"The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame" - Genesis 2:25
A while ago this was part of a reading in chapel, and it really struck me for the first time. Usually when this passage is read I'm so preoccupied thinking about how wonderful it is that men and women are the same flesh and thinking about how this is the first marriage and it's so pure and beautiful. But think about this line with me for a second. The Bible (this is God's holy Word) just straight up tells you that these two people are naked. And shameless. Not embarrassed at all. Or insecure. Or even a little scared.
What happened to that?
Obviously the next chapter talks about their fall into sin, but did that have to completely ruin everything? We still get married, become a new family, and join our flesh to create children. The feeling of freedom is gone though. When did we start to feel shame about one of God's greatest gifts? Christian friends, I've come to the time when my blog talks about sex. Because as much as we'd like to make it taboo and shameful, it's not. The intimate physical love shared between two married people is an awesome blessing! But, like most things in this world, it was cast into a shadow when we fell into sin.
Ever since I had that "Wow" moment about this verse, I've been considering why we feel so shameful about sex. Mostly I've decided the problem is that our culture is so saturated with sexual immorality. Sex within the context of marriage is totally great, but when do we ever talk about that? We see movies that feature short-lived, passionate (and often secret) sexual encounters, creating a "cloak and dagger" attitude about the act. We read magazines that tell us how to "amaze your partner in bed" right next to horror stories about nasty breakups. The hurt and damage that comes from inappropriate sex isn't just in fiction though. So many times I've seen friends hurt because they "gave all they had" to someone they were dating and it didn't work out.
What I find most detestable about our culture these days is the general availability and acceptability of pornography and sexual images. I have several close friends with deep emotional scars from a porn addiction earlier in life. It's a struggle for them every day to overcome temptation. It affects their relationships. In a world where almost everyone by the age of 16 (or even younger) has seen sex acted out "perfectly" on a screen, how are we supposed to feel confident in our own sexual encounters? How could we possibly feel completely secure about our own bodies when we know our partner has seen other bodies more attractive than ours? It breaks my heart that, in an act that should allow two people who are committed in love to enjoy each other without shame, we are fighting insecurity and anxiety simply because we live in a sinful and impatient world.
The temptation we face as Christians who save sexuality for marriage makes for a difficult transition once the condition of marriage is reached. A friend who is getting married soon was talking with me, and saying how weird it's going to be on the night of her wedding. She remarked, "We've gone through all these years of dating with the attitude that sex is completely out of the question, and then in one afternoon suddenly it's going to be okay." My prayer is that when I'm dating my future spouse, we can have a healthy respect and for the gift of sex and an understanding of purity with each other. I've learned some hard lessons about giving an inch and taking a mile. It will be hard to resist temptation, and we will probably have to resort to associating shame with the action itself and then overcoming that attitude once we're married.
I guess the point of all this is to encourage you to remember that sex is indeed a wonderful gift. We abuse it, and the abuses make the gift harder to enjoy. But if we save that gift for it's rightful place, we will never have to feel shame. We can simply delight in being one flesh, and know that we are sharing a unique and new experience together with the one person we love most. Even though we want things to happen on our own time, God's way is always the most joyful in the end.
