The Precious Gift of Sex (#707)
[Warning: This podcast contains a frank discussion about sex that may not be appropriate for all audiences. You might want to listen to it before your children overhear it.] Tracy Levinson, author of unashamed joins Wayne for a candid discussion about sex as only she can, spurred by emails we both received recently from different couples asking if they really needed to wait until marriage. Rather than the casual amusement, our society considers sex to be, the act itself bonds us to another person in a way that is so deeply precious, God designed it for the safety of a lifelong covenant relationship. That's the only place to protect our emotions and avoid the pain that casual sex offers. They also talk about masturbation, lust, and dealing with shame where we fall short of the life God invites us to experience.
Podcast Notes:
Tracy's Facebook post about premarital sex
Previous podcasts with Tracy
Tracy's book, unashamed: candid conversations about dating, love, nakedness, and faith
If You Can Help Us in Kenya
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Hmmm
So relieved to hear this podcast. I’ve been alone for 4 years…I have a daughter (14) . Trying to rid myself of religious lies. There are so many….
I have taught my daughter the lies and I reinforce them. This subject has been a struggle because I have much shame about my past and just being a female. But the sexual drive has a mind / power of it’s own. Our bodies betray our beliefs! I have at times hated my body because of the things I would feel with no possible Godly solution.
I will have my daughter listen to this…it will blow her mind.
I will have to apologize for my exaggerated incapable solutions that have made her feel so sinful and dirty.
I have been so disgusted with how things have turned out with my children. I did everything I could to make sure they wasnt molested. And they get older and masturbate after all that pain and fighting to keep them pure and safe. I’ve been angry and felt like it hopeless. Like my family is just nasty, no matter how hard you try to keep it from sexual impurities, it’s going to fail.
This podcast and all the others make feel so much more free. Not free to do what feels good but free to be what God made me, free of lies, free to have hope, free to be as good as someone that ‘looks’ good.
Thank you for being brave to speak on this subject. Thank you for hearing God. Thank you for putting time effort and money into these podcasts.
I dont know you but I love you!
I don’t know you either, Laura, but I must love you too. Your email made my heart hurt. I’m so sorry you felt shame just from being female or the struggle with seeing our sexual feelings as a Godly gift. I’m grateful though how open you are and how willing to apologize to your daughter to own some new truth. That’s awesome, Laura. I pray God continue to set you free from the lies you’ve been taught and walk you gently into his world of truth and freedom!
I wondered if either of you have read Redeeming Sex by Debra Hirsch. It’s such a powerful conversation that just needs to be normalized!
Great podcast….
I haven’t…
At 56 years old now, I followed all the rules — virgin when I married at 20 to a supposedly Christian man. While I stayed faithful in both mind and body, he did not, starting with year two of our 27 year long marriage. While he led his double life, I led a single church-oriented life. I was the piano player, helped with children’s programs, and gave my kids the finest upbringing church involvement could provide. When I dared speak up about his affairs and physically abusive behavior, pastors and counselors assured me through the years that if I prayed harder and submitted more everything would get better. It didn’t. Now divorced and done with church, I have had no dates in over a decade.. I say all of this to make a request. Would you consider doing a show on “Regifted Singleness?” It’s the gift few of us wanted, a gift that is hard to embrace with “It is not good to be alone” echoing in the background.
By the way, I have read all your books. I re-read “He Loves You” often. Maybe I am a slow learner, but when the only love I have ever known is from pages in a book and not in “real life” I need the refresher often!
(From Wayne:) Hi Judy. Thanks for your comment, though I’m horribly sorry for all that you’ve been through, both in the unfaithfulness of your husband and in the lies told to you by religious leaders. And mostly my heart is broken because you’ve only known love from someone else describe it in a book. May the eyes of your heart be open to all the ways God loves you as the beloved daughter of a Gracious Father. Just reading about it not enough. You need to taste it from his bountiful heart.
And, I’d love to talk with someone about Refifted Singleness, but I certainly wouldn’t be the one to offer anything in that vein. It is not my experience and I would only be speculating. But who knows what God might provide through your request? Let’s see.
Judy, you’re a great girl!
There are other great, sincere boys around!
Seeking this kingdom of true mutual love with people who also desire it is to me something of the most important things at all.
I really want add to the mix something that I wrote just recently: https://www.thegodjourney.com/2019/10/18/authenticity-in-sexuality-and-leadership/#comment-856801
Hi brothers and sisters
“keep the gift inside God’s boundaries”
I really dislike the term boundaries, which feels not like the promised freedom but more of a cage … what it really is when the main things aren’t right … the institution of marriage has comparably lost track of what it’s about like the institutionalized churches.
I personally believe that a bond of love is a bond of hearts and that is something far else than what most marriages or relationships ever were or ever had. To achieve that is something of worth.
To me, sexuality is meant to be enjoyed only in the safety zone of mutual love and trust and unconditional acceptance of each other. For our own good. To prevent deep hurts … when one sexual partner falls in love and the other comes to the point that it’s not real love to him/her.
What I’m really saying is, that people are going way to fast into relationships, it would be so much better if they first become deep friends, building up trust about everything and then go into a relationship, when there is nothing to hide anymore, when you can be honest about everything with each other … so they love each other truly who and how they really are and not masks.
When you are not unconditionally accepted by your partner, when you can’t be honest about your problems, you probably got to fast into that relationship too, and I suggest to not have sex with that person any longer, because it doesn’t make it better. But if your partner really means something to you, strongly work at unconditional acceptance of each other, building up deeper trust, because when that is not, chances are high that it sooner or later goes into a direction of divorce inside the other person.
To me, unconditional acceptance belongs so firmly to the bond of love, it is to trust love more than control, to love the partner with his/her problems, which is the only way it gets better by the way, somewhen, when hearts get closer and closer, while pressure brings forth the opposite and even distances the hearts from each other, but when the hearts become one, in trust, there is also where the love grows. Without unconditional acceptance, both hearts can not even become one, they always have to play better than they are, because that relationship is not built on friendship, but on beloved masks.
Greetings and much love
Jo
Appreciate this candid conversation. One many ‘Christian’ and ‘church’ people refuse to have. I don’t expect a response to this but it’s worth mentioning, very few talk about the loss of sex as a widow(er). My husband died suddenly, unexpectedly and in a moment our togetherness ended along our sex life. I miss him so much and I desperately miss sex with him too. As a Jesus loving woman I’m trying to figure out where the off switch is. Love doesn’t end when your spouse dies and I’m not the least bit interested in dating or remarrying at this point. Just want him back, which is of course, impossible. Have times when I long for him so much I just cry. It’s really difficult navigating all the emotional complications of this and seems unfair on so many levels. When open access to so much life long intimacy ends, you’re left wondering what to do with all the desire that didn’t leave with a spouse who has died. Have talked to a few other widows about it, especially younger ones or those whose husbands died suddenly. It’s a common problem. I’m hoping and praying the grief process through time lessens the severity of want.
Diane, I’m so sorry you have lost the love of your life. Death is so cruel to those on this side of it and always seems horribly unfair when someone is less than 85. It broke my heart just to read this, knowing should I be left to navigate life without my Sara, I don’t know what I’d do. Thank you for bringing this up. As great a gift as sex can be in this life between two people, it has got to be horrible when it suddenly ends for two people deeply in love. I hope others who’ve been through this have some ideas for you that will help you see how Father wants to comfort you in your loss, and fulfill the hungers within in Godly way. I know he cares, which is why he hates Death too. May God’s grace not only hold your heart in comfort but light a way for you to continue in this world with purpose and joy.