WHY GOD MADE CLOSETS:

Before the Deluge: All of us have a sexual orientation that bends toward the self. (Andy Crouch, December 2003, Christianity Today)

[W]hat is the meaning of sexuality? Is it, like so much in consumer culture, an opportunity to define my identity by carefully excavating, and duly satisfying, my individual preferences? (The ostensibly heterosexual plot lines of Sex and the City, which has several gay writers on its staff, are pristine expressions of this view of sex. It is no coincidence that the
series is ending now that its star has had a child.) Or is sexuality, whether expressed in intimacy or reserved in chastity, less a matter of finding myself than offering myself, less about satisfaction than servanthood?

Second, what are human beings? Are we fundamentally good creatures whose desires are implicitly to be trusted? Or are we both victims and perpetrators of rebellion against our own good, persistently deceived and deceiving?

Beneath these questions hides the third and ultimate question of our time, the goodness (not the existence) of God. Is God for us? Is God distant, cruel, or both, leaving us to do the best we can to provide for ourselves? Or does God suffer with us in our passions, longings, and yearnings--even and especially those that come from the most fragile reaches of our hearts?

I have accompanied many friends through these questions. Some of these friends would usually be described as "homosexual." But the more I have faced these questions, and the more deeply I come to know my friends and myself, the less I believe that "homosexual" is the right word. Humankind is not divided into "heterosexuals" and "homosexuals." Rather, we are "sexuals," people created for union with another, in the image of a relational God. And all of us have a sexual orientation that bends toward
self, that tends toward self-justification, and that hides from a God we fear is not good enough to satisfy us.

So much has always been true--and relatively few people care (or have ever cared) what you do in privacy, so long as you have the sense of shame to keep it hidden from God and the rest of us. But now we have the strange phenomenon of folk insisting that society sanction their own selfish predilections.

MORE:
Cosmo Says No to Sex: A cheerleader of the sexual revolution has second thoughts. (Julia Magnet, 27 October 2003, City Journal)

British Cosmo, purveyors of weekly sex “confessions” and such articles as HAVING SEX AT THE CIRCUS WAS SUCH A THRILL, has launched a campaign against “soulless” sex—a campaign that seems not to apply to the rest of the magazine, however. Lamenting “McSex” in her October editor’s letter, Lorraine Candy worries: “But what about your emotions, self-esteem and, most importantly, your orgasms?” Modern sex, after all—its purpose and its meaning—is about nothing more than you and your quest for the good orgasm. Cosmo’s three pieces on soulless sex continue in this clueless vein. They resolutely refuse to discuss the sexual revolution as part of the problem—except to insist lamely that they don’t want to return to the “prejudiced” and oppressive environment in which “our mothers” lived. They seem oblivious to the role that such cheerleaders of the sexual revolution as Cosmo, with features like THE SECRET SEX FETISH YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD, played in creating the perpetual one-night stand. Each article treats soul-less sex simply as a recent trend that came out of nowhere, like a fashion craze. Candy’s editor’s letter, for example, equates the “new and worrying trend of soulless sex” with wearing stiletto heels that are fashionable but uncomfortable.

But these adamantly non-judgmental pieces draw a bleak vision of British girls’ lives. One 27-year-old announces from a club, “I’ve never had an orgasm and I’m on a mission to get one. . . . I’m not sure how many men I’ve had sex with; perhaps about forty.” Another wonders, the morning after, “maybe sex would be better in a relationship?” And a 22-year-old looks back on her catalogue of one night stands and sighs, “I’ve only had an orgasm with about a third of the men I had sex with; and sometimes it was actively unpleasant.”

The author opines that every Friday night, “women will be having sex, and perhaps not getting the orgasms the deserve.” This is the sum of her insight. On the next page, Cosmo’s advice columnist rightly worries about the emotional consequences of impersonal sex but balks any cultural or moral judgment. The final article in the package, by a woman who runs a fashionable internet sex/porn site dedicated to allowing women to “express their sexuality as freely as men,” opines that one night stands can only work if you don’t expect a relationship and know how to “demand” to be fulfilled. Throughout the articles, Cosmo revels in its role in allowing women to “explore their sexuality,” its centrality to women’s liberation—as if the magazine that produces how-to articles on oral sex or on toning muscles and burning more calories while having sex wouldn’t produce a society that divorces sex from love and commitment.

But it is significant that even Cosmo has second thoughts about where we’ve arrived in the sexual revolution. And no wonder. The UK, where I live, is, to American eyes, a remarkably debauched society.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 4, 2003 08:38 AM