Monogamy? Promiscuity?
So, yesterday, I was struggling with the concept of monogamy. It is so great a sacrifice to restrain yourself, sexually, until you find someone you're ready to commit to, for life. Twenty-three years of being a virgin was coming to surface, and I honestly made up my mind to explore Free Love, if things don't work out with Keilah.
I found this to be an emboldening rationale: isn't monogamy sort of like partner elitism? You take this wonderful, precious, pleasure-rich thing, namely, romance and the sexual intercourse that comes with it, and you lock them up tight within the privacy of your little marriage. Wouldn't it be more egalitarian to share love freely?
Then again, I don't believe I would give my love freely. I would certainly still be very selective about my lovers; I would certainly still be an elitist in some form.... nonetheless, would I be a greater servant of equality then I would be if I only loved one woman?
What of sexually transmitted diseases? Aren't they a natural signifier of the inferiority of promiscuity? That's what I've always thought. Yet people are also born with diseases (and deformities), and that doesn't make it clear, at all, that we shouldn't have children. We look to the animal world and we see a healthy lack of monogamy (you find it, but certainly not all the time)...
I have never once believed that monogamy is wrong. It is an institution God chose to display His unfathomable love for the Church. I have never once doubted that unfaithful monogamy is wrong. But what of responsible, selfless, promiscuity? Would it not be beautiful to make love to a woman, letting her into your most intimate feelings, striving to serve her as much as possible (because you know that's what you would want for yourself), and yet to not tie her to you so that she can't get away, to not rule her desires with romantic jealousy? Is truth not loved when two free people come to together to drink deeply, freely of one another? If a child were to arrive, of course, the parents would need to raise him/her mutually, perhaps even monogamously.
Speaking of children, monogamy brilliantly demonstrates selflessness in its positioning of importance for child-rearing. However, we know that God made sex for more than child-rearing, simply based on the Song of Solomon.
What are the ultimate priorities in godly romance? Is one of them pairing off? Is that as important as simple selflessness?
I've read Biblical interpretations which seek to prove that noble promiscuity is not opposed. They are as much of a stretching interpretation as that of Hell not being eternal. Yet I believe that the case for the timeliness of Hell to be a good one...
What is the right thing to do, friends? What is the right thing to do?
I was reeling in these thoughts all day yesterday (especially since Keilah and I weren't able to fit in a date), and I felt the weight of the world upon me as I was making up my mind to defy world church culture (as I know it), both in belief and action, for the sake of truth, at the risk of sin.
Yet I was desperate for Keilah to call me, once she finished her work shift. No matter where my thoughts were crusading, I was still holding onto her as a life line cast to me in this tempest sea. She practically had to close the restaurant, and so, by the time she called, I had begun to think that she might not call at all. And then she did, and her words washed over me with all-reaching comfort. She is worth the wait; she is worth the missing out on other loves. The whole idea of promiscuity is not about monogamy not being worth it, but rather about being more involved your world's romance. As long as she speaks sweetly to me (anything even cordial or friendly is honey-sweet from her), I don't even desire anyone else. The beautiful bonds of monogamy have already begun to wrap themselves around my heart. I am falling in love, simply, with the way she clears her throat.
I want to learn more about noble promiscuity... I want to explore its theory and serve the world as a teacher faithful to the truth revealed to me. But for myself, I want this one woman.
His Peace,
Jake
I found this to be an emboldening rationale: isn't monogamy sort of like partner elitism? You take this wonderful, precious, pleasure-rich thing, namely, romance and the sexual intercourse that comes with it, and you lock them up tight within the privacy of your little marriage. Wouldn't it be more egalitarian to share love freely?
Then again, I don't believe I would give my love freely. I would certainly still be very selective about my lovers; I would certainly still be an elitist in some form.... nonetheless, would I be a greater servant of equality then I would be if I only loved one woman?
What of sexually transmitted diseases? Aren't they a natural signifier of the inferiority of promiscuity? That's what I've always thought. Yet people are also born with diseases (and deformities), and that doesn't make it clear, at all, that we shouldn't have children. We look to the animal world and we see a healthy lack of monogamy (you find it, but certainly not all the time)...
I have never once believed that monogamy is wrong. It is an institution God chose to display His unfathomable love for the Church. I have never once doubted that unfaithful monogamy is wrong. But what of responsible, selfless, promiscuity? Would it not be beautiful to make love to a woman, letting her into your most intimate feelings, striving to serve her as much as possible (because you know that's what you would want for yourself), and yet to not tie her to you so that she can't get away, to not rule her desires with romantic jealousy? Is truth not loved when two free people come to together to drink deeply, freely of one another? If a child were to arrive, of course, the parents would need to raise him/her mutually, perhaps even monogamously.
Speaking of children, monogamy brilliantly demonstrates selflessness in its positioning of importance for child-rearing. However, we know that God made sex for more than child-rearing, simply based on the Song of Solomon.
What are the ultimate priorities in godly romance? Is one of them pairing off? Is that as important as simple selflessness?
I've read Biblical interpretations which seek to prove that noble promiscuity is not opposed. They are as much of a stretching interpretation as that of Hell not being eternal. Yet I believe that the case for the timeliness of Hell to be a good one...
What is the right thing to do, friends? What is the right thing to do?
I was reeling in these thoughts all day yesterday (especially since Keilah and I weren't able to fit in a date), and I felt the weight of the world upon me as I was making up my mind to defy world church culture (as I know it), both in belief and action, for the sake of truth, at the risk of sin.
Yet I was desperate for Keilah to call me, once she finished her work shift. No matter where my thoughts were crusading, I was still holding onto her as a life line cast to me in this tempest sea. She practically had to close the restaurant, and so, by the time she called, I had begun to think that she might not call at all. And then she did, and her words washed over me with all-reaching comfort. She is worth the wait; she is worth the missing out on other loves. The whole idea of promiscuity is not about monogamy not being worth it, but rather about being more involved your world's romance. As long as she speaks sweetly to me (anything even cordial or friendly is honey-sweet from her), I don't even desire anyone else. The beautiful bonds of monogamy have already begun to wrap themselves around my heart. I am falling in love, simply, with the way she clears her throat.
I want to learn more about noble promiscuity... I want to explore its theory and serve the world as a teacher faithful to the truth revealed to me. But for myself, I want this one woman.
His Peace,
Jake