Thinking about sex

It's a pretty constant factor in news headlines generally, but it seems to be especially so lately.

There's the massive scandal involving Catholic priests in Pennsylvania.

There's the Asia Argento situation. She was one of the early and most prominent accusers of Harvey Weinstein and an icon of the #MeToo movement. Now it's indisputable that she seduced an underage boy.

There's the dustup going on in Egyptian society over a video of a guy clearly stalking a woman in public. A large number of folks weighing in on it take the stalker's side.

Burning Man, which is supposed to be a cultural phenomenon proving that the now-half-century-plus-old counterculture is really benign and groovy and is ushering in a completely new age of human existence, is having to get persnickety in setting up rules about "consent" in the Orgy Dome on its grounds.

And then there's the basis of the multilayered difficulties the Very Stable Genius is experiencing. I saw a tweet this morning that said that none of this would be happening if the VSG had followed the Pence rule.

May I suggest something that could help the people in these situations and millions in similar situations avoid the complications they've imposed on their lives?

Conduct the sexual aspect of your lives in a Godly manner.

That's right. Keep your pants zipped until you're married, and only have sex with your spouse after that.

This is obviously a toughie, compared to a lot of other areas of sinful behavior. Most people have no interest in killing anybody, or committing burglary. Most people aren't inclined toward telling whoppers.

But what is it about sex that overwhelms people's self-control?

Put another way, why did God make it such a powerful impulse?

It can be seen, it seems to me, as an encapsulation of the basic notion that there are right and wrong ways to use any and all of God's gifts. That's what makes the Genesis allegory about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so exquisite. God said to Adam and Eve, "You can eat the fruit of any of the countless trees in the garden - except this one." And the serpent's argument was persuasive indeed: "Oh, come on, do you think there's really any difference between that tree and any of the others? Doesn't it look just like them? Aren't you the least bit curious as to whether the fruit tastes any different from the others?"

Living in compliance with God's law has a certain similarity to learning how to do any number of things.

I give guitar lessons as one of my income streams, and my approach is to bring technique and theory along together. Here's where you put your fingers to make this sound and here's why. But you can't start injecting theory into it until you've introduced the student to some rote exercises. God's law is like that. One must start in just obeying it and trust that questions about why things are set up the way they are will start to get answered as you advance in that way of living.

Once one does that, one eventually does see that the concept of trust is a major factor in the way God set up sex. Sex is the ultimate in an intimate interaction with another person. Your bodies are united. Unless it's in the coldest of circumstances, you're going to lie there with the other person for at least a while. (Even Asia Argento did, per the photo that proves her dalliance.) If a critical mass of people start subscribing to the norm that you don't have to trust the person you merge bodies with - or even know anything about him or her, for that matter - widespread general mistrust has to follow. And things get ever colder. Consider the "consent" signs being posted at Burning Man, and how far removed they are from the magic and delight of the rituals of courtship that defined the comings-together of sexual partners prior to the final rot of our culture.

And sex makes babies, and therefore families, if only in a technical sense. And babies and young children are helpless and depend on adults to make sure everything is alright. They trust. And if the adults ostensibly most deserving of that trust, the parents, are setting a tone of general mistrust in a family, and taking a frivolous view of the bonds they've formed, a child starts life on a very bleak footing.

Yes, giving in to that powerful impulse is immensely gratifying in the moment. But the ramifications start showing up quickly.

As I say, it can take a while to see them, especially if one has made a lifestyle out of sybaritic momentary encounters, so it's best to just start into the way God says to handle sexuality and trust - there's that word again - that the why of it will become apparent as you progress.