Sex: Bonding or Bondage?
Our culture is obsessed with sex. Tune in to any top forty radio station and you may find yourself trying to explain the meaning of ménage à trois to your 10-year-old.
You and your family are bombarded with sexual images every day on billboards, in magazines, on primetime television, in music videos and video games. Sexual innuendo and blatantly explicit images are one mouse click away, or even closer. Graphic emails find their way to your inbox unsolicited.
Everything in popular culture tells us that the sole intent of sex is self-pleasure. Not bonding, which is God's purpose for sex.
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What are you doing to safeguard your heart, your mind and your children from the pitfalls of this mentality? Do you know why it's crucial to do so?
Shameless Oneness
God made marriage, and sex within marriage, so that one man and one woman can compatibly and suitably become one flesh-spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. Genesis 2 says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (verses 24-25).
Sex is shameless oneness. Its purpose is evident in our very design.
Sex involves all of your senses and your whole being. Your right brain processes the here and now, including feelings and emotions related to your immediate experiences and surroundings. Your left brain processes facts and solves problems. When you have intimate relations with someone, bonding hormones are released and neurons from both hemispheres of the brain fire together. As a result, memories of your partner's smell, touch, sound, and feel are imprinted on your brain forever.
Another subtle confirmation of how God created sex as a means of bonding is the presence of oxytocin, a hormone best known for inducing labor and breastfeeding. It also fosters emotional bonding and builds trust. While levels of oxytocin are generally lower in men than women, during sexual relations, oxytocin rises in both women and men.
A Foreshadowing
God has wired us to be connected and faithful to one person. That's why having multiple sex partners, engaging in casual sex or watching pornography (a staggering one out of every two men and one in six women have watched pornography) is so destructive. It goes against the very purpose for which sex was intended.
Imagine how confused your brain becomes when you are imprinting memories of scores of people in your mind. In addition, when you involve multiple people, you actually hinder your ability to truly connect with the sexual partner God intended for you: your husband or wife. And when a husband cheats on his wife, stress hormones are released as the brain struggles to make sense of this bonding conundrum. A brain "rewired" for multiple partners will enslave you and lead to self-destruction.
In 1 Corinthians 6:18, the Apostle Paul teaches us that we must "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body."
It's a stereotype to say men's primary objective in having sex is pleasure, and women are more concerned with creating closeness. The bottom line is, God's purpose for sex is both pleasure and bonding – a vehicle for creating oneness between husband and wife. And by the way, it actually is a foreshadowing of what we can expect in heaven – when the church, God's bride, is united with Him.
I encourage you to have conversations with your children about "safe" sex. Talk about all the physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual dangers. Challenge them to consider how a condom cannot protect their emotions, their mind, their reputation and their relationship with God.
Hold out for that happy ending, in marriage and in heaven.
To learn more about Pastor and author Miles McPherson, please visit MilesMcpherson.com.
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