Sex. Sex is something that is not widely talked about amongst christians. Especially if you are a young adult and not married. This is a topic that I have always struggled with and have always had a skewed perception on.

My friends in high school weren’t the ones who were running around and hooking up with guys left and right. But I unfortunately was. I was essentially doing everything with guys except having sex. Unfortunately, it began with me being molested by a guy in a movie theater on a Friday night. So yes, I am apart of the #metoo movement and not many people know this. It was a night that completely changed my view on guys and sex. That is a night I will always remember because it was so scarring for me. We sat side by side with his arm around me. He then began to slide his arm down my chest to my pants and as he did this, I pushed his arm back telling him I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready. He didn’t care though. He fought with my arm and told me it would feel good and that it would be okay. His arm won and he slid it down into my pants. I just wanted it to stop and I wanted to say no so badly but I couldn’t get it out. I just remember the physical and emotional pain that went on in that fifteen minutes. This is a memory I try to block out as best as I can but it is not always so easy. This experience convinced me that it was okay and this teenage boy taught me that pornography was okay along with masturbation.

My freshman year of high school was when I began to get addicted to pornography and masturbation. This is something that I usually leave out of my testimony as well as being molested because it is something that I am deeply ashamed of and thats honestly to do with how it is viewed in the church. It makes me feel disgusting and sick to my stomach but fortunately Jesus wipes that clean. That is easier said than done though. This is something that I struggle with to this day. But only recently has it made me feel disgusted.

I just finished the book “Love That Lasts” by Jeff and Alyssa Bethke. This book has caused me to change my perception on the topic of sex. In our culture, sex is the normal. It is essentially everywhere. On TV, on social media, I even heard a girl sitting next to me in econ talking about how many guys she hooked up with last weekend, It’s EVERYWHERE. We are raising the most sexually exploitive and sexually exploited generation in all of history with porn and masturbation short-circuiting God’s design for sex.

I feel like this is a topic that gets shoved under the rug a lot. ESPECIALLY with women. This topic is typically only centered around men and teenage boys but this is something that many women struggle with as well, including me. The more that I have processed this the more I realize that the only way to create lasting behavioral change is to provide a superior pleasure. Sin lives in the darkness, it can’t survive in the light. To truly feel human, it isn’t laying naked in a bed with someone before marriage, it isn’t sliding your hand down your pants because you see something that arouses you. To feel truly human is to follow Jesus. Jesus stepped out of the grave and because of Him, we can too.

It all comes down to keeping your heart and mind pure and asking yourself this question… “who do I want to please?” Myself, my significant other, or God. We can live without erotic pleasure but we can’t live without community. Sex in marriage is way of remembering our vows for one another. It brings couples into one flesh. It is a time to just be with your partner and connect. It isn’t about what pleasures you, it is about what you give. Ultimately sex is a gift from God intended to help us reconnect and be united in heart, mind, and body.