Sex And The Single Person

I’ve got a confession to make.

I want sex.

This really shouldn’t be surprising. I’m a 30-year old, never-been-married, very single woman. I’ve got hormones. Correction: I’ve got *raging* hormones. Just because I’m single doesn’t mean that my desire for sex has stayed dormant. I certainly wish it did. On numerous occasions, I have whispered prayers to God asking Him to tame them or at least help me get through the grocery store without jumping on some innocent man who was just trying to buy some fruit.

Ya, some days it really is that bad.

I think “bad” may not be the right word. Maybe a better way to describe it would be to say that some days the feelings are more intense than others. Honestly, there’s nothing bad about my desires at all. When God created the first man and woman He gave them (and subsequently us) certain longings and those longings include the desire to be fruitful and produce offspring. How does one make the Earth fruitful? Oh ya, by having sex and lots of it.

Gasp.

Before I get too far into this, let me do some clarifying.

God intended sex to be within the context of marriage. I’m not saying that just because we have certain desires, we should act on them. I crave chocolate about as much as I crave sex, but that doesn’t give me the freedom to eat it every time the desire arises. Believe me, my waistline couldn’t handle that kind of abandonment of self control. There are certain guidelines God gives us, for good reason—those include boundaries in regard to sex.

Back to me wanting sex. I’ve grown up in church, and the resounding message has always been pretty clear cut: “Do NOT have sex outside of marriage.” But somehow my brain translated this instruction into “Don’t you dare even think about wanting it. Desiring sex is lustful and a sin.” I don’t think anyone ever said that, although my youth pastor did say that the sweat that forms when a boy and girl hold hands is “liquid lust,” so it’d be best to never do that. He was being silly, obviously, but maybe the attitude behind it stuck, and with it some shame.

Where does the shame come from? I mean, I’m not alone in this, right?

I’ve got my ideas on this. First, I think the church (generally speaking) tends to stay away from the topic of “Sex and the Single Person,” and that is one of the biggest culprits. We need to start talking about it instead of allowing it to be, even unintentionally, a blacklisted topic. The moment we become hush-hush concerning a specific topic, when it becomes taboo to discuss it, the shame will surely come.

Shame grows in secret. The moment we shine light on it is the moment freedom comes.

Besides shame, there’s fear attached to making such an admission. We have this idea that God’s mouth will drop if we admit we want sex. I promise, this is no shocker. There’s no rule, and last I checked it wasn’t included as part of the “Big 10” that we couldn’t say the word “sex” in church.

So let’s talk about it, laugh about it and learn how to live with it. I make it sound like some kind of terminal illness, but seriously, its not easy wanting something you can’t have with no apparent end to the “dry season.” That’s about the only thing that will get me through this—well, that and knowing I won’t die because of my abstinence, no matter how convinced I am that might be the case.

Who do you have in your life that you feel safe discussing this with, to get godly guidance and encouragement?