There is this pervasive myth, particularly prevalent in the evangelical Christian subculture (though I’d argue it’s present in other parts of society too) that boys are sexual and girls (at least good girls) aren’t. In my article for Relevant I called this the lie that “Girls don’t care about sex.”
If you are anything like me, you have countless times heard things like “Men think about sex all the time” and “Men are very visual so it’s up to you to keep them from seeing something that will make them stumble.” “You probably think kissing your boyfriend is very innocent because you aren’t thinking about sex, but he definitely is.” “Boys only want one thing.”
There are just so many things wrong with this. First off, I think it’s very degrading to men as it paints them as some sort of sex-fueled animals that must rely on women to curb and control their otherwise uncontrollable urges because they have no will power and their brains are too busy thinking about that one thing to engage with their actions. That is its own (necessary) conversation, but since I’m a woman I want to spend more time tackling the damage this does from a woman’s perspective.
These kinds of statements reinforce, directly or indirectly, that sex is a distinctly masculine thing. And this isn’t restricted to pre-marital sex. How many times have you heard a joke that is some riff on the woman who is not interested in sex and the man who wants it all the time? Many girls grow up believing that this is the inevitable reality they will one day experience.
And even if girls are looking forward to sex, they are very rarely free to admit it. Young Christian MEN are permitted, sometimes even encouraged, to look forward to sex within marriage, but when a young Christian woman expresses excitement about sex, she is perceived as crude and unfeminine
In fact, the only acceptable, feminine alternative for a young woman seems to be cultivating a fearful attitude towards sex. It’s something you are supposed to be able to enjoy in marriage, yet most of the married women you know only talk about it being uncomfortable or a sacrifice they make for their husbands. And worse, It’s something boys want and something you must protect yourself from. It’s something you can bring on yourself unintentionally by being careless about how you dress or present yourself. For most women there is a lurking, subconscious awareness of the potential correlation between sex and violence.
Without a model for how to be a woman who can embrace her sexuality even while setting boundaries, young women are faced with two options: admit to having sexual curiosities and interests and be seen as “slutty” or build up fear to protect ourselves from it. Many Christian communities are lacking a model for how to live purely without rejecting or denying our sexuality.
For years I was told that “girls don’t care about sex.” Well, as it turns out, I do. This has been a deep source of shame for me. I felt so unnatural and unfeminine for having a sex drive. In my experience, my youth leaders and pastors never really talked about girls’ sex drives at all. We preferred to pretend they didn’t exist. It wasn’t a “nice” thing to talk about. So naturally, I assumed no one else felt this way. For a long time I felt like a freak until I started to realize that I wasn’t the only one, not by a longshot. I just had never heard anyone admit it before.
Here is the truth: Many girls (yes, even Christian girls) think about sex. Many girls (yes, even Christian girls) like sex. If you are one of those girls, I want to tell you something no one ever told me. It’s OK. You are not a freak. You are not unfeminine. You are not unnatural. God created us, both men AND women, as sexual beings.
[I want to be very clear about one thing – I’m not trying to suggest that anyone, man or woman, should feel free to indulge in whatever kind of sexual fantasizing they want to. That’s not the point at all. I’m talking about an attitude I’ve witnessed that I believe builds shame in young women.]
Being a woman who cares about sex doesn’t make you dirty and it doesn’t make you less of a woman. It makes you a human being created by God, in the image of God, with the capacity and desire to love – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sexually. God has given us both the desire and the ability to express love with our hearts, minds, souls, and BODIES. How cool is that?!
[Lily Dunn is an ice cream connoisseur, a Disney fanatic, and a fellow raiSIN hater trying to live an authentic, grace-filled life. She lives and teaches with her husband in Daegu, South Korea and blogs at https://lilyellyn.wordpress.com. Follow her on Twitter @LilyEllyn]
[For part IV looking at the Life of how Waiting for Marriage means Guilt-Free Sex, click here]
[…] [To continue on to Part III looking at how 'Sex is for boys', click here] […]
[…] Lies about Sex: Part III: Sex is for Boys […]
Again, I can completely relate here. I found myself desiring sex right out of puberty, and felt incredible shame over it, and felt like I had to hide any hint of that desire. I think the correct way to handle it would have been to realize that wanting sex is totally natural and okay, and to read or think about sex in a spiritual, godly context (a positive one, not just an abstinence one) while coping with the waiting. I have never seen young women encouraged to think about and explore the emotional and spiritual implications of sex. The only time we talked about sex growing up (at home or in church) was to remind everyone that we should not have it or fall into it or think about it, and thus give up virginity and purity (which is like the worst thing that can possibly happen to you …. lol), or (like you said) to watch out for boys, because they’re always thinking about it, and to dress in potato sacks since we can cause men to stumble by revealing any shape or skin.
When I was 14, I was known in my group of church girl friends for being super modest, and in general a goody-two-shoes kind of girl (very legalistic). I was terrified of doing bad things or breaking strict rules. Despite all of that, it was me who was chosen by a perverted dad in the church as a target of molestation. Can you imagine how that felt, being the one who worked so hard to avoid sexuality, and having it dumped on me, uninvited? I had no idea how to deal with that trauma. I felt like it was my fault, and kept it a secret out of shame. I don’t how to make all the connections, but somehow this is connected to the lie you’re writing about. “If you are super careful, super modest, and never think about sex, you will never have to worry about it or confront its existence until marriage.” In my case, and in many others with far worse experiences, that just isn’t true. Sorry if that kind of digresses from the topic, but I feel like aspects go hand in hand here regarding the attitude about women and sex.
Wow Anna thank you so much for stopping by and sharing and just heartbroken at the sound of what you went through. Can’t even imagine and like you say after all that effort to save and preserve, being attacked in that way just sounds absolutely horrendous. I hope that you have been able to find some hope and some measure of healing and found people who have poured love and acceptance and been part of a redemption story for you. Thank you again for your openness.
Brett Fish
Thanks for your encouragement brettfish. Thankfully, I have been able to heal over the years and process that bizarre experience through the help of loving friends. It took a long time though, just because of sexuality in any context being such a taboo thing, especially for girls! I hope that I can take opportunities to help other young women that I meet in the church, and fill the need for honesty and openness that was not there for me. Just knowing one Christian person who had a different attitude about it and was willing to talk would have meant so much.
Thankx Anna and that is really the heart of the Taboo Topics section on my blog – the knowledge that someone else has walked or is walking a similiar path – have seen some powerful stories there on topics such as losing a child or struggling with infertility or even something like singleness and people just responding in the relief of someone who discovered someone else who in some way ‘gets’ it!
Oh, Anna, that’s such a heartbreaking story. I’m so sorry that happened to you. But I think you’ve hit on something that’s so important – this idea that “If you are super careful, super modest, and never think about sex, you will never have to worry about it or confront its existence until marriage.” When I was an adolescent and started having sexual thoughts and feelings for the first time, there was this voice inside of me that said, “If you think about things like that, you don’t deserve to be protected from rape, abuse, unwanted sexual contact.” I would literally lay in my bed and pray in repentance, ending my prayers with things like, “So, please God, don’t let me get raped.” Which is both heartbreaking and ridiculous when I think about it now, but there was this inherent connection to me between engaging with my sexuality in any way and choosing to step outside of God’s protection. Thanks for sharing your story.
Lily, you already know I am a fan of this series. I just love this one. As a teenager I felt SO guilty for having sexual feelings and desires. Another “Christian” message that needs to disappear. I think my problem is that there is no where to turn to find what a woman is supposed to be sexually. The church just makes you feel shame, but our uber-sexual culture/TV/movies/magazines seem to go too far in the other direction – turning women into nothing BUT sexual objects. Where is the middle ground? How does a Christian woman embrace her sexual personhood? The church has failed us on this one. It needs to do better.
thankx for stopping by and absolutely – we need to create safe spaces to talk about it and to get real and raw and edgy and be able to ask any of the questions we want to – was at an excellent three part series on relationships [single, dating, married] at Holy Trinity Brompton [HTB] in the UK years ago where after each service they had a panel made up of a mix of people from single to dating to engaged to married and the audience could write down WHATEVER questions they wanted to about any aspect of relationships or sex and various people on the panel would answer it – such a powerful and open-communication-focused event… more of this is needed from the church…
I agree! I really hope that people like you and me can become the “older women” who teach the “younger women”, being willing to talk about something no one else will, and give them a healthy, happy perspective that is balanced and biblical. I would have greatly benefited from anyone like that in church circles.
Absolutely, that is a stunning and much needed way of looking at this – if it didn’t happen so well for us we have to make the decision to not let it happen again to those following us…
Karissa, I agree and I would even argue that the way the church handles sexuality often does the exact same thing they are trying to avoid – turns women into sexual objects. They are prized for one value above all others – their virginity or purity. It’s a modern day manifestation of the medieval Cult of the Virgin. A woman’s value is still found in her sexual status, whether as a virgin or a whore.
Holy cow, you’re so right. Mind blown.
Reblogged this on Cerebral Insights and commented:
Sex is not just for boys. As the author states:
“Here is the truth: Many girls (yes, even Christian girls) think about sex. Many girls (yes, even Christian girls) like sex. If you are one of those girls, I want to tell you something no one ever told me. It’s OK. You are not a freak. You are not unfeminine. You are not unnatural. God created us, both men AND women, as sexual beings.”
Yet goes on to make it clear that:
” I’m not trying to suggest that anyone, man or woman, should feel free to indulge in whatever kind of sexual fantasizing they want to. That’s not the point at all.”
In conclusion, she states that:
“Being a woman who cares about sex doesn’t make you dirty and it doesn’t make you less of a woman. It makes you a human being created by God, in the image of God, with the capacity and desire to love – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sexually. God has given us both the desire and the ability to express love with our hearts, minds, souls, and BODIES.”
Thank you so much. Great series and well worth getting out there.
Strength and love
Brett Fish
Lord help me, thank you for this! I’m impulsive, a little crazy, (people call me fearless because I’ll ride anything with hair — referring strictly to wild horses, although I’d ride bulls too if the opportunity presented itself) with no natural modesty/shame about my body. And I want sex. A lot of it. I have been fighting against my nature since I was a toddler (why must I wear clothes?!?) and the struggle has progressively gotten harder …and harder …and harder.
If I stay hungry (lots of fasting!), stay sleep deprived, stay active, and stay up til the wee hours working, I can handle it… working 16 hr days helps a lot! But some nights, it’s all I can do to not go pick some guy up, or call some non-christian guy that’s been after me.
You’d never know… I dress modestly, have numerous leadership roles in church, and have never gone further than kissing a guy. I don’t read romance novels. I don’t watch things. I seek purity.
Yet now in my late 20’s, my sex drive is even more out of control and the struggle is real. There are 4, maybe 6 men (not Christian, not Godly) that would marry me and the temptation is SOOO strong just because I want sex (no, I’m not dating all or any of them — they are friends looking for a woman & they seem to think I’d make a good wife or something). There are many reasons why marrying any of these men would be a terrible idea.
And so, here I am, no relationship worthy man in sight, and frankly I’m tired! Tired of packaging myself into something acceptable. Tired of fighting. Tired of abusing my body to stay sane. Tired of needing to get off several times a day.
I’m tired of being told I don’t want to be married. I’m tired of the people I should be closest to acting like it’s not an issue.
I’ve been a good Christian girl my whole life and I really don’t understand this or know how to handle it. :/
Thanks for sharing EJ – really appreciate how vulnerable and open you have been – sounds like it has not been easy at all and like you could really use some good friends who are strong enough just to let you be honest and open and real with them and not try to ‘fix’ you or blame you but just listen and love and walk the road. It does feel like having some kind of accountability person might be something to help just in terms of having an outlet for sharing. Is there anyone in your church who feels safe for you to approach about this – perhaps an older woman who you think will be able to handle your revelations and not judge you but just be a sounding and prayer board for you? Maybe the pastor of the church can recommend someone in a mentoring role or something like that. Often just speaking these things out can reduce the power they have over you when it is just you and the enemy loves to come in with his lies and suggestions and temptations. If you don’t know anyone at the moment i would start with praying for that – that God will bring a safe person into your life that you can share your struggles with.
Strength in Him
love brett fish
Thanks so much for listening. No, there’s no one to talk to but that’s OK. Just being able to share here has helped & I’ll definitely be praying along those lines.
Well good to hear that. And hopefully God will bring someone into your life who is a safe person to share with. Strength in Him
brett
Thank you for writing this !! If your a Christian woman and you Say you like sex your labeled a whore. If a Christian man is all over his wife people are like oh so sweet. If he has a porn problem he needs ‘help.’ A guy from my old church dated a non Christian and expected her not to want sex as she is a woman. Sorry how dumb! Then he initiated sex and apparently lost respect for her! Like this article is saying is men and women are very sexual and by nature are sexual brings, were do you expect babies to come from ! If women and men are respected as sexual and need to express this physically this would silence the idiots. The church should be leading the way on this!