7 days of Holy Sex`Day 3 - Original Moral Code

“The owner of a husband’s sexual organ is his wife, and the owner of a wife’s sexual organ is her husband,” teaches Reverend Moon. "Marriage is finding the rightful master of one’s most holy place of love.”

In the previous post, we spoke about 8 points of the benefits of sex in a marriage.  These are the basics of sexual codes: An individual's sexual expression was meant to be reserved for only his or her spouse.

The only priest or priestess allowed to enter the Holy of Holies in the temple of the body is the married partner.

 The Qur’an concurs: “The believers are . . . those who guard their private parts except with their spouses”

When it comes to conjugal love, partners already have this sense of belonging to their beloved. "You own my heart,” they profess to each other.

In the Song of Solomon, the young woman says, “My beloved is mine and I am his”.

Couples promise their undying commitment, share their fortunes and futures and give all they have and what they will acquire to one another.  The greatest gift of this love is the exclusive affection and trust in an exclusive sexual relationship.  This is why it is natural for a husband and wife to claim their spouse on their beloved's love and his or her sexual expression.

Legal codes have historically recognized this expectation as “conjugal rights.

St. Paul, for example, speaks of this standard when he states, “The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”

1 Corinthians 7:4


This means that each of us is a caretaker of our reproductive organs, attending them as a treasure for the sake of the true owner our spouse and the Creator.  This sense of entitlement or proprietorship, of course, is necessarily in the spirit of respect and care.

Again, the Bible goes on to say that, “Even so, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

Spouses are to love one another even as god loves and sacrifices for each of them.  Each denying themselves  for the other and the duty to satisfy each other sexually is part of the larger promise within a marriage.  The world's major religious traditions for thousands of years have been consistent and of one accord in affirming commitment in a sexual union as the norm.


Religion Teaches Sexual Sacredness

Rev. Sun Myung Moon has used his 93 years of knowledge of the spirit world and different religions to bring about the truth of absolute, pure sex in the following speech:

All religions share the strict prohibition against sex outside of marriage, especially against infidelity within marriage. “You shall not commit adultery,” is among the Ten Commandments recognized recognized by Christians and Jews Exodus 20:14 and affirmed by Muslims Qur’an 6.151-53.

Among the ten precepts recognized by Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism is the charge of chastity.

This uncompromising norm will never change or become outdated. It is everlasting, having originated in the Creator and conforming to the very design and purpose of human creation.

Reverend Moon calls it the absolute sex standard. This is the standard “in the beginning” to which

Jesus was referring when he commented about matters of marriage Matthew 19:8.

The gold standard of sexual morality This norm is indeed latent within people’s consciences and “written on their hearts” Romans 2:15.

Common sense tells us abiding by this simple standard establishes the safety and security necessary for the greatest sexual satisfaction for both partners, and only these conditions will contain all the potential consequences of sexual union for the partners, their families and society.

Those involved with public health policy call it the “gold standard” of sexual morality, because it averts all the myriad negative health, social and other consequences of sexual behavior.



Confronting the Permissive Standard

However self-evident this original standard that links sexuality to marriage might be, reaffirming and reinvigorating this is sorely needed in contemporary times.

The developed nations remain in— and developing countries continue to fall under the thrall of—the sexual revolution that broke down traditional taboos in the 1960s.  Men and women relate in a 'low-commitment culture of ‘sex without strings, relationship without rings'.

Popular sexual morality has evolved since the blatant hedonism and promiscuity of the early days of the sexual revolution, but the basic “free sex” ideology still persists among many people of influence.

This is an outlook that sees sex apart from marriage as an act of liberation against unfair restrictions and that physical involvement is no one’s business except the partners.

Fun is considered justification enough for sexual relations; lovers should expect to be discarded when someone new comes along, and marriage and parenthood are unnecessary constraints on personal freedom.

In the aftermath of rampant unwed pregnancies, divorce, disease and heartbreak, this “free sex” philosophy of sex for pleasure has progressed to what is called the “ethic of intimacy", the belief in sex for love.

Warm feelings are now the acceptable reason for men and women to enter into a physical relationship. “Loveless” or “meaningless” sex is the only kind that might be condemned. Sexual activity itself is still regarded as morally neutral; it is its motivation that determines whether it is good or not.

Such an ethic of intimacy represents a moral advance in the many cases where sexual relations are brutally selfish and exploitative.

Yet it is a far cry from the authentic standard and remains just a variation of the older idea. Mutual consent, tolerance and a loose definition of love and intimacy easily legitimate temporary liaisons based on fickle feelings.

“We were crazy about each other,” recalls one young man. “I thought, ‘This is the one.’ We even discussed marriage. I gave my virginity to her. Well, so much for ‘undying love'. Now I don’t even know where she lives.”

Such an ethic does not protect partners from agreeing to use each other and inflict harm on one another and innocent parties beyond themselves, however this might go undetected at the time.

Whether the old free sex perspective or the newer ethic of intimacy, sexuality is regarded as a domain with its own rules, a unique impulse that cannot and must not be overly controlled. Sex is seen as a need to be addressed like that of food and sleep, and thus vital to mental and physical health. More than this, it is an entitlement, a right that cannot be denied.

In popular culture, sex is the universal gateway to joy, love, wisdom, transcendent experience, personal growth and discovery, worthy of endless participation, depiction and discussion. It has taken on mythic dimensions, like the Holy Grail or fountain of youth, and is almost an object of worship, as mentioned above.

This is a well-worn detour from the truth.

History abounds with examples of societies exalting sex out of all proportion and outside its rightful boundaries. Fertility worship in ancient Israel is a Biblical illustration.

History also testifies to the fact that whenever a society allows this to happen, destruction follows. Anthropologist Carl Zimmerman and others have discovered that the acceptance and practice of adultery and other aspects of sexual license are reliable predictors of the disintegration of a civilization.


Addressing Flawed Premises

The original sexual norm represents the enlightened and responsible standard, because it respects the realities of the heart and conscience as well as the body and harmonizes unselfish love and passion according to the human nature endowed by the Creator. The absolute sex standard confronts the flawed premises of the old “free sex” ethic: Absolute Sex Morality

The primary human motive and need is to give and receive love.

Sexual love is one dimension of this need and, while conjugal companionship and sexual intimacy are both good and healthy conditions, neither is a necessity, especially genital sexual relations. Sexual restraint is expected of any mature person.  Sexuality has intrinsic moral, spiritual, psychological and social dimensions.  Sexual love is a feature solely of the marital relationship.

It is responsible only in the context of this commitment and it is enriching only when accompanied by both love and commitment. Sexual expression is a responsibility and both a personal and public
matter.


“Free Sex” Morality

Sex is the primary human motive and need. As such, regular sexual outlets are a necessity. Too much sexual restraint is unhealthy and destructive.

Sexuality can be simply physical pleasure; it has no necessary moral, spiritual, psychological and social dimensions.  Sexual love can be a feature of any relationship; all sexual behavior is either normal or a variation.

Sex can be enriching free of love and commitment, while mutual consent and the use of birth- and disease control make it responsible. Sexual expression is an entitlement and a wholly personal matter."SMM



Return for Tomorrow's Post: 7 Days of Holy Sex Day 4: Benefits of Waiting for Marriage

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

7 Days of Holy Sex - Day 2 -Sex in Marriage

Sexual relations are so bound up with the conjugal relationship that until recent centuries it was the defining and irrevocable act of marriage itself. 

What had begun as a promise between the partners and the families involved was now “consummated”—made complete.

It was believed that a physical union was the exchange and bonding of blood.  So those who engaged in sexual relations before marriage were forced to wed in order to normalize what had occurred.

This way may sound archaic to such a 'free' society of America, but it was more close with human realities than this contemporary lifestyle of recreational sex.  Conjugal love is unique in that it is shared with only one partner and genital sexual relations, a physical bonding, shared with only one mate.

Within the context of the unselfishness, commitment and faithfulness of marriage, sex crowns the relationship with its own special glory. 

Since sex encompasses the partners in their totality, it is the very language and embodiment of commitment between two people who have pledged to join their lives and create a new family.

“Marriage is not just for the control of sex,” writes Smedes, “it is for the liberation and fulfillment of sex.”
Sex encompasses the partners in their totality and is the language of commitment between to people who have pledged to join their lives and create a new family.  This is why a sexual relationship was meant to have its greatest fulfillment in married love.


Just as the restrictions of the Japanese haiku form yield poetry of striking beauty and depth, so sexual love likewise reaches its zenith of power and beauty within and indeed because of the structure and boundaries of marriage. Let us explore in more detail eight aspects of the special role of sexual union in marriage.


Role of Sex in Marriage

Reverend Moon gives the speech in detail on the eight aspects of the special role of Sex in Marriage:


1. Strengthens the bond and sense of exclusivity
2. Helps mend rifts and revitalize the relationship
3. Substantiates love for perpetuity
4. Symbolizes the expansiveness and fruitfulness of love
5. Represents the harmonizing of opposites
6. Encapsulates the moral work of marriage
7. Represents mutual submission to a higher purpose
8. Invites God to participate in the marriage


"Strengthens the Bond and Sense of Exclusivity Sex intermingles hearts and minds in a powerful bond. It is both the manifestation and the reinforcement of the couple’s covenant with one another. Physical union fortifies the unique oneness of the spouses’ lives in all the other aspects—emotionally, financially, as parents and in destiny.

When daily life pulls the attention and energy towards children and other people in the home and community, sexual relations can reaffirm the central place the partner occupies in each spouse’s life.  Physical intimacy calms and reassures in a way that complements verbal expressions of caring and gestures of thoughtfulness.

Because it is an exclusive experience, a secret shared between spouses, it fosters a potent sense of intimacy and emotional security. Sexual relations create a deep seated, non-rational attachment that grounds the marital commitment.

Even at times when there may be little else in common during the shifting seasons of marriage, sex can be a reassuring point of connection until emotional closeness can be reestablished.



2. Helps Mend Rifts and Revitalize the Relationship

Sex is uniquely relaxing. The intoxicating feeling of togetherness and physical release, the all-absorbing sense of time standing still and being at the center of the universe provides a welcome relief from the stresses of daily life and the sadness of inevitable losses.

Genesis speaks of Rebecca consoling Isaac after his mother’s death by making love in the same way that the Book of Samuel tells of King David comforting Bathsheba after their child’s death.  Further, the nonverbal physical communion of sex can help defuse heated arguments and petty divisive issues by reminding the couple of their essential commitment and mutual need.

The playfulness of physical intimacy dispels the sense of threat that results from discord and nourishes the sense of friendship. Especially in the beginning of marriage when the spouses are learning to accommodate one another and many conflicts are arising, the excitement of exploring sex together can be a grounding experience that carries the couple through hard times.


3. Substantiates Love for Perpetuity 

Through sexual union, the love that otherwise would remain largely an emotional and spiritual bond between the husband and wife can be made substantial in two senses of the word. On one hand, there is the simple bodily oneness.

On the other hand, there is the more important manifestation: through bearing children and perpetuating lineage. Sexuality is the means of participation in the circle of life, the great ongoing creativity and generativity of the universe and the legacy of one generation to another.

Lineage is the aspect of sexuality that allows love to endure for more than one generation, notes Reverend Moon, and to have its imprint on eternity. From the viewpoint of a spiritual afterlife, the interdependence of mind and body means that conjugal love is anchored and rendered more complete through physical\ substantiation into lineage.

Speaking from a physical standpoint, posterity represents material immortality.  As this instrument of lineage, sex represents the hope of ancestors for their love and life to have continuing presence on the earth.

If a spouse’s body represents the culmination of all his or her ancestors’ bodies, and the reproductive organs represent the culmination of that individual’s material and spiritual existence, then conjugal union is the means by which entire ancestral lines meet and mix in a fundamental way. It is here where hope finds its most potent focus.

Through the mystery and miracle of love transmuting into new life, every generation looks to its newborns to represent a fresh beginning for the world, and hopes that somehow the distilled nobility of countless ancestors and the grace of God—might bring forth one or myriad saviors. Thus, sexual relations always hold this lineal significance and promise.

Symbolizes the Expansiveness and Fruitfulness of Love  This same possibility of creating a new life—and perhaps many such lives—means that sexual intercourse represents the public quality of marital love that extends beyond the spouses themselves.

Parents celebrate each child as a blessing and opportunity to demonstrate the fruitfulness of their love. In a similar way, a couple’s sexual embrace symbolizes this basic receptivity to be used by providence to nurture the potential for goodness in the world and leave a productive legacy.

This is not to mention the simple fact that sexual bonding is the very real underpinning of society and the nation, since this coupling is the very substance of marriage, and thus is the foundation of the family and the sustenance of the next generation.


5. Represents Harmonizing of Opposites 

The act of sex is the most obvious way that man and woman combine their complementary powers. Plus and minus energies come together in explosive joy, like lightning and thunder that seizes the spouses and ripples through them. In Earnest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, the lovers say that they feel the earth move when they make love.

Certainly the heart is moved; couples are left as refreshed and revitalized as the earth after a summer storm. The union of opposites is also potently conveyed in the fruit of sex—the offspring. Nothing so dramatizes that two genders have become one as seeing the parents’ faces blended into that of the son or daughter.

Moreover, sexual union is the object lesson in how to adapt to and support the opposite sex spouse in daily life. Intercourse is experienced so differently by men and women that it requires both genders to act contrary to their natural inclinations in order to accommodate one another.

For example, the husband must learn to resist his urgent and focused arousal to wait until his wife is aroused.

He has to learn to expand his focus beyond the genital act. The wife must learn to respond even when emotional connection is limited or other conditions are less than ideal. Both sexes have to give up the notion that the other is like themselves or should be.

A satisfying sexual relationship means they have to learn to understand each other’s differences, appreciate the value of these differences and see from the other’s perspective.


6. Encapsulates the Moral Work of Marriage

The deeply vulnerable, intimate and personal quality of sexual union brings out all the complexities of learning to love and be loved by one another. Practicing true love in marriage has many mundane manifestations, but sex is a special way.

In the words of Grenz:

[The] most expressive symbol of the willingness to give of self freely and totally for the sake of the pleasure and wellbeing of the spouse, is the sex act. In this act a person gives fully and unashamedly and becomes fully vulnerable and open to the other.

There must be humility and self-forgetfulness to learn how to satisfy the mate, yet there must be self-awareness and assertiveness to express one’s desires. Tensions within the larger relationship must be brought out regularly and resolved or they interfere with erotic feelings.

Communication must be frank yet sensitive. Differing needs and desires must be negotiated. Shifting moods, health and aging factors and the many seasons of the relationship itself must be taken into account, as do the changing duties of parenthood, work, caregiving and so on.

Accommodating each other in lovemaking in all these ways over the years teaches countless lessons and develops character in one another. In this way, sexual relations encapsulate all the moral demands and rewards of the spouse’s realm of heart.

Represents Mutual Submission to a Higher Purpose Sexual intercourse is a physical and spiritual experience beyond one’s control. Neither the husband nor the wife can fully manage either the sensations or the outcome.

In this sense, both partners ultimately surrender to being used by forces greater than themselves, to fortify love, to create life, to perpetuate lineage. This is a metaphor for the Biblical exhortation that partners “Submit to on  another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5.21).

Further, it represents a certain vulnerability and naturalness with one another, like children before their parents, since both lay aside all facades in the moment of sexual climax. Perhaps this is a sense of the Biblical meaning of to “know” one another through making love.


8. Invites God to Participate in the Marriage

Sexual relations hold a special allure to the Creator, as described above, for its unique potential to symbolize so much of His nature at once. The coming together of spirit and flesh, male and female, joy and fecundity magnetizes Him to the marriage bed.

God enjoys the love and lovemaking between husband and wife so much that according to the Talmud, when God instructed the Hebrew people to build the temple, He specifically asked for the brass basin for the priests to be made from the metal mirrors that wives used when they groomed themselves for their husbands, because such humble objects that promote intimacy between husband and wife were most precious to Him.

Thus, sexual union invites God to participate in the marriage." SMM



Return for Tomorrow's Post: 7 Days of Holy Sex Day 3 Original Moral Code

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

7 Days of Holy Sex - Day 1 Signifigance of Sex

The most important education is instruction in how to deal with sexual love.

—Sun Myung Moon

Of all of the kinds of loves that exist, which would be the most formidable?

The power of sexual love.  It is intermingled with the impulse to bond for life and also creating life with the passing down of genes and lineage.  Sexuality taps into the deepest aspects of being human which the power is as elemental as the wind or sea and is just as impossible to tame or even fully understand.

When educating for true love involves imparting insights about sexuality and coaching in directing this marvelous force.

When sex is shared in the rightful place of marriage as an expression of the deepest trust and affection by bonding two partners in deep communion and joy.  The physical communion of spouses is where all families originate.  This is how the family is the school for learning love and the definition of what it means to be human.

On the other hand, as America practices the trend of sex outside marriage we establish a foundation like a fire kindling outside of a hearth.  If one does not discipline the primal urges of the highest possible pleasures the body will experience, he or she is subject to compulsiveness to override the godly conscience.

This is the very reason for the birth of religious traditions.  Throughout history, religious societies have acquired strong guidelines for sexual expression.  The American trend is to go against these godly principles and when we take a indepth look, we see that it is the major cause of the downfall of societies in history.  The religious practice of discipline cannot be overstated.

“The moral man,” reads a Confucianist text, “finds the moral law beginning in the relation between man and woman”

Doctrine of the Mean 12


Yet keeping sexuality only in the service of true love represents a formidable challenge.

Because sexuality promises great pleasure, it invites every manner of misuse. 

Because it involves the whole person, distorted sexual attitudes and behaviors are particularly deeply rooted and hard to change.  Father Moon elaborates:Celebrating sexuality while channeling it away from selfishness has always been a difficult task both to each individual and to society, but never more so than amidst the permissive standards of the present age.

What is the true significance of sexuality? What is its meaning within marriage?
What responsibilities are inherent in sexual love? What is the original standard for sexual morality? How can this address contemporary beliefs? We will explore these issues in this and the following
chapters.


Sexuality and Its Significance

Sexuality of course is more than sex. It includes all that an individual possesses in mind and body that is male or female; it is the “aspect of our being that lies behind, produces and is given expression by our physical sexual characteristics and reproductive capacity,” in the words of Christian ethicist Stephen J. Grenz.

One’s masculinity or femininity is “not operative in one restricted area of life but is rather at the core and center of our total life response,” as the Catholic Church has put it.

This is why it is also fundamental to one’s sense of identity. We can no more imagine being neither man nor woman than we can comfortably tolerate not knowing the gender of another. Personhood itself is inescapably a sexual matter.

Because sexuality permeates personhood, then sexual relations have all the dimensions of a whole person. An individual has a material body, thoughts, feelings, conscience, connection to higher meaning, interconnections with the family, community and beyond.

So it is with sexuality. There are the physical as well as the psychological aspects. There are interpersonal, social and cultural factors too, as well as certain important moral and spiritual implications.

Thus, sexual union is necessarily a person-to-person encounter, even when the intent is only for a body-to-body one.

Much of the moral dimension of sexual expression has to do with these whole-person realities. It explains also why it is much more than just a private matter between partners.  Traditional ways of regarding the self and sexuality favor this more holistic view.

“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh,” Genesis declares (2.24).

Since “cleaves” represents intense bonding of the two partners, it suggests there is more than oneness of flesh as a result; some say a better translation is closer to “one person.”


Sexuality Reflects the Dimensions of the Whole Person

Reflects the Heart Impulse

Because male has no meaning apart from female, and vice versa, sexuality also means incompleteness.

In this sense, the sex instinct is the biological counterpart to the spiritual heart impulse. Ethicist Lewis B. Smedes describes sexuality as the “human impulse towards intimate communion.”

Physical
Moral
Spiritual
Interpersonal
Social
Sexuality
Psychological


It impels us towards a close connection with another person, in defiance of contemporary beliefs in individual self-sufficiency as well as our defensive reaction to isolate ourselves after yet another painful encounter.

Not only the sexual urge and act but also the very organs themselves all give obvious testimony to the principle of living for another and with another. This is at the core of what Pope John Paul II called the “nuptial meaning of the body,” that is, its capacity for union and communion through selfless giving. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach observes that sex is “simply the only human activity that physically necessitates another human being.”

In this sense, the genital organs symbolize the desire of the heart for conjugal oneness. The sexual parts of the body are the only organs that cannot fulfill their fullest function without their counterpart in a member of the opposite sex; they are almost useless otherwise.

It is the same with the spiritual heart; it cannot find fulfillment without the beloved either. Indeed, the heart and the sexual parts are connected. One moves the other; there is a mysterious link of reinforcement between the communion of lovers’ hearts and union of their genitals.

Thus, the man must offer his body to the woman for her to experience the meaning of her own physical sexuality, and vice versa.

This primal, inescapable need thus draws the two sexes to bridge the divide and lend their strengths and concede their weakness for one another. In this way, the sexual urge embodies the innate push of masculinity and femininity towards oneness, towards greater love and completeness.


Sanctuary of the Body

Moreover, it is this correspondence between the spiritual heart and the physical reproductive organs that is the basis for the universal regard for sexual modesty, even among peoples who do not wear clothes.

Just as individuals show self-respect by revealing their heart only to special people in their lives, so people honor the sexual parts of the body by hiding them from public view. If the body is the temple of the spirit, then this area represents the innermost sanctuary, the holiest place, the shrine and palace of love.

A sense of the sacredness of the genital organs may have been behind the ancient Roman custom of men making oaths with their hand on their private parts. Certainly it helps to explain why Yahweh asked of Hebrew males to be circumcised and bear the mark of their special covenant with Him there.


Sacredness of Sexuality

The link between the heart and sexuality also implies its spiritual dimension. The way that partners utterly lose themselves during physical union has always suggested its transcendent side.  This is one of the reasons people have historically posited sex as a spiritually elevating force in itself, heedless of its moral context, and even worshipped it.

This kind of perennial fallacy coupled with the pernicious power of sex in general—not to mention the ease with which even spiritually based personal relationships can become sexualized and destructive—have all contributed to why some of the world religions tend to scrupulously separate sex from matters relating to God.

Thus, sex and spirituality are not commonly discussed together. Yet it is simply a further reflection of the unique and paradoxical position we humans occupy as spiritual yet embodied beings, the microcosm of heaven and earth. Sexuality in many ways reflects this most dramatically.

The sex urge is an instinctual drive yet it allows participants to co-create an eternal being with God. It is a spiritual impulse towards oneness, even as it craves bodily expression and sensual play. It is a fount of carnal delight, while at the same time inviting a person into the vast possibilities of moral and spiritual growth present within the spouses’ and parents’ realms of heart.



God and Human Sexuality

The sexual act has great and unique significance to the Creator. This can best be grasped by considering lovemaking between a fully mature husband and wife. Such individuals would have achieved unity of mind and body, word and deed, each standing as a living mirror of the fullness of the Divine Parent’s heart and character.

As this resonates with the greater integrity within God, each would also be in communion with Him and attracting His joy and blessing. His interest would be amplified however when they came to the marriage bed. At the moment of conjugal union between them, the spirit and flesh join in their deepest oneness.

Thus, the couple would be an even greater reflection of the Divine at this moment than before. This is not to mention the celebration of self-giving that their lovemaking represents. God naturally wants to participate in such a beautiful tribute to His own nature of unselfish love.

At the same time, their sexual intercourse also signifies the unity of the couple’s masculinity and femininity. This is yet another facet of resembling the Creator, the origin of all the masculine and feminine natures in the manifest world. God delights in the dramatic interplay of opposites represented in the man and woman’s sexual play that echoes the same harmony of extremes within Himself.

Finally, as yet another magnet for the Divine Parent, the marvel of spirit begetting spirit through the flesh is an inherent potential in the couple’s intercourse. The union of husband and wife creates the context for God to give rise to a son or daughter, an eternal spiritual being through them—the greatest miracle of all. Thus God is captivated by the multidimensional beauty, fecundity and power of human sexual union, perhaps the most singularly sacred phenomenon in earthly life.


Vertical Force of Love

If the husband and wife’s passionate embrace represents the most complete and potent kind of horizontal love, then divine grace can be likened to a perfect vertical force of love that interpenetrates the couple at a ninety-degree angle. Through marital coupling, God’s vertical love expands horizontally on earth. It also extends into the future through the power of conception and lineage.

Reverend Moon emphasizes that God is the third partner in the marriage bed of a true husband and wife; it is the most sacred place where heaven and earth merge and rejoice.

Such a view is echoed in the Jewish writings that declare that the feminine aspect of God is present in marital relations. Islam has couples consecrating their lovemaking by offering a prayer. The Tantric yoga tradition speaks of sexual union as clearing all the body’s charkas and opening a person up to higher energies.

The holiness of sexuality is the reason behind many of the religious traditions’ prohibitions against fornication, adultery, homosexuality and lesser offenses. This negative emphasis invites charges of sexual repression.

Yet one can readily argue that the purpose of these prohibitions is to highlight the sacredness, the unique importance and beauty of sexuality, and therefore it is a tribute to a fundamentally positive view of sex.

In the Bible, even the older man is reminded, “Let your fountain be blessed and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love” (Proverbs 5.18-19).

Traditional prohibitions also recognize how readily sexuality is corrupted and misdirected into idolatry and abuse of power. Undisciplined sexual desire reduces people to things to be exploited, consumed and possessed. Sexuality is also highly vulnerable to becoming compulsive. This is why the joys of sexual love are to be bounded by the moral responsibilities of marriage.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: 7 Days of Holy Sex Day 2 Sex in Marriage

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