CHAPTER SIX

PRESSURE FROM SCREAMING HORMONES

O.K. That all sounds sensible… very nice written down on paper. Everybody wants a happy and secure life, but the urge for sex is so powerful; sooooo powerful. I mean your hormones seem to scream out for it at times. And sexual excitement makes you feel powerful, so alive.. especially when life is dull. How do you cope? And what if you've already gone too far? Does that mean it is too late for a happy and secure life?

An analogy which has helped me come to understand my sexuality is the Nuclear Power Principle. Atomic energy is incredibly powerful - not just because the nuclear scientist who eats fission chips gets atomic ache but because it unleashes the energy that holds matter together. There are two major uses of atomic energy and there are two major options for using sexuality.

1. We can make a bomb: That is when the energy is detonated and then does what comes naturally - a chain reaction that destroys a lot of life for a long, long time.

Sex is like that. As people we have a tendency to be very selfish. If we program our minds to let the energy loose to do what comes naturally, a chain reaction is set up in our lives which ruins us and a lot of lives around us.

Consider this example: Mary has sex with John, Bill and Fred and then finally marries Tom. Mary and Tom have children. Tom is unfaithful and has sex with another woman. The marriage becomes ugly and breaks up. Mary takes the children and lives with Jeff. Jeff doesn't care about being a good role model to the boy child. Mary's boy needs to feel loved however, and becomes susceptible to a sexual pervert who offers intimacy, but of the wrong type and for the wrong reasons. The boy experiences sexual confusion in his development and is in danger of developing a homosexual orientation. Meanwhile Mary's daughter is sexually abused by Jeff during a drinking binge. She is scarred deeply and goes through relationship after relationship searching for a sense of sexual identity and security. On and on the deadly mushroom cloud spreads.

"This is an extreme case," you may be saying, and that is true, but people counselling modern teenagers see these effects with alarming frequency. Could it not have been very different that Mary and Tom chosen different sexual behaviour as young adults?

2. We can make a power station: We know the power for good and evil of atomic energy so we treat it with special caution. We build safety features into the system along with a special cooling system so the energy is directed into the right areas and doesn't get away on us. Just in case… we have a shut down system which seals the whole area off. And what do we end up with? A lot of power for construction, warmth, for comfort and enjoyable living. Sex is like that too.

The man and woman who are willing to decide to bring their minds and therefore their bodies under control have the potential for a fabulous future.

SORTING OUT THE CONTROL CENTRE

G.I.G.O. - That is the computer language for Garbage In - Garbage Out. If you feed in nonsense, you'll get nonsense out. The human mind has similarities to a computer, and the G.I.G.O. principle applies to it as well.

I had a high school friend, he had a part-time after school job. He earned a few dollars a week and started a credit account at a local shop. Looking back it might be considered a mistake because on pay day, the junk food took a vicious toll his his meagre earnings.

It was also a mistake because while he was indulging his intestines in these refreshments, he got into the habit of reading the pornographic novels beside the counter. Like many young men with hormones, he was programming his mind to fail him in the area of sexuality. He admits to his shame that around about that time, he began thinking about girls as sex objects more than as whole people that were valuable. It has taken years to re-program his mind.

The Bible instructs "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2.

He can still remember some of the garbage he read in books and saw in movies but, with the Holy Spirit's power and time in the Bible, the renewing process is happening.

What we are and what we will do is the direct result of what we think. Perhaps that is why Jesus said that if we commit adultery in our hearts, we are guilty of sin. For men especially, this is a battle that will probably never end so long as they live on this earth.

The solution is to admit it and ruthlessly discard material that causes us to fail… I've heard of the old yarn "I only read the Playboy magazine because there are good articles in it" too often to believe it. There are good articles in it alright, but most of them have insufficient clothes on. They are being treated as articles but they are not just things. They are people.

ENTERTAINMENT - WHO NEEDS IT?

Recently the T.V. was on in the flat in which a friend lived and he wandered in at the beginning of the science fiction film. During the introductory credits, a famous film star was in a gravitya space suit. No problem there. Not many Hollywood types -less situation, floating around in have their feet on the groundshe began to remove her space suit somewhat seductively, until . The trouble was she was floating around totally naked.

In fairness, he said she had a stunning body, but what gave the situation more gravity was that he was stunned. Temporary paralysis seemed to have set in and here was one of God's adopted sons, chosen to honour Him with a holy life, staring at what no other person but her husband had a right to stare at.

The lesson was blatantly obvious. Young people who frequently feed their minds on secular videos, movies and T.V. fiction have no hope of honouring God in their relationships. Even when T.V. stars are not fornicating (sex outside marriage) or committing adultery (sex when at least one partner is married to someone else) on the screen, the attitudes to sex, family and marriage that are portrayed are usually far below God's standard. Slowly they seep into your very being.

The problem is serious because at the touch of a button, we drag into our living rooms whatever the entertainment industry wants to feed us. We have bought into the idea that we have to be entertained to be normal and, if we allow it, what flows like a sewer out of Hollywood, flows straight into our minds.

We can learn a lot about people from what they choose as entertainment. I believe that only emotional weaklings have to be constantly entertained by the media. Our often bored generation needs to rediscover how to make life happen instead of watching others live it for us. If we rediscover our own creativity, we won't be so susceptible to the junk that can come from the minds of others. Then the pressure from screaming hormones won't have such a big effect on us.

WHAT - DO I WALK AROUND WITH MY EYES CLOSED THEN?

Let's be realistic. Avoiding pornography altogether is impossible. You would have to go around with your eyes closed and ears blocked all day. The old rhyme "I think that I shall never see, a thing as painful as a tree" could come true for you. What then is the answer?

The answer is not what you might think. Take the average young man who has just seen the spaced out nude woman floating around seductively on the T.V. screen. He could switch it off and head for bed, but images like that don't tend to go away very easily.

The best idea is to change channels. To look at something that isn't immoral… to replace the immoral thought patterns. The Bible says in Phillipians 4:8"… whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praise worthy - think about such things." - so changing what he is thinking about is a good idea.

The problem is that if a memory or a picture stimulates his mind to begin undressing a woman, he can change mind channels but may not find another picture with such a strong signal. His mental receiver keeps jumping back to outer space. Then it pays to change location perhaps a cold shower, a walk, read a book, do something creative, write a letter, or play sport while the hormone level returns to normal.

Peter was struggling with his thoughts. Before making a decision to follow Jesus Christ, he was having sexual intercourse with a girlfriend. When he became a Christian, he broke off the relationship but the memories of sex kept coming back. Alone in bed his sexual urges were fired up.

Peter's problem is not uncommon. One of the hardest areas of thought temptation is mental replaying of past sexual experiences. They are relived in the mind and even taken further than what actually happened. Usually the frustrations, emptiness and guilt is forgotten but the sex is remembered. These thoughts are very powerful as they are based on real experiences.

The wrong thinking needs to be arrested and changed at its first reappearance in the mind. Challenging it by quoting an appropriate memorised Bible verse can also help greatly to lessen its power. Prayer and determination also help the memories to fade over time.

A youth worker recently told me how he as reacted when tempted to think about things that are wrong. He began to pray for two people. One is a Christian leader he has heard of. The other is a less mature Christian or a non-Christian he knows. It worked for him. It may work for you. Unselfish prayer is powerful to put our minds on the right channel.

Sexual fantasizing in forbidden areas produces frustration… tempting your body and not giving it the action. It is creativity that is not able to be appropriately expressed. Focusing on other areas of creativity is better when you are single… areas that develop you as a person and make you are more interesting and stimulating partner in the future.

It is necessary to decide whether your body and it's urges will control your mind or whether you will control your body. Learning to go without food for an occasional day or two can help with this process. It is a good way of teaching your body who's boss.

In addition to the pressure from natural sex urges and thought patterns there are other pressure that deeply influence us in our youth….

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