Getting sex into balance with the rest of our lives. New ways of understanding our sexuality, sexual nature & drive. Advice & help on sex & sexual problems.

Number one obsession?

A visitor to this world from another planet, would not take long to realise that we are totally obsessed (taken up) by sex. Magazines, adverts, TV, films, video, the internet, books.

And the picture shown to us by these things is usually twisted.

Is this how sex is meant to be?

The starting point

Sex is powerful. So is electricity. Electric power can be dangerous, if it does not run in the correct channels, and if safety procedures are not used. Sex is the same. Many of our problems about sex come because we do not understand the purpose of sex, and how it should be used. Here are four statements we need to get a clearer picture of sex.

1. God created sex. People did not invent it!
2. He made it, to express total love and commitment between a man and a woman. Amazingly, He likens this, in the Bible, as expressing a spiritual truth. So sex is not just a physical act, but a spiritual act.
3. Because it is a sign of total permanent (long lasting) commitment, sex is a lie, unless it is within the total and permanent commitment of marriage.
4. The world is obsessed with a wrong picture of sex. We are under pressure to follow this view. This is 'peer pressure' - the strong feeling that we must think and act in the same way as everyone around us are acting. (Or how everyone else says they are acting! Many people boast of things they never really do!) But it is possible to find a better reason to decide the way we behave.

How to handle sex

If God made it, has He given instructions on how to use it? Yes - the Bible contains lots of teaching on sex and relationships. And lots of common sense advice on dealing with the opposite sex, and temptation. It is not just a list of 'don't do this' - but an explanation of how sex was made to be used.

Here is such simple advice on how men and women should treat each other:

"Treat younger men as you would your own brother, and treat older women as you would your own mother. Show the same respect to younger women that you would to your sister."

This beautifully sums up in a few words, a whole new way of treating the opposite sex as people, indeed as very special people.

Ten years ago, advice like this would have been laughed at. Now with the dangers of AIDS, people are looking again at the whole world of sexual behaviour. In one country, there is a new 'JUST SAY NO' movement among young people, who have decided to commit themselves on paper, to hold sex until marriage!

A frame for your decisions

You are responsible for your life, and deciding how to behave. But have a frame-work for these decisions! Work out what your reactions will be to different situations. Often, when you are in the situation, it is too late!

• Decide in advance what you will do and what you will not do.
• Realise that members of the opposite sex will put pressure on you to have sex when you are not really wanting to. Decide on good answers to such pressure. The best oral contraceptive is 'no'.
• Realise that sex is not the same as love. Many of us have low self-esteem - we do not feel that we are of value. We want to get into a sexual relationship because we think it will bring us love and acceptance, and make us feel better about ourselves. It doesn't!
• Drink and drugs take away your natural control of your life and decision-making.

I've messed it up!

Most of us have messed up on sex one way or another. But the brilliant news is:

God can forgive you. He can give you power to understand and handle sex in the best way.

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