7 Days of Holy Sex Day 3 - Responsibility of Sexual Love

The uninhibited freedom that spouses may enjoy in conjugal relations and its abundant beauty and goodness are derived from the fulfillment of responsibility that marriage represents. Sexual love like any other aspect of true love means it is dedicated for the sake of others.

Who are the “others” to whom lovers are responsible?  There are three principal focuses of responsibility: to one’s conscience and Creator, to one’s present or future spouse, and to one’s existing or future children. Let us explore each briefly.

Three Responsibilities of Sexual Love


Responsibility to the Conscience 

The first responsibility is to be true to one’s conscience, that which helps direct the expression of our heart’s desire to find joy through love. Being responsible to the conscience encompasses several aspects.

It of course represents living by the moral truths regarding the larger meaning of sexuality. It is honoring the sacredness of one’s heart and body, and the power of sexuality to merge these with another’s. It is respecting the gifts of love, life and lineage and the potential of sexuality to enhance or compromise these gifts.

Ultimately these represent veneration of God. In addition, respecting the conscience encompasses responsibility to the individual’s parents, grandparents, clan and ancestors and to the larger clan and community.

One aspect is upholding the family honor. “I’ve gone a little farther than I intended to sometimes,” Cal, 21, admits. “But my fiancée and I have basically held the line at just holding hands. Partly it would be against what I believe in, that lovemaking is for marriage. But partly I’d be ashamed in front of my parents.

My father’s first and only woman was my mother and he was pure and inexperienced when he married my Mom. It was the same with my grandparents. Dad once told me he had been really tempted one time during his marriage, but one reason he didn’t give in was because he did not want to set that kind of example for me. Times are a lot different than they were for my father, but I still feel I want to uphold my family’s principles.”

Another aspect is acting in a way that ensures that one’s sexuality is a force that blesses one’s community and nation and not the opposite. Clearly there is a public dimension to the private sexual act.

The possibility of conceiving children who become partly the responsibility of the community, the legal and other ramifications of the devastations to families wrought by extramarital affairs, the link between sexual morality and all other morality—these and many other reasons mean that, in the words of ethicist Raymond J. Lawrence, “what happens in any bedroom is always potentially the business of the whole human family.”

Furthermore, being responsible to the conscience involves the determination to achieve maturity of heart and character, to become a person of sufficient mind and body unity to be worthy of the privilege of sexual love and able to fulfill its other two responsibilities.  It follows that if we compromise our chastity in any way, that we heed our conscience in making amends and rededicating ourselves to the original standard.


Responsibility to the Present or Future Spouse

This second responsibility of sexual love recognizes the obligations of a lasting marriage. The potential for conjugal love is destroyed if shared with anyone besides the spouse.

For married couples, this responsibility means a commitment to cherish and care for their husband or wife and dedicate their heart and sexual expression to them alone. This is preserving trust—the bedrock of love—by being faithful to each other.

For single people, this means to be mindful of their future husband or wife and practice fidelity to them in advance. “I imagine it’s my future wife,” explains a high school student about an empty picture frame near his bed.

“I’ve had it there since I was 13, and I sometimes write letters to her when I get lonely. When my friends tell stories of fooling around with their girlfriends and I start to feel left out, I think about my future wife and how I want to save the excitement for her.”


Responsibility to Existing or Potential Children 

Entering into sexual union implies this third responsibility, the commitment to the possible fruits—a new person, with longstanding material and spiritual needs. The parents have a responsibility to lovingly nurture to maturity the child they have chosen to help create.

This is a right that children fervently claim; how many cling to even neglectful or abusive parents rather than come under another’s care? Without the sincere shouldering of this responsibility, parents do their children and their society a grave disservice.  A loving marriage is the most secure foundation for the nurturing of a child. There is little in social science that has been more repeatedly demonstrated.

Children not only want and need the attention of both of their parents, but they also naturally long for their parents to love each other and to be together. This is not only for their physical and emotional nurturing but also as an affirmation of their identity and value. Children want to know that they were born of enduring love. Thus, marriage is the most worthy anchor for the lineage being created.

Furthermore, it passes on a sound legacy and a healthy tradition for the descendants to inherit, imitate and build upon. “As a father of four,” says author Daniel Gray, “I am reaping the dividends [of investments made] years earlier when I heard and put into practice the message of abstinence before marriage,” a key dividend being his moral authority in guiding his children.

All children deserve to be proud of the quality of love that conceived and raised them.

These three responsibilities of sexual love encompass the deep dimensions of sexuality: The first to conscience, the second to love and the third to life and lineage. Only the practice of committed, lifelong, mutually faithful monogamy and purity before marriage can

fulfill these three inherent responsibilities. This is reflected in the words of one young adult, a male virgin, who gave these common sense conditions for beginning a sexual relationship: “a willingness to spend a lifetime with my partner and/or the children we create.” Such a standard allows the nurturing and cohesive power of love to bind individuals, families, and ultimately a society together in
strength and safeguard their futures.



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This text was rewritten and derived from the Textbook: True Love, Chapter "The Meaning of Sexuality".