Many Christian churches really want to stick their noses into our bedrooms. For centuries, they have preached against sex before marriage and having sex if you are not trying to have a child. In the last century, they have been preaching against birth control.
There are many lies that Christianity says about these topics, and with the help of Mic I’m here to disprove them today.
1. Losing Your Virginity Is A Biological Event.
Many Christians make a big deal about losing your virginity. They treat it as if having sex for the first time will change your body. There are not any biological reasons to make such a big deal about it. Dianna Anderson, author of “Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity,” said this about it:
“Virginity doesn’t exist as a one-time, biological reality. Instead, the ‘loss’ of virginity is the movement from being sexually inexperienced to being experienced, and this has numerous stages over a person’s life.”
Many churches still hold “purity balls” and make women take “purity pledges.” We don’t do these things with boys. Some of these pledges don’t allow women to kiss, hold hands, or date at all before marriage.
2. Marriage Automatically Makes Sex Better.
This can be true sometimes, but many times it’s not. Your first time may likely be awkward either way. If you wait until marriage, the wedding night sex may be awkward. Good sex comes from having an intimate connection with someone.
As the author puts it:
“Sex doesn’t magically become the bee’s knees because you signed a marriage certificate and received a priest’s blessing.”
3. Having Sex Before Marriage Makes You Damaged Goods.
In a similar vein, many Christians say that having sex before marriage makes you damaged goods. I actually went through one of those abstinence-only sex education classes. They said that your life would be ruined if you have sex before marriage. They used scare tactics to try and scare the horniness out of teenagers.
Anderson said:
“There’s this deep fear within the purity movement that if you ‘give yourself away’ or ‘let someone else in,’ you’ll be damaged for your future marriage. But that’s not how life works. Our responses to events, both positive and negative, shape who we are as people. To say that any sexual activity makes you damaged is to say that your worth exists somewhere in your nether regions, which is patently false.”
4. Gay Sex Is Bad.
Many intolerant Christian churches preach against homosexuality. Homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness and some churches still believe it. There are many Christian “conversion therapy” programs designed to make homosexuals become heterosexuals.
Televangelist Larry Tomczak said that these are the causes of homosexuality:
- A person’s self-will;
- Home environment is dysfunctional;
- Abuse of a child or spouse;
- Seduction by peers or authority figures. According to some studies, some 85-percent of lesbians and 40 percent of gay men were abused, molested, or seduced by people of their own sex while they were children;
- Influence from the media;
- Reading pornography;
- Taking drugs;
- Father figure absent from a child’s life;
- Experimentation during childhood, and
- Identity confusion, or “misunderstanding ‘artistic bent.’”
5. You Must Get Married By A Certain Age.
Legally, you need to be 18 to get married without a parent’s permission. There is a lot of societal pressure on getting married in your early 20s. You scroll through Facebook and all of your friends are getting married and having babies. Keep in mind, it’s not a competition.
Marriage isn’t for everyone, and having kids isn’t for everyone. Many Christian churches make it seem like marriage and kids should be everyone’s life path. Everybody has different goals and dreams. No one is forcing you to get married and have kids.
6. Women Must Fulfill The Man’s Needs.
Many Christian sects preach some odd things about the male-female sexual relationship. The man’s needs are put ahead of the female’s needs. They say that a woman must always be ready to satisfy her man, but they don’t care about women being satisfied. We enjoy sex, and we don’t want to feel inferior. It’s 2016, women can have sex when or if they want to. Pastor Mark Driscoll even said that women who refuse sex are selfish and going against God.
7. Men Marry For Sex, Women Marry For Love.
Men are considered “wild” and they are allowed to have as many partners as they want to. If a woman does this, then she is a slut. They don’t hold men responsible for checking out other women or sleeping with other women.
8. Marriage Must Be Forever.
Many pastors will encourage women to stay with an abusive or unfaithful man. The Catholic Church is very against divorce, as are many other denominations.
9. Masturbation is a sin.
Conservative Christians often preach that masturbation is horrible. Some of them will even say that masturbation leads to homosexuality. I guess masturbation is the gateway to gay sex. Masturbation is perfectly healthy and natural. It is a safe way to relieve stress and tension.
It is common for both single people and people in relationships. Some people even think that masturbation will “use up” your orgasms. There are not any limits on how many orgasms a person can have in their lifetime.
Pastor Driscoll said:
“Masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman.”
This video has a pastor further spreading lies about sex. He is talking about sex before marriage being a sin:
h/t: Mic
Featured image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
