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other(except for brief quotations in printed reviews) without the prior permission of the publisher.

Web site addresses listed in this book were current at the time of publication. Please contact Youth Specialties via e-mail (YS@YouthSpecialties.com) to report URLs that are no longer operational and replacement URLs if available.

Editorial direction by Doug Davidson
Proofread by Laura Gross and Janie Wilkersen
Cover design by Burnkit

05 06 07 08 09 10 / DC / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgements

To our wives, Jennifer and Jeanette: Thanks for standing with us in this ministry and for giving us your loving support.

This book and this ministry would not have been possible without the help of many other peoplefrom those who showed us how to use spell-check to those who answered our questions. More specifically, thanks to Jason Harper, Kevin and Lilly Troyer, Troy Busher, Jud Wilhite, Chris Ferebee, Wes and Ellie Beavis, Molly Kline, and Jay Howver.

And finally, to you, the writers and creators of all these questionsthanks for taking the time to seek out answers to the questions you have always wanted to ask someone.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Sex and You
(Freedom, frustration, and foreplay)

Chapter 2: Sexual Purity
(No, its not an oxymoron.)

Chapter 3: Pornography and the Internet
(The high-tech porno pipeline)

Chapter 4: Lust
(I want them nude, NOW!)

Chapter 5: Masturbation
(Cold showers and open doors)

Chapter 6: Sexual Addiction
(Hardcore hang-ups)

Chapter 7: Accountability
(No more dirty little secrets)

Chapter 8: Everything but the Kitchen Sink
(You mean theres more?)

Chapter 9: About XXXchurch
(Whats a Christian porn site, anyway?)

Chapter 10: A Final Word
(Now weve got a question for you)

Resources
(If you want help)

Introduction
Breaking the Silence

Sex. The very mention of the word in Christian circles causes ears to balloon like satellite dishes. Announce that this weeks sermon will address a sexual topic and a pastor can be sure the pews will be filled Sunday morning. Yet there are very few, if any, churches who are willing to deal with sexuality beyond the typical youth pastors urging young people to save it for marriage.

Trust us, we know. Before we founded XXXchurch, each of us worked in local youth ministries. We knew our youth were struggling with everything from dating purity to Internet porn. Yet we had no idea how to address these issues without offending someone or having some nave parent jump all over us because they desperately believed their daughter or son was immune to such fi lth. Sex issues for teenagers have become the dirty little secret that nobody wants to talk about.

The results of the churchs silence are astounding. You can look around any high school or shopping mall and see the results of the sexual revolution. Scantily dressed young people fl aunt their bodies, advertising that they are available. And most of the time, its not on purpose. It is the result of confusion. Entertainment and pop culture have exposed them to too much, too soon, for too long.

Teenagers have many questions about sex, and they often have no idea where to turn for answers. Those who are already in sexually difficult places dont know where to get help or how to find freedom. Teenage pregnancies, porn, and promiscuity have produced pain in the lives of many teenagers. Fast forward a few years and these same young people can find it nearly impossible to establish a healthy long-term relationship.

Today, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. According to Janet E. Smith, author of The Christian View of Sex:A Time for Apologetics, Not Apologies, six out of ten teenagers are sexually active. She writes:

The millions of abortions over the last decade and the phenomenal spread of AIDS indicate that our society has serious problems with sexuality. In the last generation, the incidence of sexual activity outside of marriagewith all of its attendant problemshas doubled and tripledor worse. We have no particular reason to believe we have seen the peak of the growth in sex-related problems.

When we founded XXXchurch several years ago, our goal was to create a place of honest dialogue and support for Christians who struggle with issues related to pornography and sexual addiction. We wanted to offer help to Christians and non-Christians in an area of sexuality where the church has long been silent. But as the outreach has developed, we have received hundreds of questions not only about porn, but also about virtually every possible issue related to sexuality. And many of these came from teenagers who are desperate to find anyone who will give them straightforward answers to their questions about sex.

This book is our attempt to compile some of the questions and answers that are most relevant to youth who are seeking to live out their Christian faith. Since our Web site and ministry has focused a great deal on pornography and sexual addictions, youll find those topics covered here. But this is not a book focused on porn. Its an attempt to stand with young people in their struggle for wholeness and sexual purity and to give them frank, Christian answers to the very real questions they are asking about sexuality and their faith.

We understand it can be incredibly embarrassing for teenagers to ask questions about sex. Often they are made to feel that if they do ask a question, they may be judged for its content. And all the pressure surrounding sex doesnt make talking about it any easier; it only brings a distorted attitude toward sexuality.

This is our attempt to help churches address the issue by addressing it for them. The book is a collaborative project, but most of the questions were originally answered by one of us. Since we think that personal connection is important, we tried to maintain the conversational tone in this book.

We hope young people will find this to be a valuable book that gives them answers to the questions they may be too afraid to ask and encourages them to accept Gods invitation to a pure lifestyle that is completely devoted to him.