Sex and Intimacy

Hank Smith, one of my favorite motivational speakers, said this about marriage and sex: “Marriage and sex are like drinking orange juice and brushing your teeth – they are both awesome – just try to get them in the right order.” In our world today, sex is a glorified “good time” while marriage is an institution of the past. People think of marriage as old, boring, and ineffective. Premarital sex has become commonplace while the idea of marriage is being torn apart. But we know from many years of research that intimacy is a basic need of the human experience. Where better to get intimacy than from marriage?

But what is intimacy exactly? Many people think that intimacy is sex. But that is not necessarily true. According to dictionary.com, intimacy is a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving relationship with another person. Sex is and should be a part of intimacy, but sex and intimacy are not the same thing. This is why I think Hank Smith put an emphasis on getting the order between sex and marriage right, because if done wrong, the degree of intimacy in a relationship is skewed.

In our culture today however, sex is kind of a touchy subject. No one really talks about it. Yeah, I mean sure we have mandatory sex education classes in school, but how many of you actually paid attention? How many parents know what their kids are learning in sex ed? Huh? My point is that we don’t properly teach kids and teenagers about sex, so they look to other sources for information. This is where the media and technology comes into play.

Technology has made a huge impact on culture in the past few decades. People can become famous in minutes by simply posting a video on various social media sites. We live in the information age. But what information are we consuming and is it beneficial to our society? Take pornography for example. Pornography is not a new problem for the human race. Many of the past civilizations like Greece and Rome made pornography an art form. Walk through any museum in Europe and you’re more likely than not going to see some form of pornography. But technology and social media have taken pornography and made it into a business, where it is easier to access and harder to control who sees it.

But what does this hypersexualized media do to our children and to our families? Why is there a need for pornography when we can have a fullness of joy within our marriages and families? Many who are addicted to pornography turn to it in the first place because they don’t understand that concept. They believe they deserve a better, more perfected sexual experience than what their partner is giving them. But what is perfect? It does not mean without error like most people believe. It means complete, whole, and wholly-formed. Does pornography make you feel complete and whole? Probably not. I’d guess it probably makes you feel guilty and empty with a need for more.

But nothing in this life is perfect. It can’t be. There are flaws and errors in everything and everyone. Pornography cannot take the place of an intimate sexual experience with someone you love. Sex is an emotional, physical, and spiritual experience. It brings people together more than anything else. My professor told our class that the reproductive organs are the only organs in the human body that are not complete without both the male and the female. During physical intimacy you literally become one. That is why we need to safeguard sex. That doesn’t mean we never talk about it, in fact that is not a good solution at all. Be open about it. Help people understand that sex is good. Great even. But only within the right context and in the right order.