King of Spades

Disclosure: We’re going to have real talk here about sex; at times graphic but very straight forward and honest. Most likely offensive. If you’re not comfortable with your beliefs being challenged, or if you’re triggered by language or descriptive imagery, go to another page. Otherwise, you can practice self-control.

Can we all agree that with the exception of a few asexual people on the planet, most of us really enjoy sex? Like, a lot?

It’s exciting, its intimate, and overall its extremely pleasurable. Biting, squeezing, heaving breathing and all.

Science and faith prove that sex is one of the most important actions of our existence as social creatures in this world. While debate continues on as to who, what, where, when, why, and how sex should be viewed or acted, its non-debatable that its overwhelming pleasure is what attracts our attention and discussion over it.

Because of this, one could even say that its sacred (or revered). That’s because it is. Sex in itself is not bad, on the contrary it was designed to be a good thing. What is bad, and what a case will be made for here, is that like many things in this life it has been perverted. And that perversion leads to destructive consequences both on an individual and societal level.

Before going there though, we have to lay some ground views that I think most of us can agree on.

(A) Regardless of religious beliefs or non, you agree that you own your body and as such choose to do what you want with it.

(B) You agree that sex is not inherently evil and to desire it is not evil either.

(C) You agree that true love is unconditional.

What is Sex?

Have you ever stopped to think about this? That thing you do with your lover in between the sheets, in the shower, on the couch, in your car, at the park, on the beach, etc; have you asked yourself what its really all about? You were probably too busy to remember.

If you’ve never defined it, how you can you fully appreciate the pleasure you’re experiencing?

Sex is all about connection. And connection is the reality of which everything we know to exist is built upon.

The cells that make up your body, the biomolecules and atoms that make up those cells, water molecules (H20) that make up what you drink to stay alive, food ingredients that mix into what gives you energy and sustenance, feelings you get by just the embrace of another human being or animal, deep love you know when you experience the presence of God; these are all possible because of connections and links between one piece of matter and another. Life as we know it would not function or exist without connection.

As such, there is no such thing as isolation or loneliness. Not in physical matter, spiritual matter, or even conceptual matter. Loneliness is a psychological falsehood that goes against the verified truths within science and faith. We are never really alone. I digress though, this is a side discussion for which I wrote a personal note here.

Connection is important because we are all social beings created in the image of love, which cannot be expressed or explained on a singular or isolated level. In simple terms, “it takes two to tango.”

Love is the nature of our existence as well as the creation around us, and connection is the facilitator (or bridge) for that love to be expressed. It is why since we were children we feel pain when a connection to something or someone we love is broken.

We are all meant to be connected.

We learn this inherit purpose through the most important connection of all: to the unseen and untouchable God — who is love personified and manifested in physical form through His son Jesus the Christ.

It’s arguable, then, that the second most important connection any of us will feel in this life is that of the physical connection to another person through sexual intercourse. It is the special bond between two people in which the spiritual and natural join together, and a shadow of the eternal bliss to soon arrive is experienced.

That, is why sex is sacred; why its worthy to understand and protect it, and also why its a disgrace to pervert and distort it.

How Sex (Connection) has been Perverted

Definition of perversion: “the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended.”

This is the part where you cringe, and where if you don’t know me and the love I have for people personally (or maybe even if you do), you will misunderstand and want to punch, exile and or kill me.

Any and everyone who practices fornication (non-married sex), adultery (married-to-non-married), incest (inner-family), polygamy (multi-partner), rape (un-consented), homosexuality (men-to-men or woman-to-woman), transexuality (manwoman-womanman), pedophilia (adult-to-child), beastiality (human-to-animal), sexual robotics (human-to-robot), and or a variation of the aforementioned practices is a pervert, a corrupted individual separating themselves from God (i.e., sentenced to death).

“Whoa, that’s pretty fucked up.”

No, actually people are fucked up. The key here is to focus not so much on the actions but on the corrupted heart, of which we’re all guilty and in need of grace. Let me explain, using a story.

“There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had a great many flocks and herds.
But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe (female) lamb
Which he bought and nourished;
And it grew up together with him and his children.
It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom (chest, close to the heart),
And was like a daughter to him.
Now a traveler came to the rich man,
And he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd,
To prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him;
Rather he took the poor man’s ewe lamb, [killed it], and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

How do you feel when you read that story? Are you shocked? Are you hurt? Are you angry?

Good, because you should be.

If you are in your right mind you would be absolutely furious at the rich man for his greed and lack of compassion, and if you had the power to do so you would probably punish him (maybe even by death) and make sure that the poor man is paid for his loss, even though there is no price to cover his pain.

Yet what most of you won’t admit in public or know unless you take a good look at yourself, is that you are that very same rich man.

You are selfish, corrupt. You are willing to take advantage of others ignorance, mistrust, or weakness in order to get what you want. Better yet, and what is not in this story, you will justify your selfishness especially when you meet another selfish person that wants the same thing you want. It’s a back scratching fest for everyone.

The rich man here represents self-focus, the poor man love-focus, and the lamb authentic love, which is killed by the rich man (most of us).

This does not mean that the rich, or us, cannot be good people, but it has never been about being “good.” It is about love. You can do good without love, but you cannot be love without doing good.

Sex is an authentic love, a deep connection between two individuals where they physically express the words “I am yours, and you are mine.” Like many things in life, when the connection or bond between two things is broken it is no longer stable or whole. It’s foundation is questionable. Therefore a bond requires commitment, a longterm commitment, if it is to be dependable and trustworthy. What, then, is sex outside a longterm commitment? All of the inauthentic selfish practices mentioned previously.

The PlayDoh Example

Imagine you are a blue can of Playdoh and another person is a red can of Playdoh. When you have sex with them, you deeply mix both colors into one piece. If I asked you to give me back both pieces in their respective entirety, you would say that’s pretty much impossible because they’re bonded into one. So even if you knowingly engaged in sex without commitment, so long as you stay together then your bond will reflect what is true. Love can blossom even from this. But if you can’t stay together, walk away, and or have sex with someone else (ex., yellow Playdoh), however, you become less and less your true color and steal away pieces of other people’s color. You violated them and their, as well as your, future bond, regardless of their consent. You were greedy.

Being greedy and lacking compassion is fucked up. It makes people angry, just as you probably got angry if you associated yourself as a pervert “sentenced to death.” All the perverted practices mentioned above are actions of greed, selfishness, and lack of compassion; in which the purpose of sex is no longer to enjoy a committed, authentic, deeply intimate bond with someone, but rather to fill a temporary need or desire (a fantasy).

Those practices are “me right now for my pleasure” self focused, versus “you and me darling together till the end” partnership focused. That, is a perversion of the sacredness of sex.

“But what if the other person consents? Two consulting adults should be able to do whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Whatever floats their boat.”

This has got to be the most common — and if honest the most full of shit — response I hear to sexual sanctity. Lets cut the crap and say what you’re really trying to say: “I want sex, badly, and I don’t really care what you or anyone else thinks. I’m gonna get my fix.”

What is that but crystal clear undeniable and crude selfishness? No loyalty, no accountability, no thought to the impact on others, no reverence for the sacredness of sex. Perverts are an active threat to the trust and relational fabric of communities, and have no place in a just and righteous society. They merit separation (death).

Praise be to God, however, that death has been absorbed on our behalf and forgiveness has been extended to us as reconciliation and a new life; for a time.

Personal History of Sex

“This dude is out of control, he’s probably some religious judgmental closet-pervert virgin zealot.”

Let’s get personal and real, yeah? I have nothing to hide and a lot of love to give in my heart. I am a 26 year old unmarried non-sexually active Christian man, but I am not a virgin.

[Graphic language ahead]

I’ve had sex before, and really good, long (3-5 hour), repeated-orgasm sex. I know just how good lip biting, skin squeezing, hips pushing, hair pulling, neck kissing, ear breathing, boob sucking, butt slapping, blood pumping, sweat inducing, fat burning and orgasmic sex really is. For those who are virgins reading this, blessed are you for remaining to keep your sanctity and may you experience sweet God ordained pleasure with your significant other someday if desired. For those who aren’t virgins, religious or not, I think most of us would agree that there’s no feeling like that of expressing passion so deeply and intimately (almost aggressively); and, for lack of a better phrase, just going at it with someone until the sun comes up or you can’t go anymore.

And yet it’s about to be 10 years since I last had sex, because it was almost 10 years ago that I encountered and committed my life to Jesus the Lord. My commitment to Jesus does not change the fact though that I am still a man with an active sex drive, as He intentionally created, and I hope to someday enjoy unity and passion with a beautiful, wise, and strong woman I can call my own and she can call me hers (and she can show me who’s boss every now and then).

With that said, if I never experience sex again: thats okay. Because the harsh, but freeing, reality is that sex is not a need but a desire. A strong desire, yes, but nonetheless a controllable desire like the longing for ice cream, chocolate, or cake (Maslow was wrong). People, both Christian and non, who look at sex as “do’s, don’ts, or doesn’t matter” completely miss the point of its beauty and utterly taint something that is delectable as designed and is a temporary taste of the bliss we will know in the presence of the Almighty Love.

“There’s no way. You’re either lying, banging chicks here and there, watching porn, or secretly gay.”

In fact, none of the above.

Could it be that you’re so jaded by your slavery to the expectations of others, and to your own hormones and thoughts, that you can’t imagine, and maybe even afraid of, someone who is free and in control of them? Is it that you see and feel convicted of your actions and lack of pure love?

Conviction is fine and healthy, but condemnation from me you won’t find (my non-Christian friends can attest to that). On the contrary, an invitation and extended hand to understand where I come from (the true land of the free) is yours. Because if at the expense of my vulnerability you understand why the world has sex all wrong, and why Jesus is the only righteous Lord over our body, mind, and spirit, then its completely worth it. I haven’t mentioned the homosexual as well as inner-family tendencies I had when I was younger, which I have no reason or shame to hide either because I’ve been delivered from such things and from the power of sin, nor have I mentioned my previous chronic porn watching habit which Jesus also broke and I no longer practice, but it’s not necessary to go into full detail of those things here.

Just know that thanks to Jesus, I am a free yet loyal Kingdom-focused man that accepts and respects sex for what it really is: a gift of connection and expression of passion within commitment.

Non-Personal History of Sex

Leaving my personal history, the scandal of sex in general history goes to show that regardless of religion or lack thereof people are easily seduced by the physical and not spiritual, yet also by fantasy and not reality; by actions without regard for consequences, by the short-term and not the long-term, and by convenience and not commitment.

Me, me, me, me, me.

History shows that people, especially those without self-control, are generally not loyal. They are corrupt and deceived of a false freedom of sexual expression. It is because they chase feelings, power, and a sense of identity; all things we already have yet don’t want to accept as is. We want more (greed), even if its fake.

Feelings

It is not selfish nor misguided to want to feel connected, loved, valued, wanted, in control, capable, vulnerable, free, etc. These are all things that are beautiful and we can experience outside of sex, but we all know that within sex these desires are multiplied and amplified to increase pleasure. So much so that, like drugs, sex becomes an addiction; an addiction I used to know all too well.

It is selfish and misguided, however, to use people to obtain your addictive fix. To lie, cheat, steal, kill, destroy, and overall violate existing or soon to be created connections (or bodies) for the sake of your sexual pleasure. That person you’re having sex with will someday be married (or long-term committed) to someone else, and you’ve violated that connection by taking their spouse for yourself today, even if they consented. You’re guilty by association.

Power

“It doesn’t hurt anyone” is a flat-out lie and deception. The perverted desires that men and women exhibit, and then forcefully actualize in real life at the detriment of children, women, men, and society, are proof of that.

The power of sex is unquestionable. It’s an intoxicating wine, a stimulating drug, a delectable and succulent food; taking our breath, worries, and fear away for those few tender moments. In the right hands this power is an intensity and commitment of love to protect, provide, and pray for our loved ones and the families we create. In the wrong hands — the hands of unrestrained, self-obsessive, and careless people — its dangerous.

It is abused.

Should we pull up the statistics of obsessive porn watching habits? What is porn but documented sexual fantasy and fake intimacy? If people are obsessed with it, then they also subconsciously or consciously learn to focus on fantasy (not reality) and withhold real intimacy from others. It destroys relationships.

Should we link those habits with the abuse of women and the practice of human trafficking, which on average also includes children as young as 12 (thats only average)? “But sex and porn doesn’t hurt anyone,” right? Are you starting to get the picture?

Shall we look at the over–glorification, indoctrination, and romanticizing of sexual provocation in the media around us which includes young teenage girls (at least their image); and the effects it has on the sexual expectations of young (and old) boys and girls? Abuse which starts at a young age and it didn’t even need to physically force itself onto children. It’s all mental seed planting, which gives it the illusion of not being a crime and yet its disastrous effects are later realized.

Or how about the sexually-free culture, where it’s celebrated to lose your virginity early, though more women than expected do not, and actively and casually take anyone else’s body as yours who says yes (consent is debatable at times) for your pleasure? The young and pregnant, raped, and or having an abortion continues on ever more.

Nude pics, instagram models, tinder hookups, hidden cams, pov, gang bangs, orgies, oral, anal, cheating spouses, milfs, etc; all of it are expressions and signs of a sexually lewd and obsessive culture. I can put money (but obviously will not) on the fact that the average person (more male than female) today yearns for such experiences and content, in fact porn producers and investors do just that and win big. We’re back to the beginning of the cycle.

It’s all about power, and sex is powerful and easily abused. And at what cost?

The inflated male ego and perverted alpha-male fantasy that doesn’t protect but abuses; the humiliation and subjugation of women who can’t trust men and then live in fear or become obsessed with physical and financial power; the perversion of children’s developing minds (or worse, their bodies); the unborn who “were an unwanted misfortune that would ruin the fun”; the ease of becoming a replaceable penis or vagina stimulator instead of a loving and engaged partner; the lack of trust in relationships between people and communities; hence the withholding of authentic love and affection from each other in order to not get hurt; ultimately becoming cold and numb to real deep connection: the original and beautiful purpose of sex.

Instead sex becomes a primitive “high” to be chased after and obtained by whatever means. The value that sex has because of trustworthy boundaries, exciting reverence, and real creative power is then reduced to a cheap, casual and fake needs-filling activity for any and everyone to have regardless of commitments.

Anyone in their right mind would call this abuse of power for what it really is: Unacceptable bull – (love killing, life stealing, emotional abusing, mind manipulating, authentic relationship cheating, society impacting, utterly selfish and fear based) – shit.

Abusers and perverts, they merit separation (death).

Identity

The core of the issue, however, is not chasing feelings or power. It’s the longing for identity, which is rooted in purpose.

If someone asked you “Who are you?”, would you be able to answer that question without giving your name? Try it now, what would you say?

I’m a student. I’m an employee of (xyz) company. I’m a full-time traveler. I’m son or daughter of (abc) family. I’m friends with (lmn) social group. I’m a believer in (insert here) religion or activist group. Etc.

“Yeah thats all fine and great, but that just tells me what you do or who you’re related to. It still doesn’t answer, who are -YOU-?”

Can you do that? Can you identify yourself outside of what you do, and instead on who you are? If you can’t, allow me, and we’re going to go down a very dark road.

You are nothing.

You are merely a collection of cells, filled with cytoplasm and biomolecules. Your physical existence is at the mercy of anatomical systems in your body that do not rest and you exercise little conscious control over. You are the result of one-in-a-million fastest swimming sperms connecting with and fertilizing an ovulated egg to gestate into a mammalian known as homo sapien. You are an accident, at best an against-all-odds winning chance, in terms of experiencing life on this collection of air, carbon, and water we call earth. The earth as a place of inhabitance is also an against-all-odds winning chance of an environment, perfectly in between the source of light and the dark abyss of surrounding space in order to foster life. The stars, including planets, that we see most clearly in the dark night sky are thousands if not millions of miles and lightyears away from us and each other, and we may never know with certainty whether there are other sources of life out there. All of it, including you, has its beginning in an untraceable event that started with nothing.

As such, you are nothing. Neither you, your family, your friends, the animals around you or the society you live in have any inherit value, because it is all just a collection of nothingness, and can be ended just as quick (if not faster) than it began. Your emotions, thoughts, beliefs, work, devotion, vigor: meaningless. Always breaking down into disorder, entropy.

It is all vanity.

When you see yourself and life from this perspective, its very easy to slip into a dark and lonely place. I know, because I’ve been there. Yet its an unescapable truth.

Or is it?

Something in us, something that we can’t really explain but try to put words into, stirs up in us and tell us that that can’t be it. There has to be more. We can make more, we will create it.

And that is the key word: create.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

Creation, that is who we are. It is ingrained into our DNA and being, which is not only physical but metaphysical (spiritual).

It is how physical matter came into being, how the stars were aligned, how the earth was positioned, how the water and land were given boundaries, how the components of life were placed together, how life for organisms began, how communities were created, how societies were built, how rules and social contracts were enacted, and on and on we go.

Creation, and therefore the Creator, is the beginning and the end, and we also partake of Its nature. It/He/She is the purpose for which we exist: to accept, revere, and obey the Creator and His essence.

As such, it is against our purpose (identity) to deny, despise, and mislead creation away from its designed essence.

Sex (committed connection) was designed between a man and a woman, all biological (reproductive organs, sexual sensory receptors, pro-creative capabilities, etc) and spiritual factors verify this to be fact.

There are no biological sexes outside of male or female (with the exception of a statistically minuscule hermaphrodite population) as seen through reproductive organs, therefore any psychologically or sociologically constructed genders outside of those two sexes have no basis. The forced alteration of reproductive organs based on constructed genders is also, therefore, baseless.

Inbreeding, or incest — with the exception of at the beginning of creation due to non-existent alternatives — is unnatural and subsequent-generationally harmful.

Interbreeding, or human to animal sex, is a violation of natural design that is prevented to produce offspring through pre-zygotic reproductive isolation. It has no merit.

Sexual intercourse with an undeveloped prepubescent sexually immature person (child) is also a violation of natural design and has no merit.

We can go on, but the point here is this: we have a naturally designed sexual identity both physical and spiritual, created and creative, energy and material-based; that does not require to be changed, constructed, or expanded (i.e., perverted). To do so is also abuse of its power and design. It is good as is.

>> I need to mention here that the ill-treatment and belittlement of people who do change, construct, or expand their sexual identities is neither something I practice nor encourage. I am not making light of the serious, frustrating, confusing, stress-inducing, and consequential nature of this topic especially in today’s socially progressive environment, but I am drawing the line and stating what is tested and basic fact. No one should trade what is true for a subjectivist fallacy. <<

To conclude regarding our identity, the truth acknowledges that we are all love personified (as is our Creator) and that we are like puzzle pieces meant to be connected to each other and to God as one piece. Black, white, free, slave, rich, poor, able, disabled; none of those are our identities. They are merely descriptions and identifiers of our uniqueness, but they are not the basis for our value or identity, which was already ingrained into us long before we developed physical or circumstantial attributes.

Conclusion: How to Un-Pervert and Protect the Sacredness of Sex

Lets go back to some of the key points we mentioned before.

+ Regardless of religious beliefs or non, you agree that you own your body and as such choose to do what you want with it. You agree that sex is not inherently evil and to desire it is not evil either. You agree that true love is unconditional.

+ Sex is exciting, intimate, and overall extremely pleasurable; a gift of connection and expression of passion within commitment. Connection is the reality of which everything we know to exist is built upon. The most important connection (bond) is to God in Christ Jesus, the Creator, and the second is of almost equal importance: the connection we share with another human being through sex. We are all designed to be connected in some way, and for a bond to be authentic and trustworthy it requires commitment, a longterm commitment.

+ Perversion is defined as “the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended.” All practices that change, construct, or expand against adult male to adult female committed relational sex are perverted and separate (sentence to death) people away from God, who is life and love.

You own your own body, and therefore you also own the consequences of your actions. Bodies are for serving and living, not for taking and abusing. Babies are for care and raising, not for abortion or abandonment. Sexual relationships are for committed and free pleasure and intimacy, not for loose attractions and needs-fulfillment. Jealousy, wrath, and vengeance are consequences of immorality.

Sex is not evil nor is desiring it. It’s exciting, intimate, and pleasurable, because it’s a physical reflection of a deep spiritual relationship with God. As such it is sacred. Any perversion (altering) of the sacredness of sex merits separation (death) from the source of life Himself. Sex is not about us, its about love, and therefore it is not evil.

True love is unconditional. If this is so, then why can’t sex also be unconditional (without boundaries or rules)? The answer paradoxically lies in our feelings, power, and identity: the very nature of love itself. Underneath the perversion, corruption, and selfishness that claims to be unconditional is the truth that we all know and are scared to really believe: that “love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.”

Love is what we all need. Without it, we are nothing.

So to un-pervert sex, you have to know love. And to know love, you have to seek and become it. Embrace it without fear, without shame, without lies. Full vulnerability in front of the one Who became vulnerable to us first, and Who’s naked body hung and was bruised for our shame so we could have His freedom. Those who ask shall receive, those who knock it shall be opened to them, those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be answered. He is faithful. He is love.

And to protect sex, you have to treat it like Love treats you. The Lord is faithful, loyal, jealous for you, watches over you, provides for you, keeps you through thick and thin, seeks your pleasure and your maturity, and holds you forever close to his heart. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The only thing that can separate you from His love, is yourself. What is all this describing if not what we know to be marriage? Not the rings, not the wedding, not the court certificate, not the changing of last names, not the dowry or traditions: but the commitment. The public vow in front of God and men to cling to your lover for the rest of your born days. “I commit to you, my darling, to love you in sickness and in health, through trials and victories, through pain and joy, from now until death do us apart. Nothing will overcome my affection and devotion to you my love. I trust you, and lay down my life for you. Do you, trust and commit the same to me?”

Become love, say “I do”, and be forever free together as one. Amen.

This is part 1 of 7 in a series looking into the important, but perverted, topics of life. Perverted defined as the alteration of something from what it is originally meant to be.