Jul 28, 2013
by Atticus Ford Shires
I wanted to start out this article with a bunch of single-word sexual buzzwords to make it Look. Really. Dynamic. But I couldn’t think of enough to make it work, and the ones I thought of weren’t that great. Except for one — Struggle.
I wanted to start out this article with a bunch of single-word sexual buzzwords to make it Look. Really. Dynamic. But I couldn’t think of enough to make it work, and the ones I thought of weren’t that great. Except for one — Struggle.
Ah,
yes. We all know and loathe that word.
With it connotes thoughts and realities of failures, unmet expectations,
secrets, addictions and any onomatopoeia that resembles the feeling of blech. When we think of sexual holiness,
“struggle” is usually the first word on our why-I-can’t-achieve-sexual-holiness
list. I can’t achieve sexual holiness because I struggle with porn. I can’t
achieve sexual holiness because I can’t stop masturbating. I can’t achieve
sexual holiness because I like guys. These are just hypotheticals, of course…
Often,
sexuality as a whole is considered to be in the shameful/don’t-touch category
when it comes to sexual holiness, which is quite ironic considering we’re
talking about sexual holiness. We are told we can’t be sexual and sexually holy. We can’t possibly
look at a woman or man’s body with delight and be practicing sexual holiness.
We can’t wrap our minds around the concept that the act of self-stimulation
might be something that can garden sexual holiness. And a young man with
undeniable same-sex desires has only one option if he is to live in sexual
holiness: deny the undeniable, reject the desires and live in spite of them.
Well,
these things work about as well as telling a horny, teenage Christian boy to
carry a stress ball, find a hobby, or pray for a once-in-a-blue-moon wet dream
to relieve the sexual frenzy going on inside his chemically imbalanced body.
Sweeping our sexual desires under the rug
or in the closet or beneath the fig leaf is not the answer to achieving sexual
holiness. It’s the problem.
This
is a why I have a huge issue with the ever-popular Christian narrative for
modesty that goes something like this: “Omgosh, Stacy, I’m so proud of you for
wearing that one-piece. And don’t worry; if your boyfriend truly puts Jesus
first, he won’t think it’s frumpy at all,” or, “Ugh, look at Stacy. I can’t
believe she would wear such a slutty two-piece to a church pool party.”
Chances
are, Stacy doesn’t struggle with modesty issues, but rather Miss
I’m-a-better-Christian-than-you has a serious, fear-based people problem. My
high school was riddled with these Jesus freaks, where martyrdom meant sacrificing
your soul for the sake of status, and honor meant covering up—in every sense.
Cover your passions, cover your personality, cover your soul, and you sure as
hell better cover your body and your struggles. Ain’t nobody wanna see all
that, okay? Nobody. I mean, my god, this is church. Put a freaking cardigan
over those, Stacy.
It’s
ironic and sad that the very shackles of shame Jesus’s ministry sought to
destroy are the same legalistic pre- and post-requisites we place on people of
the Church.
The church many of us grew up in told us
that sexual holiness is like a report card, and God was your angry dad who
would neglect you if you didn’t make straight A’s. So when you’re a B
student with ADHD like me, you’re screwed. So to speak.
But
Jesus tells us that sexual holiness is a growing seedling that must be gardened
with time. It’s normal to go through drought seasons; it’s okay when occasional
frosts stunt blooms from budding. But
gardening never ceases, and neither does the love and perseverance of God.
The sun always melts away ice and dries up monsoon floodwaters.
The
church tells us that chastity and virginity are the utmost achievements of
sexual holiness, which will one day be rewarded with a perfect husband or wife
who is also “pure”, with whom you will have 2.1 children. So keep that wedding dress
white, okay, ladies? But
Jesus was single, and he never married! He didn’t tell single people to buy a
Match.com account, nor did he see married people as pedestal elites. He saved a
woman who was stones away from being clobbered to death just because she was
caught having an affair. I doubt this Jesus would tell Stacy to cover up her
midriff. But Lucy Whinealot might
have some ‘splaining to do.
The
church tells us that our struggles are parasitic evils that we need to
exterminate fast. The faster you break your porn habit, the more sexually holy
you are. But you’re still not as good as Timmy, who hasn’t ever looked at porn.
So even if you do quit fast, you’ll still be a B student. Just wait until your
father gets home.
But
Jesus says that sexual holiness is a growing seedling. I don’t care how much
Miracle Gro you put on that little sprout; it takes time, Jesus says.
It takes a lot of time. Gardening never ceases.
Even for you, Timmy. So,
when it comes to “struggling”—and we all struggle—we need to stop listening to
spiritual abusers and ignorant church-y traditions, and start listening to the
daring, cross-cultural, sexually revolutionary, provocative and untame:
Jesus—sexually holy and Gardener of souls.
Oh, Atticus, your wit keeps me laughing aloud yet again!
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I appreciate your honest account of the ways 'holiness' as represented & reinforced by church institutions can really miss the mark - to the point where God is, like you said, the angry Father demanding straight A's. To treat our sexuality with the pass/fail mentality reveals an unhealthy understanding of what it means to be a human in context of the Gospel. As saints justified by the work of Christ, should we be treating any of our struggles (not just our sexual ones) as pass/fail? I think to do so is to severely misunderstand the grace of God and what it means in relation to us. Jesus died on the cross so we could be free of the pressure to perform, so we can say "I am powerless to help myself & I've finally stopped trying to - the only one who can help me is you, Jesus." Sexual struggles are no exception to the work of grace. You are so right in that instead of seeking deeper revelation of God's grace amidst our struggles, we decide to zero-in on stupid things like cardigans and one-pieces and covering covering COVERING. We are such goobers.
I think your post is beautiful, and I look forward to the way we will struggle together and to allow our vulnerable nakedness to unveil the scandalous grace and relentless love of Jesus.