God Didn't Make Our Bodies Only for Sex
When I look back on my most exciting adventures as a single woman, I won't remember wishing I'd been having sex instead. I didn't. Yes, I am trying to obey God through chastity during this season, but closing myself off to sex has hardly closed me off to my body as well.
The day after I turned 33, I climbed inside a small, three-wheeled taxi, rode to the edge of a jungle deep in the Amazon, and hiked 90 minutes to a tiny village. Several hours later, I found myself eating cake with students at a small mission school there after a few rounds "Feliz Cumpleaños" in honor of my birthday and a special anniversary for the school.
I could not have been more bodily present to that adventure than I was. It was more than enough, to feel a sandy, wood-plank floor beneath bare feet, smell the cooking fire over which a late-night snack was prepared, hear the joyful singing of strangers with whom I shared a deep spiritual kinship, see their smiles in the flickering light, and eat the cake with which we celebrated each other and our vastly good God.
In his goodness, that God has kept me single far longer than I ever wanted. Yet perhaps precisely because I have stayed single for so long, I have been free to visit a dozen countries and more than 20 states, free to hear jazz in India, feel equatorial rain on my skin in Singapore, eat tiny fried shark in New Zealand, smell sage and piñon in Santa Fe, andsee the 200-year-old home where my great grandmother lived as a girl on the Isle of Mann.
Do then I define my single adulthood as saying no to sex or as stretching the boundaries of bodily experience ever outward? Both are true in a way, yet I would argue the latter accounts more completely for my life since I left home.
As I wrote last week, however, the church often lapses into focusing mainly on negative advice to singles — "Don't have sex" — rather than giving us positive exhortations we can live into. And we do this despite the fact that Adam and Eve were ensnared precisely by focusing not on the complex and beautiful garden God gave them to enjoy and cultivate, but on the one tree from which they weren't allowed to eat. An entire world of freedom was narrowed down to a single restriction.
To some extent, the overemphasis on sex may reflect an underlying Gnosticism, as others have noted. The Protestant church tends to favor an ascetic approach to worship that privileges the ears over a more full-bodied engagement with God and each other. Though communion provides the most multi-sensory experience, many churches take it only monthly.
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Indian motorcycle
Early 40s, never married Christian woman myself, and I did not have sex. I have given up on the idea of waiting until marriage to have sex. Most churches and most material for Christian singles does not acknowledge older Christian celibates, and if and when they do on those rare occasions admit we exist, we have been treated like odd balls or failures for abstaining and not getting married, causing me to wonder why so many Christians bother telling teen age and early 20-something Christians to wait until marriage, since they cannot or will not support Christians who are still virgins at age 40 or older. Many Christian women over the age of 35 today did not choose to be single this long and don't know why we never married. But some Christian authors and personalities keep assuming we are to blame for being single or that we chose singleness. We're over 35 years old, still single, we're celibate, and get no help from the Christian culture.
tiger sampson
Well, I applaud you on being young and abstaining from sex. Very hard to do. I am a widower and I really miss the fulfillment of physical affection through sex in marriage that brings closeness, intimacy and a sense of security. I could travel the world a hundred times, have more money than I could every spend and nothing could replace the physical, sexual intimacy marriage brings when you are with the right partner. I really don't want to be judgmental but my initial reaction to your column was that you should pull back on the traveling and maybe focus more on the Christian singles dating scene to see if it is God who is really holding you back from finding a partner.
Kathi Vande Guchte
Singles assume the married couples are having lots of sex, everyday, all day and it's fabulous. Married couples assume singles are traveling, spending money, and having all this freedom. Both sides are incorrect and would be disappointed, or eventually bored with the life and realize they'd romanticized the other side of the fence.
Kevin Calegari
Good insight. However since one doesn't need a sexual partner to have sex, I would imaging in a sex filled society pornography and Masterbation would come into play, or at least present itself as a temptation. The key is self control a strong spiritual connection to God and constant prayer especially in temptations. Without God's grace chastity is impossible. God bless!
Wendy Willmore
Preach it, Anna!
Jim Ricker
God tells us through the Apostle Paul that celibacy is a gift that allows us to be able to serve with no split allegiances. Does that mean only a single celibate person can serve God well? Of course not but we do know that God's word is true so celibacy can be the greatest gift.
Bethany Harvey
This was an interesting article and I agree, we were made for more than sex. However, just because a person has had sex, doesn't mean they don't engage in life any less than an individual practicing chastity. Or that they are all hedonistically indulging in selfish depravity. Anyone can practice what you've outlined in your article, and I think everyone should do so, whether they be married or single. I find it dangerous to say one Christian may have an advantage in his or her state of growth in Christ over another merely based on a vow of chastity. While I do believe living in sin limits growth and the blessings God longs to give us, I hesitate to proclaim that someone's blessings and growth are based on the fact that they are single and chaste. Sexual activity isn't a measurement for growth and blessings--its all a matter of the heart. Embracing where God has you, whatever state you are in--single, married, widowed, divorced--and choosing to honor Him in all we do. Just my thoughts.
Jim Nelson
Great topic. Great thought. I live in China, and I told a single Chinese sister who just turned 30 that she could not be more valuable than she is now. She, as a single, has time to mentor the teenage daughter of a family deeply in need or her influence. She cooks and buys for us. She reaches out to her co-workers both men and women and prays for each. She spreads love all around our church by her smile and life and energy. I pray she finds a man to marry, but the whole church will be harmed if she marries. Many people she blesses and even transforms now will lose her influence as her focus on a husband and perhaos children takes her away from all of us. I would hate to think that she feels her life is less valuable than the 30 something woman who has a boy on her knee and little time for the rest of us. I pray that she and others would know that just as Paul lived a valuable life without marraige, so can they if they accept that path they have today.
Michael Constantine
Can a guy say a word? I love your article and the insights that you bring to it through your personal journey. My wife and I mentor and counsel quite a few single young women here in Kuala Lumpur. Your article is fresh air in a day of stale self-centered hedonism. Thanks.
Gina Dalfonzo
Such a great post, Anna! I love it!
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