We often hear nowadays that it is somehow unhealthy, unrealistic, or unnatural to try to “suppress” our sexual desires. We’re sexual beings, after all, aren’t we? Not quite! God meant sex to be special expression of the love that a married couple shared with each other, two becoming one flesh (Gen 2:24; Mark 10:8) for the possible creation of children. Far from seeing sex as being something “dirty,” our Creator puts it on a pedestal of its own, in this manner, as part of the intimate love shared by a husband and wife.
As much as some of us, particularly guys, might obsess about having sex as frequently or spontaneously as rabbits or animals in heat, the fact remains God has a higher calling, and thus a higher standard, for us. After all, he created us in His image (Gen 1:27). Sexuality might bring out our “animal” nature, but we’re not animals, after all. Or, at least with God’s help, we try not to act like them!
(Besides which, lust, and sex outside of marriage, takes you into mortal sin territory. Having lustful thoughts isn’t a mortal sin per se; entertaining them and acting on them is.)
“Yeah, sure” you might say. Ok, let’s go back to the unreal “real world” for a minute. Even if you are tempted to think of God as some kind of grumpy killjoy and shut Him out of your life, at least in matters pertaining to sex as many people do today, you’re still not headed towards the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Besides the risk of unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease, and broken families, there is the fact that when we engage in sex outside of marriage, we risk taking on a great deal of heartache and loneliness in any case.
Why? Because, with all the talk of “love” in songs, most often people aren’t loving each other in bed. They’re using each other as commodities for physical or emotional gratification. Sex becomes self-centered instead of self-giving. As Tina Turner once sang about this kind of sexual activity “what’s love got to do with it”? This link from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as this one, spells this all out in greater detail.
And yet, referring here to the fall of Adam and Eve (in Chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis), there are serpents all around us in the media and Hollywood today saying “Hey, take a bite of fruit from this tree. It’s good for you!”
We might not be as “repressed” as a society as in the days a few decades back when two unmarried people living together were considered to be “living in sin” and pornography and illicit sexual activity were located mainly in red-light districts (as in the picture above). But are we really that much happier being bombarded with sexually provocative material and suggestive ads everywhere? (And don’t forget all the “soft porn” on TV and in films these days!)