I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but the kids I grew up with in suburban Atlanta starting exploring their bodies in the fifth and sixth grade. Being raised in a traditional southern home, I was a bit more naive.
Heck, I was still watching “Scooby Doo” at that time. This is why when a girl in the fifth grade slyly asked me if I had ever hit a home run, I replied: “Girl, I play travel baseball. I hit ’em all the time.” I had no clue.
We live in a society that is marked by the freedom to pursue sex.
In this freedom, we’ve begun to worship it. In fact, I think we’re addicted to it. If you don’t believe me, just visit the Junction on game day. But seriously, since the ’60s and ’70s, with the advent of the pill, we’ve exchanged the old, worn-out ways of chastity for the exciting hedonistic life that is sexual freedom.
But it’s only natural, isn’t it? We’re supposing to be having sex, right? Sure.
I won’t pretend to think it’s unnatural for us to have sex, and I don’t think anyone would. But at the same time, I have to wonder whether the degree to which we’re pushing and promoting sexual liberation is actually natural.
Think about it. The porn industry rakes in billions of dollars each year. People pay hundreds of dollars to watch strip shows. As college students, we’ve made an art out of pre-marital hookups. School boards are promoting safe-sex education to kids in elementary school. (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. My point is that it is absurd we have arrived at a place where we have to offer such education to 10-year-olds.)
Again, I understand sex is as natural of a function as eating. But why don’t we treat them the same?
When someone spends  his or her life savings at Kroger, we know he or she has a problem.
We see such obesity as a social ill, and we fight to stop it. But thanks to our addiction to sex, when someone spends their time and money at a strip club, we think nothing of it. Why the double standard, I wonder?
Now is there a cure to our addiction? I think there might be one. But to find it, we’d have to stop and ask, “What question is sex trying to answer?”
Because although this is a relatively new revolution, it’s just the latest in a string of attempts to find true happiness. And just like our other attempts, such as technology, success or alcohol, sex will continue to fail us. Why?
Because we need something more. And until we find it, we’ll just keep partying and partying and downing drink after drink.
This is the paradox of the hedonistic soul – the more pleasure we imbibe, the more we thirst.
Reminds me of a story in John 4, where a carpenter talks about true thirst. Check it out sometime if you’re curious. In this chapter, I find you, myself, and our addictions.
In it, I find the questions I don’t want to ask. Maybe because I’m scared of the answers.