Eckert Kim Gaines - Things Your Mother Never Told You

For Jeff,

my partner on the journey in every way

The dream of finding our end, the thing we were made for, in a Heaven of purely human love could not be true unless our whole Faith were wrong. We were made for God.

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

The Colorado summer night air breezed around my face, and as we walked I could feel my breath catch every few minutes when his hand would accidentally (or not) brush my arm or my hand. We talked with the intensity of youth and romance and idealism about everything we could think ofour families and friends, our dreams and futures. But even with all the talking, I was constantly aware of the freshly washed scent of his hair, the feel of his breath on my cheek when he turned and laughed at something I said, and how my stomach turned a bit when he gave me a certain look. As we stepped onto the walking bridge and he slid his hand into mine, I could hardly hear him talking at all. I was seventeen years old, and I was falling in love for the first time.

I had been preparing to fall in love for much of my young life. As a daddys girl and the youngest sister of three older brothers, I grew up with my fair share of male attention at home. I made my dad read Cinderella to me so many times that the books binding fell apart. All the fairy tales of my childhood told me that happiness comes when Prince Charming arrives and saves me with a kiss.

As an adolescent, I did plenty of dating. Most of the boys I went out with, however, were less than the Prince Charming of my fantasies. But on that magical, summer night, my fantasies about falling in love began to come true. As we sat at the end of the walking bridge and he leaned over to kiss me for the first time, I just knew this was it he was it. This was what I had been waiting for my whole life. As a seventeen-year-old girl, I bought into one of many myths surrounding romance and sexuality: that it would make me happy and complete.

Why was I so drawn to that particular young man that summer? Some would suggest one short and sweet answer to the question: sex! We were sexually attracted to each other, which affected our bodies, emotions and thoughts in particular ways. Although it may seem crass to focus on sexuality as a primary motivator for innocent, young love, we will miss a huge piece of the picture if we ignore it. Freud called sexuality one of the two driving or motivating forces in human life, and although our puritanical Christian tradition might lead us to want to disagree with Freud in all things, his observation of human nature in this respect is actually quite accurate.

Sexual feelings and desires lead us to act in strange and surprising ways. Emboldened by the magic of love, we will say embarrassing things and act out dramatic, romantic gestures. We leave jobs and move miles away from our families to be with our beloved. We do not do these things because of sex in the simplest sense of the term (as a physical act between two people). Rather, we do these things because we are sexual beings who have been created with a longing for love, connection and intimacy. Sexuality is the very thing that creates that deep longing. God created us in his image, as sexual beings, and sexuality creates a deep desire in us for union with anotherphysical and otherwiseto be joined or made one with someone outside ourselves.

Many years ago, Freud described sex as a motivator for human behavior, and for anyone who has ever turned on a television, walked past a row of magazines in a store, or seen movie posters or previews, it is obvious that many people agree with him. Movies and TV shows are filled with explicit sexual conversations, provocatively dressed characters and sultry sex scenes. Even many childrens TV shows and movies contain sexual innuendos. Magazines are filled with advice on how to attract members of the opposite sex, how to have more sex, how to try new sexual positions or how to achieve better orgasms. Clearly, sexual material gets our attention, and our popular culture supports and spreads one of many myths around sexualitythat sex is a god.

At the outset, though, I do want to say that sex is a gift, and it is good! Our identity as sexual beings, created male or female in Gods image, leads us to a deep longing for intimacy and connection with others who are different from us. This, too, is a good gift! Sometimes, however, sex is no longer seen as a gift created by God for our good, but it is seen as a god to be worshiped and pursued in its own right. We have begun worshiping the creation, sex, rather than the Creator, God (Romans 1:25).

Philip Yancey puts it this way, Sex no longer points to something beyond; it becomes the thing itself, the substitute sacred. Because sexuality can be so powerful and pleasurable, we may be tempted to confuse the gift with the giver. But neither our identity as sexual beings, nor the gift of sexual pleasure, is the thing itself. God has created us for union with himself, and sex and sexuality are signs that point us toward that ultimate good. Sex is wonderful, but it is not the ultimate. When we mistake it for such, we are bound to be disappointed.

While much of our popular culture supports the myth that sex is a god, others take the opposite approach, viewing sexuality with suspicion or even disdain. In response to how sexuality has been perverted and distorted, some people appear to view sex as something that is, in itself, broken. Instead of idealizing or worshiping it, sexuality itself is demonized. Our Christian subculture can, at times, directly or tacitly play into another damaging myththat sex is evil.

As a teenager falling in love for the first time, I was influenced by both these idealizing and demonizing myths surrounding sexuality. On the surface, it may not have looked like I was following the sex is a god myth; after all, I wasnt actually having sex. I did, however, fall into the trap of believing that the relationship was the one thing that was going to make me complete and happy.