Impact of Sex Without Commitment

Even though no intimate relationship is immune from experiencing bad times, having a committed marriage between two God-centered individuals can be the best defense against the worst influences that break up relationships.

Sex within uncommitted relations offers no protection and invites the most destructive kinds of interactions to take place.

The guilty parties in the Bible's Genesis story blamed each other for their own wrongdoing.

“Sex always changes the dynamics of a relationship,” observes educator Josh McDowell.

Essentially, any relationship outside a committed relationship is a sibling relationship, between brothers and sisters.

Therefore, when two individuals have casual sex, they no longer or maybe never will fully enjoy the benefits of a friendship or reap the complete rewards of married love.

This is why Reverend Sun Myung Moon cautions single men and women to not get physically involved, not even holding hands, because it depletes the potential for true love between them.

Also, having sex outside of marriage not only affects the two individuals, but compromises relations between friends, other peers and potential marriage partners.  This may also impact future marriage.


Impact on the Relationship

1. Stress with parents and friends
2. Problems with partners
3. Negative effect on future marriage



1. Stress with Parents and Friends

Parents have a deep stake in their children and grandchildren who are the extension of their blood and investment of heart.

When children begin to enter into sexual relations outside the form of marriage, their parents may feel worried, disrespected and hurt.

This breach can be difficult to mend just as when Adam and Eve who could not face their divine Parent and hid from God after their indiscretion.

When one gets obsessed over a sex partner, it reduces the attention given to friends. In addition, of sex only intensifies feelings on all sides.

Nothing is as divisive as sexual jealousy.

Close friends can become the best enemies overnight.

When there is a crowd of friends that are sexually active, it can become a web of attraction, rivalry, possessiveness, jealousies and betrayal.

Even the most innocent gestures become suspicious by a jealous partner.

When one betrays his spouse with infidelity, the friends are then added to the betrayal list.

 “After the initial shock of his affair wore off,” recalls Eugene, 45, a computer instructor, “I found myself dealing with my own anger. How dare he betray his wife, who was my friend! How dare he hurt his young daughters, who are my daughter’s playmates! And then I realized he lied to me too, over and over.”

2. Problems with Partners

“Once burned, twice shy” is uttered by many people who experienced heartache from a breakup of  a sexual bond.

They remember the pain and this one betrayal will stand in the way of them giving themselves completely and trust the ones who deserve their love.

Women may distrust all males as only wanting them for their body.

Males can mistrust and fear which last for years even until they find the right person to marry.

Sometimes the introduction of sex disrupts a warm and caring friendship that might well have been a good basis for marriage.

“Everyone thought we’d be married, including us,” one middle-aged man reminisced about a girl from his youth. “We were very close and didn’t need sex. But everyone expected it and we thought we were missing something. Finally we slept together. Afterwards we felt different about each other. What we had just faded away.”

Conversely, when two people have a horrible relationship that has no future, they may stay in it longer because of the strong bonding power of sex.  It becomes difficult after a couple experiences such a powerful physical intimacy that they are lacking in the emotional closeness.

Sex not only multiplies one's own ego, but it is an addictive pleasure which brings on rationalizations and demands.

One partner comes to expect sex at every opportunity.

When the other refuses to give sex, this can launch  the other to become violent.  It is a fact that when one gets involved in sex outside of marriage, especially live-in lovers, there is more violence and other forms of abuse than among married couples.

Because we posses both a mind and a body, once physical intimacy is introduced into the relationship, then the heart yearns for the same level of emotional intimacy.

Yet, having sex too early in a new relationship makes that longing harder to fulfill because it can overpower any meaningful communication or friendship-building activities together.

Thus, the couple may avoid taking the effort to understand the other and work out their differences.

One college woman admitted that ironically, “Having sex is easier than talking face to face and having to deal with all the things that come up.”

Once a couple no longer has quality interaction outside of the bedroom, then the relationship collapses from within.



3. Negative Effect on Future Marriage

Just because a couple gets married and have children, they are not free from the ill effects of premarital sexual experiences.

The problem of self-centered sexual habits can be carried into the marriage bed.

Marital sex is supposed to be one of uninhibited surrender to the joy of pleasing the one they love within the safe context of acceptance and commitment.

When those who have repeatedly used sex for selfish reason enter into a committed relationship, they find it difficult to switch it from a selfish act to one of giving to the other.

Those who were virgins when they married learn the other's wants and needs and attune to one another, those who are already experienced have habits and preferences that may obstruct that harmony.

Second, because people hardly forget a past sexual partner, one who is experienced may be haunted by images of past partners even after marriage.  They may unconsciously compare their spouse's performance to past lovers.

This must not only disturb them, but also is heartening to the spouse if they find out.

Who wants to have a spouse that compares their body or performance to another lover of the past?

One young husband observed, “Whenever I kiss my wife or engage in love play, my memory reminds me that this girl could kiss better than my wife, that that girl was better at something else, and so forth. I can’t concentrate on loving my wife with all that I have—there have been too many women in my life to be wholly committed to one.”

Since sex before marriage is taboo, males can be conditioned to connect premarital sexual arousal with the thrill of doing something illicit – the forbidden encounter and the excitement of possibly being discovered.

This sexual excitement can be psychologically linked to risk.

Later on in life, a sexually experienced person may see the safety and legitimacy of marriage as to tamed to be arousing.  Therefore, in order for a husband to get sexually aroused, he is constantly drawn to illicit stimulation such as affairs or pornography.


Weak bonding and predisposition to breakup

Fourthly, after one has many encounters, sex may lose its potency to build strong attachment to one who they finally choose as a lifemate.

Research suggests the chemical sexual bonding power may grow feebler after having already imprinted the heart and mind with previous partners.

On the other side, disappointing sexual experiences can lead one to avert sex or have a feeling of boredom during the act.

One can get into the habit of holding their heart from a sex partner because of many experiences with sex in unsecure relationships that turned sour.

Instead of viewing sex as wholesome and giving of the mind, body and soul like virgins on their wedding day, one may find it challenging to completely give of themselves even with their spouses.  This can be hard to overcome even after years of marriage.

A final consequence of indulging in unmarried sex is the possibility of divorce.

Couples who lived together first before they were married, are more likely to break up some time after they get married.

Research also shows that women who were sexually active before marriage have less stable and satisfying marriages than those who were virgins before marriage.

Those who have a series of sexual relationships learn many things, not the least of which is break-ups and failure in relationships.

Sex amplifies an already present atmosphere of understanding, acceptance and intimacy within a marriage.

On the other hand, outside of marriage, sex only aggravates insecurity, lack of trust and misunderstanding, making real intimacy harder to attain.

One single 21-year-old woman, a rock musician, agrees: “Leaving sexual intercourse out makes it easier to enjoy a relationship . . . . Without sex, you can be yourself—it’s more comfortable. It helps you figure out faster what kind of person they are if they are right for you.

You can also get out of a relationship easier—you’re not glued by the sex. Sex complicates things and confuses you. Sex just slows down everything if what you’re interested in is a good relationship.”


Return for Tomorrow's Post: New Sexual Revolution for God

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on sex and marriage.

Value of Sexual Organs - More Than U Thought

Even though Communism was defeated officially through the falling of the Berlin Wall, it still exists and is followed wholeheartedly by multitudes of people through force.

The ideals that we find happiness and salvation through the materials we achieve was based upon, not any religion, but the ideology of Communism.

Communism had a mission to bring about world peace but through force and without God.  In fact, under the communistic regime, anyone who pronounces any sort of faith was murdered or persecuted.

We were able to see the trend of this ideology take over the Western world beginning in the 1980s.
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The 'me generation' was the first generation which alluded to the fact that the trend of materialism was taking over the ideals of spirituality and religion.

The Me generation was the label given to children raised during that era, who were no longer about humanity and their neighbors, but their own joy, suffering and accomplishments.  It was the first generation, raised by the idealist of the 60s, where America truly begin to see the slip in values.

What is the basis of individualism; where does it begin?

No one can claim anything as his own; God owns everything and bequeaths it to His children.

When a child grows up, through the love of his parents, 99.999 percent of his existence springs from the mother's bone, flesh and blood which combines with his father's .001 percent of the father's sperm.

When you break this down, you do not see any concept of "myself alone" in nature.

Nothing Was Created for its Own Sake

No one is born with the concept of "myself".

No matter how great any of us are, we cannot claim that we became great all by ourselves.  Bone, flesh and blood and the important parts of our body are all inherited from within our mother's womb.

Every essential element of our body is included in the egg and sperm.

There is no exception.  Therefore, there is no base or foundation for any self-centered individualism.

When you think of above, you automatically acknowledge below.  Will individualism be able to stand with the concept of above by itself?

There is not a concept of the individual by itself.  

This is not part of the creation which exists in pairs.

When we talk about right, it presupposes the existence of left.  In the relationship between front and back, front presupposes back.  The word man also cannot exist by itself - it presupposes woman.  This is not just the claim of any person, but is a universal fact.

Why did God create man?

Usually a man said that they would be perfectly fine if they live alone by themselves and they do not care why they were created.

Despite this fact, man was created for the sake of the woman.  Without women, there is no need for a man.  Actually, nothing in creation is made for its own sake.

Take our five senses for example.

Are our eyes created for looking at themselves?  In the same way, our nose, ears, mouth and hands were created for the sake of our partner - not for ourselves.

The force that can mobilize and focus the five senses is true love.

 Eyes, nose, ears, mouth and hands are the tools that were created for the sake of true love.

If people take things that do not belong to them without permission for their own use, we call them thieves.

Therefore, any person who uses his five sense and even his body just for his own sake alone is a thief.  This is because these were created for his wife and future descendants, not for his own sake.

What is the main difference between men and women?

Of course, their bodies and the sexual organs in particular.  Then who absolutely needs the male organ?

It exists for the sake of the woman.

One of the sexual organs is concave and the other is convex.  Why are we created in this way?

Because each of them exists for the sake of the other.

You did not know that the female organ absolutely belongs to man.

Who thinks of such a concept in the time of women's equality that says women and man should be equal in every aspect of life.  Women absolutely wants what is man's and vice versa.

Through each occupying each other's sexual organs, man and woman come to know love.

Only through the experience of these two becoming perfect in oneness, will they come to know the highest level of love and not the secular form of love of having different partners every night.

Everyone must acknowledge these facts as truth and not deny them.  Today's popular trend is to date as many people in a week or night as possible, but this is far from the ideal way and is the reason marriages have lost value.

An ideal couple comes into being in the place where the two achieve complete unity.  Absolute love exists in that very place.

God would come to dwell in such a place of unity where love is absolutely unchanging.

Man Owns Woman and Woman Owns Man

How does the subject and object, or yin and yang unite?

Would it be through kissing?

Love is abstract and not concrete.  Do you know what makes a man a man and a woman a woman?  It is none other than their sexual organs.

Who dislikes these organs?

Up until this point, you may have not known the virtue in valuing the sexual organs.  From now on we should cherish them.

What will the world be like in the future?

It will be a world that will not abuse their sexual organs, but will absolutely cherish them.  Will that world be good or bad; will it prosper or perish?

Which part did God invest the greatest creative effort when He was creating human beings?

If humanity was to be able to completely transcend into traditional fields of morality and religion while being absolutely in harmony with the sexual organs, earning welcoming praise from God, then what kind of world would that be?  Who owns the male and female organs?

The organs of the husband's sexual organ belongs to the wife; her sexual organs belongs to the husband.

Have you ever thought that a person's sexual organ is owned by the person of the opposite sex?

This is a simple truth that cannot be denied.  Even after thousands of years of progress, this truth will not change.  Typically, a man thinks that his sexual organs belongs to himself to do however he pleases.

One believes since they think their sexual organs belong to them that it does not hurt anyone else.  But to carelessly misuse this organ does harm not only to the future spouse, but eventually to the whole of society which degrades through such behavior.

A woman thinks her sexual organs belong to her.  This is why the world is perishing due to this individualistic thinking centered on one self and not God.

Everyone has mistaken the ownership of the sexual organs.

People have thought that love is absolute, eternal and dreamlike, but they were unable to grasp the true ownership of the sexual organs which lies with the opposite sex.

If humanity had known this simple fact, it would not have become the hell on earth as today.

Even thousands of PhD recipients and scholars have never thought of this point of the most important part of the human anatomy.

If you could ask your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, the original ancestors, even God who is the origin of the universe, they would all agree that the sexual organs belong to the spouse.

This is an iron-clad rule which will remain as an universal principle even after the universe has existed for billions of years.

The natural conclusion then is that when you stand before God, He will judge you as either righteous or unrighteous according to this law.  In fact, the Fall originated in the violation of this very law.

Adam and Eve, each thought that their sexual organs belonged to themselves to use as they please even before they were mature.

Because of their selfishness in not listening to God's warning, they were driven out and could not be acknowledged anywhere in the universe.

The sexual organs are reserved for the sake of one's partner of love.  Adam and Eve did not know this.

Why do the sexual organs exist?  They exist for love.  Thus the male and female exist in order to find the pure love of God.

All men and women must become humble when they receive their spouse's love.

Love comes to you through your partner.

There is no love that is separate than love for the sake of others.  We must remember, that we find absolute love wherever we absolutely live for the sake of the others.




Return for Tomorrow's Post: Why We Should Live Eternally

This post was rewritten and derived from the textbook cehon Seong Gyeong book four, True Family, chapter Twelve Section 1,3

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".