A Pilot You Will Never See

I saw an interesting post over at Lashawn Barber’s blog the other day. She was commenting on her self-imposed celibacy.

In the interest of touting my own virtue, I would like to remind everyone that I, too, am celibate. However, I didn’t do it on my own. I had a lot of help from the world’s 3 billion women. They seem only too eager to assist.

She obliquely refers to Sex and the City, one of the most revolting TV shows in recent history. Four women with absolutely no sexual morals, aging as they try to fornicate their way to a happy marriage. And wondering why it’s not working out.

I have never understood the appeal of this show. It’s gross. It’s trashy. And it’s depressing. The statistics on sex and marriage are sad enough as it is. Do you really need to see the problems exaggerated on situation comedies?

You can’t find Mr. Right by becoming the perfect sexual toy. Men are programmed to want sexual variety, so no matter how great you are, you will eventually be less exciting–from a purely sexual standpoint–than someone less attractive whom he hasn’t had yet. That’s just the way it is. Lust diminishes. To hold a man’s interest, you have to offer him something beyond sex. Something of lasting value. Something he won’t get tired of. The funny thing is, even men don’t understand this. They sleep around trying to find the sexiest, best-looking woman available, on the theory that only a woman like that can satisfy them for the remainder of their lives. But every woman will eventually seem less sexually inviting, regardless of how attractive she is at the start. Look at Hugh Grant.

Aside from that, women tend to become less physically attractive after marriage, in absolute terms. They get fat. They have babies. They get stretch marks. They have less interest in sex, or they get tired of pretending to have interest. Keeping the product fresh and appealing is a full-time job, and most women fail at it. It’s unnatural, anyway. You should be worrying about more important things. You don’t have to be a supermodel, if the foundation of your marriage is strong.

Lashawn mentions a few of the by-products of fornication. Illegitimacy, for one. It’s funny how blind people are to the exorbitant cost of sex. Illegitimacy is just the tip of the iceberg. Prisons are full of men who killed because of problems related to sexual sin; for example, they kill their unfaithful wives and their lovers, or they kill the husbands of the women they sleep with. Over twenty million people in Africa are dying of a hideous incurable disease, because Africans are very promiscuous. Here in the US, medical treatment is better, but there are still people with AIDS and herpes and HPV. Over half of young black women have HPV! Think about that the next time you’re in a bar. America is full of broken homes. We have kids who don’t know their fathers. We have kids who become criminals because they grow up that way. And we kill unborn babies by the thousands, primarily because we’re too lazy to use birth control. And then there’s the cruelest form of fornication, with its horrible costs: rape.

Somehow we still defend promiscuity. We don’t listen to common sense, or to God. We listen to the herd. Everyone around us is doing it, and we have to do what they do, because otherwise we’ll be weird. We do what our peers do, because we think they’re smarter than God. And we talk about abstinence as if we were being asked to cut off our legs. It’s impossible! It’s insane! It can’t be done!

And yet millions of Americans manage it, every year. I guess they’re superheroes or something. Magical powers the rest of us lack.

Mankind is funny. Life used to be full of obvious perils which followed our misdeeds closely. And they tended to drive us to repent. Then technology helped us soften the blows. And it has made us feel safe from judgment, so we continue doing wrong. It used to be that if you got VD, you died in misery in a pretty short time, or you became sterile, or you went blind or insane. Now we cushion the blow with medicine. Many times we prevent the consequences entirely. So we think we’re getting away with something. But are we? You can’t think so, if you’re religious. If God exists, the evil that you do will affect your life adversely, sooner or later. Unless you turn from it. The price may not be as obvious as it used to be, but it still exists.

Yet people like Lashawn Barber are labeled kooks. I don’t get it. Sex just isn’t that wonderful. We’ve convinced ourselves that it’s the most pleasurable activity in existence. Do you find that to be true? A good percentage of women don’t enjoy it or want it, and an awful lot of men have bad sex. You have to worry about pregnancy and disease. And even good sex often comes with a huge burden of guilt, especially if you’re a man and you lie to get women. And the more you sleep around, the more boring sex gets.

I remember a documentary about a professional wrestler who was a drug addict and sexual adventurer. In middle age, he complained that he couldn’t have relationships, because he had seen so much, he couldn’t be excited by the prospect of normal sex. He indulged his fantasies until he got so spoiled, he couldn’t enjoy what a decent woman could offer him. I don’t think he’s unusual at all. I think he’s completely normal. If you’re a woman and you marry a man who has slept with a lot of other women, you may be getting someone just like him. And you have to wonder: can he quit?

Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. I admit, sex is usually better than soup. But fornication is still no bargain. I wish I could undo my own mistakes.

I don’t think Lashawn Barber is a kook for abstaining. It’s something we should learn to be proud of. You wouldn’t be ashamed of having the sense not to jam your finger in an electric socket. The risks of extramarital sex are a whole lot higher.