What I Do With My Body Matters
A few weeks ago, I began a series on Sex & Your Body: Reconnecting with Embodied Spirituality. For the introduction go HERE
To connect with my weekly content and hear updates about my upcoming book, Spiritual Sexuality, subscribe here
To reclaim the body in Christian spirituality we must learn to view the body as a resource for knowing God, not a barrier between us and God. To do this, we must experience four primary values. By “experience,” I mean we learn them ourselves, recognizing which one feels difficult and gently exploring why. We “experience” these values as we teach and talk about them with our children. The best way to do this is in the “coming and going” of life. We can talk about these values in the car as we drive to baseball games, at family dinner, or when we are tucking our kids in bed at night. The five values are:
1. I am my Body
2. My Body is Holy
3. Pleasure is Good
4. What I do with my body matters.
For those of us raised in purity culture, we were taught that what we do with our body matters. We were taught: “What I do (or don’t do) with my body makes me holy, pleasing, and acceptable to God.” We were taught that virginity = holiness. Purity culture’s worship of virginity left most teenagers (and therefore many Millennial adults today) with a plethora of unanswered questions. One question that was at the center of nearly every Christian teen’s mind was, as long as I don’t have sex, how far is too far?
When intercourse is the cliff to fall from, it is human nature to play around the edge of the cliff. Many of us learned to metaphorically gaze from the ledge of the cliff down into the ravine, wondering what it would be like to fall. Others would play at the top of the cliff, feet away from the ledge, and yet throw a rock or two close to the ledge now and then to see if they would fall. The reality is there is a lot of space to “play” before the cliff dive when it comes to human sexuality. If virginity equals intercourse (which it did in purity culture), and intercourse is off the table, what about the rest of the sex acts? What should we do with making out, holding hands, genital stimulation over clothes, or oral sex?
As our children mature and engage in intimate relationships with others, we must re-frame the question. Instead of “how far is too far,” we can teach our children to ask, “How does what I do with my body enable me to love myself and God more?” Instead of “What can I do with my body?” we teach our children to ask “How does what I do with my body enrich my whole self?”
Purity Culture Questions Spiritual Sexuality Questions
“How far is too far?” “What kind of person am I becoming?”
“What can I do with my body?” “How does what I do with my body cause me to love God more?”
As parents, we must reframe the conversation by asking different questions. We must remove virginity as the destination to avoid at all costs. One way we can do this is through ongoing, casual but frank conversations about virginity, holiness, and sex covering topics such as:
Virginity is a construct and means different things to different people at different points in time. You can’t “lose it” or “give it away.”
“Sex” is an umbrella term for a variety of activities between humans intended for pleasure and procreation. When you talk to your child about sex, it is important to be specific about what sex acts you are talking about. Intercourse is when genitals come together.
For Christians, God gives holiness (purity) in Christ and this cannot be earned or lost.
For older children, we can have a conversation similar to one that a mom and her 18-year-old daughter had:
Mom: How is it going with Blake? Are yall still dating?
Child: Yea. It’s going great.
Mom: Great! Yall have been dating for almost a year now? How is it going with physical intimacy? Are you feeling any pressure to progress in that area?
Child: (Hesitates) Yea, sometimes.
Mom: I just want you to know that I am here for you and you can tell me anything no matter what. I am here to help if you ever need it.
Child: Thanks mom. Yea, sometimes Blake talks about us having sex and how he really wants to have sex before we go to college. He thinks it will be easier if we do it together since we already know each other.
Mom: Ok. And what do you think?
Child: I don’t know. I sort of feel bad that most of his friends have had sex and he hasn’t.
Mom: Yea, that must be difficult for him. How do you feel? And just to clarify, when he says “sex,” he means penis in vagina penetration?
Child: Yes, mom. Gosh! (rolls eyes). I don’t feel ready to have sex. He will be going to college soon, ya know?
Mom: Yea. Ok. It sounds like your greatest concern is how he feels. This is a really big decision and I am proud of you for thinking it through and for talking to me about it. In making this decision, I want to encourage you to make sure you make the decision based on what is best for you and according to your values. Not what is best for Blake.
Child: Yea. That makes sense.
Mom: Another question to think through is, “How is having sex with Blake because I feel guilty helping me become the kind of person I want to be?”
Child: Yea, Blake is leaving for college. And I am sure we won’t keep dating.
Mom: That is an important thing to consider.
Child: Yea it is.
Mom: Remember, no matter what you decide now or in the future, about sex, I am here to support you and love you. You can always come to me. You can ask me anything. I am proud of who you are and who you are becoming.
This is how one mom is reframing the conversation from “how far is too” to “what I do with my body matters.” Every parent will do this differently according to personality, values, and the child’s age and stage. For all of us, the most important thing is that we keep the conversation open with our kids by continuing to develop a relationship of safety and trust.