>>stripped of natural charm

laura: write about sex
laura: you said you’d write about anything
me: yes i did. okay.

I’m not sure whether she wanted an analysis on my favorite positions or what my views were on the subject, but because my brother reads this sometimes I’ll go with the latter.

The first requested topic had to be the one I was dreading the most. I don’t dread it because I hate talking about it, but because my views on the subject make me seem a tad hypocritical as far as my Christianity is concerned.

In a culture so inundated with sex, it’s bound to come up. I think that, while sex sells, the way it’s unabashedly and prominently displayed and available is tragic. We’re desensitized to it. We see it so often that we view it as okay; we’re told that it’s a natural desire. This isn’t untrue, it IS a natural desire. But I think that the need for acceptance has been mistranslated into a need for sex. Girls put out to be popular. Boys do it because the stigma of “virgin” is something intolerable amongst friends. The need for love has been replaced by the need for sex: If I have sex, I will receive love.

I don’t think that sex before marriage is wrong. I think that sex without emotional preparedness and without love is wrong. I’ve been in situations where my desire for sex greatly outweighed my desire for love, and I am thankful a million times a day that one of us had the balls (ha!) to say no. It’s been the other way, too, where neither one said no and it left me feeling empty and hallow. Sex without love is dark and cold, and it wasn’t designed to be that way.

Sex is a physical expression of an inward feeling; it bonds people and connects them and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Are you ready for that, for that sense of…something? I don’t even know what it is. I don’t believe that sex is ever just sex. There’s always a reason behind it, whether it’s manipulation or lonliness or boredom. Those are not good reasons, just so we’re clear.

Emotional intimacy before physical intimacy. I’ve said it a thousand times. Before you get to know a person’s anatomy, you should first know that side of them that isn’t physical, deeper than just “So how’s your relationship with your mom?” and “What’s your favorite movie?” Know them. Know them well. It makes the sex that much more meaningful (and amazing).