CHAPTER SEVEN

WHAT IS THE HIDDEN PURPOSE BEHIND SINGLE SEXUALITY?

Some have learned that God created us to be relational people. He wants us to develop strong, loving, intimate friendships with Himself and with others. But there is a problem with this, a problem that singles especially have discovered through the pain of divorce, bereavement, and disappointment. The problematic discovery is this: mutual love and intimacy are not easy things for humans to achieve. The road to love is long and hard. Though the destination is wonderful, the way is perilous. Many of us have crashed on this road and have been deeply hurt and scarred in the process.

HESITANT AND HARDENED HEARTS

Many are afraid to make new attempts at love, knowing full well that they might crash and burn once more. Once deeply hurt or betrayed, it is very difficult to summon the courage to try again at love, to trust others, or to even trust ourselves. After an particularly painful experience, some singles conclude that the risks of love are just too great. They are tempted to think it may be safer to stay off the road and out of love. Their motto is "If I don't love again, at least I can't get hurt."

A bitter experience can also lead to disillusionment and hardened hearts. Though once soft and open to love, their hearts have become stone cold and hard, impervious to pain or penetration. And this is not an accident. A hard heart is not something that happens in us without our awareness and approval. We don't wake up one morning and with surprise discover that we have a hardened heart. No, a hardened heart is an act of the will. We choose to harden our hearts. That's why the Bible repeatedly warns, "Do not harden your hearts" (Psalm 95:8; Mark 10: 5; Hebrews 3:8, 15; 4:7; etc.). It's a condition that can be avoided.

These attitudes--hesitant and hardened hearts--are very common among singles. We all have heard (and maybe have said) such statements as "I'll never trust a man again"' or "I've had enough of women--never again!" I remember one Southern California talk-show host saying on the air (after his second divorce), "A person has got to be crazy to get married. I've told my friends, and now I'm telling you listeners: if you ever hear me say that I'm getting married again, I want you to get your gun and blow my head off!" I gathered from this that he was "hesitant" about new relationships.

God has created us in such a way as to prevent this kind of hesitancy and withdrawal from love. He does not want us to give up on the search for intimacy. He desires that we form positive and nurturing relationships with Himself and others. But to do this is scary. As with a person who is afraid to get back on a horse after being thrown, after a negative relationship it is very tough to get back in the saddle of romance. Rather than a safe, easy ride, love looks more like a bucking bronco! So if God wants us to love again, He has His work cut out for Him. He has to combat this powerful tendency to withdraw from the rigors of love.

SEXUALITY AS A SPIRITUAL GIFT

In order to fight this, God created us with a built-in guarantee that we would not give up on love. Our sexuality is this guarantee. Sexuality is God's insurance that we will continue to be relational individuals. Rather than withdrawing from others, sexuality continues to draw us to others. Rather than refusing to work on relationships, our sex drives insure that we will do the work necessary to establish relationships. Created in God's image, with a need for personal relationships, we have received our sexual drives as one means of compelling us into relationships. Thus our sexuality is a gift from God, one of his ways that we will seek loving relationships with those different from us.

Like ships that have weathered terrible storms on the open sea, some singles have been damaged--even sunk at times. They come into the harbor of singleness badly in need of repair and terribly afraid of ever venturing out to sea again. As the saying goes, "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for." They were built to sail the open seas. In the same way, people removed from relationships are "safe," but that is not what we were created for. We were created to love and be loved, to reflect the very image of God.

Author and psychologist Scott Peck argues that our sex drives are placed deep within our genetic makeup to ensure we will marry and reproduce. In his best-selling book The Road Less Traveled, Peck writes,

"The sexual specificity of the phenomenon [of falling in love] leads me to suspect that it is a genetically determined instinctual component of mating behavior.... Or, to put it in another, rather crass way, falling in love is a trick that our genes pull on our otherwise perceptive mind to hoodwink or trap us into marriage.... Without this trick... many of us who are happily or unhappily married today would have retreated in wholehearted terror from the realism of the marriage vows."


Peck takes a common secular view: the sex drive is the evolutionary, biological guarantee that our species will continue to propagate itself. This also is the thesis behind the popular book Mystery Dance, written by Lynn Margalis and Dorion Sagan. Believing that sexuality is the mere result of evolution, they investigate every detail of human sexuality to discover how it added to the chances of genetic survival. Starting from their major premise--that natural selection is the motivating force behind every evolutionary development--they go to great lengths to attach to each sexual part a rationale.

Such an approach is both arbitrary and incredibly diminishing. Human sexuality is reduced to survival techniques. But even worse, the drive towards relationship and intimacy is relegated to the animal level. Though their approach may satisfy scientific analysis, it fails the course in theological anthropology. Humanness is more than just mere creatureness. Even our physical bodies are not just the result of genetic advantage; they too reflect a design and a Designer.

Just as sexuality is more than an animal instinct, so too our sex drive is not merely biological but reflects a theological purpose. God knew we would shy away from the demands of achieving intimacy, so He created us in such a way that we would be forced to work towards intimacy in spite of our fears. Our sexuality motivates us to be relational people. Margalis and Sagan are heading in the wrong direction; all of fife cannot be explained by the evolutionary hypothesis because it lacks any appreciation for transcendence. Peck, though appreciative of the transcendence, misses the deeper significance of the sexual drive. The sexual impulse does keep us involved in relationships, but it is not as he supposes, a trick that a fully functioning, rational person would recognize and avoid. The marriage commitment and the desire for monogamy are not irrational. Instead, they reflect the deep drive implanted within us by God to insure that we don't miss out on the very best part of life--the intimacy of healthy relationships. It is God's way to motivate us to develop loving, committed relationships in spite of the difficulties and pain involved. That does not mean that God necessarily wants you to be married; it means he wants you to accept the risk in developing relationships with the opposite sex (just as there are risks and losses in developing friendships with the same sex).

Sexual attraction then can be seen as a sort of spiritual gift, even though sexuality doesn't appear in the spiritual gift lists in the New Testament and won't show up on one of the various spiritual gifts tests. But I maintain, nonetheless, that it is one of God's greatest gifts to human beings, married or single.

THE DRIVE TOWARD INTIMACY


Humans are physically drawn to others not just to satisfy physical desire and not merely to keep the species alive. In the drama of human history, sexual desire and procreation are really just minor players--publicity seeking primadonnas who, much to their disappointment, are only given bit parts. The major character, the real star on the stage of human history, corresponds to the major theme: the desire for interpersonal intimacy. The most important actor is the hunger for interpersonal closeness that most strongly attracts us to one another. It is the thirst for a communion of souls that motivates us to love in spite of the fear of failure.

God, as we learned in the last chapter, did not create us as mere animals but chose to reflect in us His own ability to relate, love, and experience intimacy. This is real drama; here we find true passion and purpose. All of human history is the unfolding episode of how humans have loved and related to one another. From the very first, humans have lived their lives with one another, founding families, tribes, communities, and countries.

The Bible calls this koinonia, which is usually translated fellowship, but the word can also be translated as partnership, participation, or communion. The root, koinos, means "common, belonging to several," so the basic meaning of fellowship is to have something in common, to share a common bond. The early church gathered together, for this very reason. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer" (Acts 2:42).

Fellowship, we must note in this day of church shopping and hopping, was not an optional extra for those early Christians. They devoted themselves to fellowship. It was the very goal of the Christian community. "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete" (1 John 1:3-4). Again we see that fellowship is something that we not only have together but with a relational God, and a life of fellowship is the only way to find complete joy.

Sexual desire is part of that drive toward intimacy. Modern science has made major strides toward ensuring fertility outside of actual sexual relations, yet that has not diminished sexual desire. With today's techniques of artificial insemination, test tube babies, and sperm banks, if our main desire was merely to have offspring to ensure our genetic survival, the need for sexual relations between people would presumably lessen. Obviously, that has not happened. Though we can have kids without sexual contact, humans aren't exercising that option except when forced to by infertility.


This is also why the world of sex industries, such as pornography, self-stimulation toys, and nude bars, will never replace the desire for a loving partner. The sexual drive is not fulfilled by mere orgasm or titillation; it is only fulfilled by interpersonal intimacy. This is because sex isn't just physical release--it is also interpersonal connection. We are not driven just to have orgasms; we are driven to experience intimacy. As Smedes says in Sex for Christians, "Beyond the glandular impulse, the human sexual urge is always toward another person.... As bodies we experience the urge first in the vague sense of physical restlessness; as persons we experience it in the desire for a person." Neither pornography, sex shows, nor 900-number sex hotlines are ultimately fulfilling, because they reduce people to mere sex objects, to the base animal level.

The sex drive is not just orgasm- or excitement-oriented. It is, as Smedes says, person-oriented. The deepest reason we are drawn into relationships is not to experience orgasms. It is to express our original design to develop interpersonal relationships of love. As a result, the drive toward intimacy is ultimately other-person centered. The crucial factor in reflecting the image of God is not sexual involvement- it is relational involvement.

Thus singles, sometimes to their own surprise, are motivated to love even after painful experiences. Of course, it may take several months or even years before we are ready to venture out in building a loving relationship again. It takes time to ready oneself to love again. It takes healing before one can risk vulnerability.

But sooner or later, most singles give love another shot. The battered woman who exclaimed, "I'll never trust another man again!" probably will change her mind and choose to try at love again. The man who loudly said, "I've had enough of women--never again," may reconsider. Chances are that he too will decide that he would like some involvement with women after all. Even the radio talk-show host who refused to give marriage one more shot decided to get married again. And then he begged, on the air, for his friends and listeners to release him from his hasty request that they shoot him.

INTIMACY AND WHOLENESS AS A SINGLE PERSON

With all of this talk of relationships, it might seem as if one must be married to experience this type of intimacy. It is easy to blithely assume that such relational closeness can only happen in a marriage. If' that is so, then one must be married to fully reflect the image of God. Is this the case? Do singles have to get married to experience this deep interpersonal intimacy that I have been talking about?

In any discussion of this topic, a never-married person will always ask this kind of question: "I want to experience intimacy, and I feel that in order to experience it I've got to get married. Right?" Those in the room who were previously married usually respond to this question with a knowing grin or a gentle laugh. Then one of them will kindly say, "I've got news for you. Marriage does not guarantee intimacy." How true. Just as sex does not guarantee intimacy, neither does marriage guarantee a communion of souls. Of course, deep intimacy can be found in some marriages, but it is a naive mistake to assume all marriages are intimate.


It is also a mistake to assume that singles cannot reflect the image of God in unmarried friendships. Two people need not be physical to be vulnerable. They need not experience intercourse to experience interpersonal closeness. Singles who relate to others in mutual love can fully reflect the image of God.

Actually, the most important aspects of intimacy have little to do with physical touching. Commitment, trust, loyalty, honesty, burden-sharing, forgiveness--these are the nutrients that feed intimacy. Because of this, intimacy can occur without disrobing. In the absence of sexual touching, intimacy can blossom. It can be a very hardy plant, given the right conditions. As Smedes put it:

"Can a male be a whole person without a personal relationship with a woman? We must remember that male and female can and do
relate to each other without touching each other's skin, just as they can be skin-close without relating as persons.... Persons can experience personal wholeness by giving themselves to other persons without physical sex. Through a life of self-giving--which is at the heart of sexual union--they become whole persons. They capture the essence without the usual form."

This notion of personal wholeness ' is a crucial part of the single adult pilgrimage. Too often we singles feel we are incomplete without marriage, that in the absence of some significant other we are not whole. Something is missing. So some of us attach ourselves to another incomplete person, hoping that together our two halves will add up to a whole. This coincides with that common phrase spoken by married people where a spouse is called a half-person as in, "Here comes my better half." Is this true? Are singles half-people, who need to find their other half in order to experience wholeness?

It is easy to give in to this feeling of incompleteness and decide that, "Well, I'm just a half-person and need someone else to complete me. I had better find someone else, or I will never feel whole." But, as one single pointed out, relationships are more like multiplication than addition. In multiplication, two halves don't make a whole: 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4. In this math, if two half-people get together, they end up with one-quarter of God's potential for their lives.

It's not even enough to find a whole person to marry if first we don't develop our own wholeness, because 1/2 x 1 = 1/2. If a half-person marries a whole person, they still end up with just one-half of the potential that God intended them to have. The only way to insure that we will find relational wholeness is to take the time as singles to develop our own sense of personal wholeness in Christ. Then two whole people can together experience the full measure of God's potential for their friendship or relationship, because 1 x 1 = 1.


After all this talk of being relational people and needing intimacy to reflect God's image, it is easy to mistakenly assume that wholeness will only develop in marriage. That's why it is crucial to understand that singles can develop into whole people without marriage and without sexual contact. In the Bible we find several strong examples of singles who were whole people. Jesus Himself is the supreme example--His singleness did not prevent Him from developing intimate relationships with His heavenly Father and with others. He was, to be sure, the whole person par excellence. Another example is the apostle Paul, who emphasized his singleness in his first letter to the Corinthians. From their examples and from many other singles mentioned in the Bible, we can conclude that wholeness is possible for unmarried persons. Wholeness is a reachable goal for singles. To sum up, wholeness does not require sexual involvement with someone else, but it does require relational involvement.

Then how does the issue of sexuality and our sex drives fit into the issue of single wholeness? Is the sex drive our blessing or curse as singles? Does it help or hinder us on the path to personal wholeness in Christ? I am claiming that the sex drive, contrary to first impressions, can become an aid in this development of wholeness. As we have learned in this chapter, the sex drive helps singles to keep in the relationship arena. Even after singles have been burned, they are motivated to give love a try again. In this manner, sexuality is just a helper in the process of becoming whole people. If it helps in an appropriate, controlled way, relational intimacy is enhanced. But if it asserts itself and becomes a dominant theme, it can destroy the relational intimacy it was created to assist.

It's easy to confuse intimacy with sexual relations and to settle for a sexual liaison instead of a friendship. In "A Single Speaks," a woman describes how she left the imitation intimacy and sought the real thing. She found it by starting to look for her next friends instead of for a lover. That's the path to true intimacy between people: seek friendships. When you seek friendships instead of a mate, you may end up with both.

A SINGLE SPEAKS

I have listened to the tapes on "The Positive Side of Single Sexuality," and after a few sleepless nights and a lot of praying, I have broken up with my boyfriend, or I should say we have reorganized our relationship.

Every time we were together, I would leave feeling low, lower than any bargain basement table could get. He has always treated me right. Sex never came into his mind until I put it there. It didn't hit me until one night driving home from his house... I was treating him like a bargain basement table. I was trying to get him to come down to my level. I was not in love with him, and he says he loves me.... I thought maybe if we got physical, love would come. Wrong!!


When I first heard you speak at a retreat several years ago, you spoke on intimacy, and you said to look for your next friend, not your mate/lover... [that] a friend is for life and if God blesses you with one ... you will have a special gift from God. I have told this to a lot of my friends, and I have it in my singles newsletter.

God has blessed me with many friends, and at times I want more than just a good friend. I know that I have to keep everything on track and with God's help I will.

TWISTED SEXUALITY

The fact that God has chosen not to switch off the sex drive in single adults, then, is not an error in judgment on His part. For singles, the sex drive is not a curse, nor is it something to avoid or repress. It is not without benefit. There is a hidden opportunity for singles as they are sexually attracted to others.

An opportunity? A good thing that I still find myself Physically attracted to others? You may regard such attractions and urges as disabilities and hindrances. Sometimes we even consider our physical attraction to others as an evil impulse conjured up by the evil forces. Any sexual urges before marriage are seen as naughty and dirty. This is not just a modern viewpoint, by the way. Throughout the history of Christianity, many spiritually devoted Christians believed that their sexual impulses were totally impure and in need of mortification.

For instance, the church Father Origen taught that the body (especially sexuality) was the seat of all sadness and frustration. It limited humans from achieving true Christ-likeness. The Christian life, then, was a battle against the body. Origen practiced what he preached and had himself castrated when he was about twenty, but his reason for doing this is commonly misunderstood. He did not do it to make himself immune to temptation. As Brown points out, "Postpubertal castration merely made a man infertile; it was, in itself, no guarantee of chastity. What Origen really wanted was even more drastic--to stop being a man. Without a beard, he would belong to neither sex and thus could be a living example of release from the sexual determinism.

This attitude is very much alive today among Christians, and it creates enormous problems for dating couples and newlyweds. They have been taught to view sexual impulses as evil before marriage and suddenly good after marriage. Those who believe this think that evil is the source of sexual urges for years and years, and that then all of a sudden God takes over.

Yet after a lifetime of identifying certain urges as evil, it is almost impossible to switch overnight and view these same urges as holy.

Many newlyweds find this confusion to be enormously difficult, often affecting sexual fulfillment in marriage. As one newly married man said, "I like it so far, but I can't stop feeling guilty about it. I mean, sex has been a bad thing my whole life. And now, all of the sudden, I'm supposed to believe it's clean. I'm confused." His problem is a common one--if sex was inappropriate yesterday, how can we convince ourselves that it is appropriate today?

This problem is not sexual; it is theological. Sexual impulses before marriage are not evil--they are merely physical impulses, chemical reactions, within our amazing, God-designed bodies. But these physical feelings can be turned and twisted into an evil use. As the apostle James says, they can become lust when we allow them to carry us away and entice us (James 1: 13-15). Sexual attractiveness was created by God but (like many of His good and perfect gifts) can be misused for poor purposes.

TOO CLOSE, TOO SOON

Thinking that sex can promote intimacy, some singles hop in the sack too quickly. This misuse of sexuality twists the whole relationship-building process designed by God and often makes the process infinitely more difficult. Couples with great potential can sabotage their future by sexual involvement too early. As one woman said, "Gene and I could have been great together. But we destroyed our future by getting involved too soon sexually. Before I knew it I was pregnant, and the pressures upon us were just too great for our young relationship to endure. The baby was born, but our love died. I can see now that we killed it."

How often I have seen this happen (the tendency to get too close, too soon) to Christian couples. I have no doubt that in many cases it was God who led the two people together, and they began to experience a relational intimacy reflective of the very image of God. But before they had a chance to develop a solid foundation for their relationship, they jumped into bed together. The weight of sexual intimacy was just too much for the new relationship, and their romantic dream became a quagmire of difficulty, conflict, and disappointment. Sex too soon puts too much stress on a new relationship.

Let's think about this in terms of the analogy of a young couple building their dream house. Here in southern California, all the homes have concrete slab foundations. Even if the couple have a great piece of land, a wonderful design, and all the materials and labor needed, they still have to wait for the foundation to dry before going any farther.


What if they became so excited about the house, so anxious to enjoy its many special features that they insisted the contractor build the frame and rooms before the cement foundation was completely dry? Of course, the result would be disaster. The wet cement, capable of supporting thousands of pounds when dry, would not yet be able to support even a small amount. Walls would sink into the concrete, correct angles and dimensions would be impossible to maintain, and strength would be forfeited. Even after eventual drying, cracks and other problems would develop--the house would be unsafe to live in. What a waste. Because the couple could not wait to enjoy the house, they did not allow the foundation to dry properly. They themselves ruined their house. They cannot blame the contractor who warned them; they can blame only their own impatience. Now neither they nor anyone else will ever enjoy that house.

Similarly, single adults who are unwilling to be patient and put forth the effort to build a solid foundation for their relationships face an unsteady foundation. Eventually it will collapse. Even if God has brought them together and blessed them with enormous potential, they can destroy the finished product if they try to proceed too rapidly. This is true in many areas: couples can get too close, too soon emotionally, financially, and socially (premature commitments). However, the danger is most prevalent in the area of physical, sexual intimacy. In terms of the analogy, some couples try to move their bed into the house while the foundation is wet and before the walls are up.

THE HIDDEN OPPORTUNITY

In spite of the ways that sexuality can be abused before marriage, sexuality can be an asset if used in the appropriate way. Single sexuality can be seen as a gift of God, the very vehicle and motivation of the imago Dei. God has left the sexual switch for single adults in the "on' position for a purpose. Of course, God is taking a risk with us, but He feels we are worth it. God is trusting singles to understand and apply a healthy, theologically sound view of sexuality that is consistent both before and after marriage. We should recognize His intent for our attractions and desires, and use our desires wisely, as He intended. God desires that we see our impulses as blessings and yet not sin--as opportunities and yet not fall.

So what is the hidden opportunity in a single's sexuality? Simply this: sexuality is God's reminder to the single adult to be wisely relational. As singles find themselves physically attracted to others, they are to use that attraction as a reminder that God wants them to be develop quality relationships. To put it bluntly and in the first person, when I feel a sexual attraction for another person, I should grasp the opportunity and say to myself. God is reminding me that He wants me to develop whole relationships, caring friendships. This is the key to handling temptation, which we will discuss in the next chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THANKS FOR VISITING! GOD BLESS YOU!

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