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Permission To Have Sex

Posted Aug 13 2009 by Jonathan Brink in , with 12 Comments

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I’ve been meaning to write a post about sex for a long time and I’m still gonna do it.  But Matthew Paul Turner is doing such a great job right now of exploring it on his blog.  You should check it out.  In the meantime, I thought I’d share some thoughts about Matthew’s topic.

In this video he talks about sexual history and the story we bring to our relationships.  I am deeply grateful to say that I grew up with parents who were very open and honest about sex in a way that made it easy to talk about it.  I remember one time my soon to be wife came over to dinner and we started joking about an orgasm during dinner.  Suffice it to say, she was a little embarrassed.

I grew up in a family where sex was good.  It was whole.  It was meaningful and playful.  I got to see a deep and shared intimacy between my parents in a way that fostered that desire with my own wife.  I was in essence given a tremendous permission to have sex.  I remember the first time I saw the movie Private Benjamin and Goldie Hawn was having sex with her new husband in the bathroom, and she said, “I’m cumming.”  I turned to my mom in the theater and asked her what that meant.  And she just told me…right there in the theater.  It was great.  There was no shame.

There was tension though.  My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage and shamed people who did.  I knew many friends who struggled deeply with the issue and had no recourse to even talk about it.  What was ironic about the culture was that our pastor ended up getting caught in an affair.  It just made me really question the culture that simply says, “No.”  It’s just not that easy.

One of the things my parents did was instill a sense of value about our own bodies and dignity.  We weren’t taught just to say, “No.”  We were taught that we were deeply valuable and we just didn’t give ourselves away to anyone.  Sadly, I lost that perspective in college.  My own brokenness allowed me to lose sight of  not just my own value but the women I had sex with.

So, what resonates with you?  Did you grow up with permission or shame?

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About the Author

Jonathan BrinkI am an business development and communications consultant. I am also the senior editor and publisher for Civitas Press. I recently published, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole, New Christianity. (Civitas, 2011)View all posts by Jonathan Brink →

  • jonathanbenz

    I can relate. I learned shame from the church and grace from my parents. For some reason, shame trumped grace for a very long time. The church-world's voice was louder. (Kids, always listen to your parents, especially when they give grace.)

  • jonathanbenz

    I can relate. I learned shame from the church and grace from my parents. For some reason, shame trumped grace for a very long time. The church-world's voice was louder. (Kids, always listen to your parents, especially when they give grace.)

  • Phil

    Reading this, I'm thinking that you're saying that your parents were so permissive that to them it was OK if you had premarital sex – is that what you're saying?

    Let's unpack this sentence:

    “My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage and shamed people who did.”

    The first part:
    “My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage”

    That would be the Biblical stance…

    “and shamed people who did.”

    That would not be the loving, restoring response, nor effective.

    So your Church had it partially right, would you agree?

  • Phil

    Reading this, I'm thinking that you're saying that your parents were so permissive that to them it was OK if you had premarital sex – is that what you're saying?

    Let's unpack this sentence:

    “My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage and shamed people who did.”

    The first part:
    “My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage”

    That would be the Biblical stance…

    “and shamed people who did.”

    That would not be the loving, restoring response, nor effective.

    So your Church had it partially right, would you agree?

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Phil, I'm normally very congenial but when I read your reply I had to stand back for a second. You have essentially missed the point. You've drawn a conclusion that I never said. So I'll leave it at that.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Phil, I'm normally very congenial but when I read your reply I had to stand back for a second. You have essentially missed the point. You've drawn a conclusion that I never said. So I'll leave it at that.

  • angelaharms

    Thanks for bringing this up, Jonathan. My parents were pretty open about sex, and I was raised without church, so no real source for shame. It can't be the only reason I'm ambi-sexual, but it feels pretty natural to me to choose my partners based on things other than gender. (Actually, I should put that in past tense, because I'm with my life-partner now, and, I'm pretty sure, forever.)

    I'm enjoying the #sexweek stuff, but I'm noticing that there's an undercurrent of shame in much (not all) of it. That's so unfortunate. I think there's a big difference between noticing a mistake in the area of sexuality, and labeling something you've done a SIN, and being ashamed of it. (The word “sin” doesn't have to be understood that way, but it usually is.)

    I hope this sex conversation continues, and we get a chance to explore its mysteries <grin!> way beyond what we've managed so far.

  • angelaharms

    Thanks for bringing this up, Jonathan. My parents were pretty open about sex, and I was raised without church, so no real source for shame. It can't be the only reason I'm ambi-sexual, but it feels pretty natural to me to choose my partners based on things other than gender. (Actually, I should put that in past tense, because I'm with my life-partner now, and, I'm pretty sure, forever.)

    I'm enjoying the #sexweek stuff, but I'm noticing that there's an undercurrent of shame in much (not all) of it. That's so unfortunate. I think there's a big difference between noticing a mistake in the area of sexuality, and labeling something you've done a SIN, and being ashamed of it. (The word “sin” doesn't have to be understood that way, but it usually is.)

    I hope this sex conversation continues, and we get a chance to explore its mysteries <grin!> way beyond what we've managed so far.

  • Phil

    If I missed the point, then do you think I'm the only one? My response was genuine: that's how I read your article. So can you clarify?

  • Phil

    If I missed the point, then do you think I'm the only one? My response was genuine: that's how I read your article. So can you clarify?

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Here's my concern. In you genuine response you hid behind two fake email addresses. How is that genuine?

    But even so I will answer your question. First your conclusion brought back so much of the shame based model used by my church. I don't know if that was your intention, but your insinuation came across that way. I will leave it to you to determine what your true intention was.

    My original sentence, “”My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage and shamed people who did.” is not condoning sex before marriage. It's detailing that my church shame people who had sex before marriage, which in my opinion is a deeply destructive approach. I am not arguing or addressing the concept of sex before marriage in that sentence, but the culture that has little capacity to restore individuals caught up in it.

    Second, the concern I have now with the culture my church created was not based on it's stance but in the lack of grace that accompanied it's stance. It fostered a fake world in which everyone pretended to live in, yet secretly was drowning in it's desire to find a more meaningful expression of community and dealing with sexual issues.

    What was interesting is that the culture produced a significant amount of pedophiles, adulterers, divorcees, etc. In creating a culture that lacked grace around sexuality, it stifled ANY healthy conversation around it. It culminated in the lead pastor of 30 years getting caught in a seven year affair, one that crippled the church for the next 20 years.

    My parents, on the other hand, began with the idea that sex was healthy and a whole response between two married people. They began with the idea that sex outside of a committed relationship had more to do with one's own dignity than moral code. I challenged that concept in my own life and paid the cost of it.

    But what restored me were people willing to engage me in spite of my brokenness and reveal love to me. Sadly I can't say they learned that in my church.

  • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

    Here's my concern. In you genuine response you hid behind two fake email addresses. How is that genuine?

    But even so I will answer your question. First your conclusion brought back so much of the shame based model used by my church. I don't know if that was your intention, but your insinuation came across that way. I will leave it to you to determine what your true intention was.

    My original sentence, “”My church took the traditional perspective of no sex before marriage and shamed people who did.” is not condoning sex before marriage. It's detailing that my church shame people who had sex before marriage, which in my opinion is a deeply destructive approach. I am not arguing or addressing the concept of sex before marriage in that sentence, but the culture that has little capacity to restore individuals caught up in it.

    Second, the concern I have now with the culture my church created was not based on it's stance but in the lack of grace that accompanied it's stance. It fostered a fake world in which everyone pretended to live in, yet secretly was drowning in it's desire to find a more meaningful expression of community and dealing with sexual issues.

    What was interesting is that the culture produced a significant amount of pedophiles, adulterers, divorcees, etc. In creating a culture that lacked grace around sexuality, it stifled ANY healthy conversation around it. It culminated in the lead pastor of 30 years getting caught in a seven year affair, one that crippled the church for the next 20 years.

    My parents, on the other hand, began with the idea that sex was healthy and a whole response between two married people. They began with the idea that sex outside of a committed relationship had more to do with one's own dignity than moral code. I challenged that concept in my own life and paid the cost of it.

    But what restored me were people willing to engage me in spite of my brokenness and reveal love to me. Sadly I can't say they learned that in my church.

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