BALANCE

Sexuality. Or should it be “Sexuality!” Perhaps – “Sexuality?” I guess that would depend a lot upon whether it was written or spoken. And, if spoken, whether it was in a monotone coming from a middle aged boring professor or from a woman in her late 20’s with a certain, shall we say, lilt in her voice.

However you slice it, it’s a word that grabs our attention.

Like so much else in the place in my mind that is slowly transferring into the blogosphere, I need to layer. I want to write about homosexuality and promiscuity, marital fidelity and infidelity, but before I get there I need to lay down (layer down?) some premises and presumptions upon which I write and think.

Step one is boring. Sorry.

At first glance, my approach to human sexuality seems quite Puritanical. No pre-marital sex. (I hadn’t as much as shaken my wife’s hand before our marriage.) No homosexuality. Not the topic of every (or mostly any) joke. Boring. But wait.

It could be that there is a balanced look here that moves me and my ilk out of the anal retentive and into the emotional and psychologically healthy.

This post has to be the first one because this is where I talk about talking about it. Generally speaking, sex is very private. There are a lot of reasons that you don’t talk about something. One is that you’re ashamed; another is because it’s not anyone else’s business. In a marriage setting, there is nothing shameful about sex. The reason that it is seldom spoken about is because it is so private.

So, I break ranks with tradition a bit in order to educate and in order to get to some topics that are so much at the forefront of people’s lives. I want to address homosexuality, but I can’t do that properly without addressing human sexuality as a whole. Ultimately, in spiritual terms, the goal is purity, where sex is a wonderful gift for a man and woman to solidify their relationship. The word purity, however, is a bit foreign to how we talk and think. For now, let’s talk about sexual maturity.

A definition that I once heard for maturity is an awareness of past, present, and future. (I like this idea so much I want it to be its own paragraph.)

Sexual maturity, then, would incorporate a recognition that this act, often reduced by the western “Hollywood” mentality to a purely physical one, has major future aspects tied to it. Between pregnancy, disease, and emotions, the future ramifications of sex can be immensely powerful.

[A friend suggested blogging every day. In order to do that, with the reality of the other hours of my day, I have to post some unfinished thoughts. I’ll give it a whirl. See you soon.]