Sexual Legalism

As an asexual person, I can't relate to the omnipresent struggle Christians seem to face when it comes to avoiding sexual sin (I exaggerate when I say "omnipresent" because this seems to be all some Christians focus on).  I, left to myself, don't really want to have sex with even my wife in the future when I'm legally married, much less with someone right now while I'm single.  However, many Christians cannot relate to my asexuality and some may have to take the prohibitions of sexual immorality in the Bible very seriously.  But in the process of trying to nobly condemn and prevent sexual evils, the church at large has tried to erect small or large rules in order to achieve that goal.

Legalism is when people take something God has revealed to be evil and either declare that anything that might lead to it is also sinful or that people need to abide by extra-Biblical moral rules in order to uphold what the Bible actually says.  The Bible condemns drunkenness and alcoholism, and the legalistic response would be to call consumption of any alcohol sinful or dangerous.  Of course, this position is nothing more than a massive slippery slope, and one that Scripture itself specifically refutes with its many positive examples and allowances of alcohol use.

In the same way as a legalist might think all alcohol use is sinful, in an effort to combat or prevent actual sexual sins, the church often demonizes or prohibits innocent activities, some of them not even being sexual in nature.

Below I have divided these legalistic restrictions into the categories of things that are not sexual that people still attempt to oppose and limit for the sake of fighting sexual sin, and things that are sexual.

Deuteronomy 4:2--"Do not add to what I command you and do not
subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I
give you."

Non Sexual Activities


1. Opposite Gender Friendships

To teach singles that members of the opposite gender are either sexual temptations or possible spouses is to encourage them to drastically ignore almost every dimension of the humanity of the opposite gender and reduce them to something they are not.  Church leaders counsel people to never have accountability partners of the opposite gender, to never be with them in private without the presence of a spouse or some other third party, to keep conversations with them superficial and not truly personal so that there is little opportunity for emotional bonding, to not talk about certain issues (like the contents of this blog post!) with them, and to generally not get attached to them in non-romantic ways.  Of course, there is nothing sexual or romantic about opposite gender friendships in themselves, although sexual attraction does not make the relationships sinful.

To teach married individuals that all members of the opposite gender besides their spouses are dangerous is to indulge in the same error.  Adultery is condemned explicitly and repeatedly in the Old and New Testaments (see Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 22:22, and so on).  However, to tell people they cannot be either casual or close friends with a married person of the opposite gender because it will probably or inevitably lead to adultery is an extremely dishonest and fallacious distortion of what the condemnations of adultery actually teach and of what human nature is actually like.  The only things that are inherently sexual are sexual acts and sexual feelings.  My cherished best friend, as well as one of my only true friends, is a woman, and I scoff at the societal and church bias against such a relationship.


2. Being Alone With The Opposite Gender

The infamous "Billy Graham Rule" is one of the most asinine obstacles to treating members of the opposite gender like equals.  On multiple occasions, Jesus himself was alone with a woman, as with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 and Mary at his own empty tomb in John 20.  I don't even have to resort to other logical proofs that there is nothing sinful about being alone with the opposite gender because Jesus himself, the man Christians claim to be divine and perfect, affirms that there is no sin in being in the presence of the opposite gender when no one else is around.  It is so amusing how evangelicals tell everyone to strive to imitate Christ, only to arbitrarily rebuke people for doing just that by being alone with someone of the opposite gender without any sexual motivations or activity!

I have noticed that this legalistic rule is often applied to the realm of dating.  Some Christians try to keep dating couples in the presence of at least one additional witness just in case they can't remember that there is far more to life and romantic relationships than just sex.  This is troubling because some very introverted people will not open up relationally and emotionally except in one-on-one conversations, meaning introverts subjected to the Billy Graham Rule may never get a chance to even know the people they are dating until they marry them!  Do evangelicals not detect the obvious flaw with that brilliant rule?  What, do the adherents to this rule really believe that if I am a sexually pure person in mind and action, the circumstance of being alone with a girl to whom I am not married is going to suddenly cause me to transform into a seducer, adulterer, or rapist?  Logic, people.  It is helpful.

Is something like this going to result every time an unmarried male
 and female are alone together?  Of course not!

3. Attraction

Attraction is not necessarily sexual in nature and may be nothing more than mental recognition that someone is physically and aesthetically attractive.  Beauty has been misrepresented as a sexual thing by my damn American society, to the point where people can have difficulty understanding that not all attraction or admiration of the human body involves a sexual dimension.  Women can admire beautiful men and men can admire beautiful women without any sexualization of the experience, even while perceiving someone to be aesthetically gorgeous.  For instance, women can (and do, despite astonishingly inept church ignorance of the matter) visually enjoy the bodies of shirtless males at the beach and males can enjoy the bodies of bikini-clad females at the beach without any sin or any sexualized feelings, merely appreciating the beauty of other individuals.


4. Public Nudity

Once someone realizes that nudity is a biologically natural (and theologically natural--see Genesis 2:25) non-sexual state, he or she realizes how objectively asinine much of what society and the church says about nudity is.  Evangelical Christians are notorious for their anti-nudity positions which are rooted in distortions of Scripture, a negative and false view of sexuality, asceticism and discomfort with the human body, and subjective cultural ideas--not to mention notorious for how the church erroneously treats sexual desire as something men are submerged in constantly but women rarely experience.  Much talk of the "dangers" of nudity is aimed at males despite no Biblical or rational basis for believing in various bullshit cultural constructs about male sexuality and despite logic refuting these myths in full.  The Bible itself teaches a pro-nudity message consistently and clearly when one removes absurd assumptions about the text from interpretation [1].

Nudity has nothing to do with sex in and of itself, though of course it could be sexual in certain circumstances.  It can be a very sensual thing nonetheless, but this property does not equate to it being intrinsically sexual.  Despite evangelical insistence to the contrary, the Bible teaches only that married people have the exclusive right to sexual relations with their spouses, not that they have the exclusive right to intimate friendship with them or to see and admire their bodies--or even to be sexually aroused by or sexually attracted to them.



Sexual Activities


1. Erotic Literature

First of all, the Bible clearly does not oppose all erotic literature, as demonstrated by the fact that it contains an entire book solely dedicated to this genre: Song of Songs.  Because of this, it is very idiotic when some Christians denounce all erotic literature as sinful and depraved.  Second, just because someone reads erotic literature doesn't mean he or she will want to commit some sexual sin because of it.  On its own, there is no sin in creating, reading, or enjoying erotic literature, as it just happens to focus on an aspect of human existence often demonized and misunderstood by secular and religious people alike.

Any erotic literature that was written to promote practice or acceptance of sexual acts that are objectively immoral like objectification, bestiality, pedophilia, adultery, incest, rape, sex with an engaged person, homosexuality, casual sex, or sex trafficking is sinful, not because such sins are mentioned but because of the intent behind the authorship.  Note that a story that features these things as plot devices or for historical accuracy or to convey a positive moral point would not fall into this category.


2. Masturbation

Some Christians have a very difficult time addressing this subject rationally.  Christians sometimes acknowledge that masturbation may even greatly aid singles or even married people struggling with the desire to commit sexual sins, while others might condemn it as a manifestation of "homosexuality" or some selfish act or even some sort of betrayal of a current or future spouse.  Alone, as with many of these things I am mentioning, there is nothing sinful about a person sexually stimulating his or her own sex organs for pleasure or release.  Yes, women engage in solo sex too.  Gasp!!  I have given up trying to understand why society and Christians are so surprised that women have deep and powerful sexual impulses and desires just like some men do.  There are many myths about masturbation that Christian and secular people sometimes preserve [2].


3. Sexual Arousal

If a man or woman becomes sexually aroused on a nude beach, it is an illogical assumption to think that he or she must want to sleep with those around him or her.  The involuntary condition of the body's sexual arousal does not mean the mind desires to have sex.  Male and female rape victims may experience sexual arousal during their abuse, but does this mean they WANT the sex?  Hell no!

But even if a man or woman at, say, a nude beach did become sexually aroused, physiologically speaking, and did want release through some sort of sexual activity (which does not have to mean sex with the other people), he or she could channel that sexual desire into sex with a spouse or into masturbation.  There is no sexual sin or lust should the person choose to do these things.  As long as the person has not objectified another person by mentally reducing them to nothing but their sexuality, no sexual objectification has occurred.  As long as the person has not desired to take someone's spouse for himself or herself in the process, no coveting/lust has occurred.  There is no reason whatsoever to view arousal of the sex organs in and of itself, in public setting like a nude beach or in private, as anything more than a healthy, natural occurrence that does not at all indicate some mental desire to commit a sexual sin.


4. BDSM

BDSM is not necessarily nonconsensual, meaning that it does not inherently contradict the principle of sexual consent honored in Deuteronomy 22:25-27 and elsewhere in the Bible.  Husbands and wives are free to engage in consensual role playing and "bondage" behavior, as this does not amount to rape or sexual exploitation.  If spouses want to subject themselves to erotic confinement or sexy scenarios to find a more creative outlet for sexual desire, then they are morally allowed to do so.  For example, if one spouse is stripped naked and the other remains fully clothed, the contrast can be used for a charade of a power imbalance, which can be perceived as sexy by both participants.


5. Premarital Sex

In the most basic summary of its position on premarital sex, the Bible merely teaches that unmarried and unengaged singles who sleep together should get married unless the parents strongly object (Exodus 22:16-17).  I have dealt with this more extensively here [3].  There is no prescription of capital punishment or any other penalty.  Of course, this does not justify casual, noncommittal sex, but someone unmarried can sleep with another single person.  As long as he or she is willing to be committed to that person for life unless some occasion for legitimate divorce arises, the couple has not sinned.  If they do not marry, though, then sin has occurred--the sin is not in having sex outside of a legally-recognized marriage, but in refusing to get married.



Conclusion

If truly necessary to avoid sexual sin ("objectification, bestiality, pedophilia, adultery, incest, rape, sex with an engaged person, homosexuality, casual sex, or sex trafficking"; see above), of course people should abstain from anything they think really does make it easier for them to succumb to sinful temptations or that they don't trust themselves with.  However, a person's struggle in an area or inability to understand how someone could engage in an activity without sinful thoughts is no justification for calling these protective boundaries objective moral necessities which people sin when they ignore.  This would be to commit the fallacy of composition, in concluding that because one person will sin in an area given certain circumstances then therefore everyone will; it would be blatant legalism to believe that God's moral revelation is insufficient to live a righteous life when God himself commanded humans not to add or subtract from his law (Deuteronomy 4:2); it would be a slippery slope fallacy to say that because someone drinks alcohol that person will get drunk, and arguing that opposite gender friendships or nudity or attraction will by necessity lead to sin commits the same fallacy.

If you need an extra-Biblical boundary to ease a particular temptation, then, by all means, go for it!  Just don't elevate that personal conviction or need to the status of some objective and universal moral requirement for other people who can't even relate at all to your specific sin struggles.  Sexuality has been a common target for legalists, with them even prohibiting things that have absolutely nothing to do with sex or sexuality in the effort to fight a set of sins they themselves seem to think is unconquerable.  Is any sin unconquerable?  No, but that is thanks to sanctification and inner resolution, not because of irrational, contra-Biblical rules of human origin.


[1].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/bible-on-nudity-part-1.html

[2].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/sexual-self-stimulation.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/myths-about-masturbation.html
C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/more-myths-about-masturbation.html

[3].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-exodus-2216-17.html