How all sexual relations outside marriage damage the family unit

God created sex. Our culture has such a twisted view of sex in part because we conceded what constitutes ‘Good Sex' to the promoters of a radical sexual liberation ideology, an ideology summed up by Anthony Giddens [1] in terms of ‘pure relationships' and ‘plastic sexuality'. Gays and lesbians, he says, have been its ‘pioneers'. Public morality a la Giddens is now protected and promoted as a basic human right; the success of the LGBT agenda is case in point.

The implications of this new ideology are massive but largely overlooked by Christians; they imagine (or pray) they can remain unscathed. If only! There is increasing pressure on Christians to toe the line in their professions. Also, many Christians have adopted a ‘if you can't beat them, join them' approach, changing their minds and ethics accordingly. Finally, our children are being sexualized in a culture where pornography, promiscuity and other sexual disorders are increasingly common.

Though I will describe worrying developments, we must respond, and do so with the most sophisticated apologetic.  An A4 ‘Action Plan' will enable people to form local ‘Resistance' movements if they so desire.

The Victorian adage, ‘We don't break the commandments, we break ourselves on them', is still relevant, or, as Noreen Riols remarked, ‘"Take what you want", God says, "and pay for it"'. Though well documented, the havoc created by this sexual ideology is largely ignored.  If we care for people's welfare, we must act.

How do sexual relationships outside of marriage damage families?  Where to begin?  
This clip from Channel 4's 'Living and Growing' sex ed series for 7-9 year olds, now in thousands of schools, sets the scene.  The core message is that sex is about feelings, fun and ‘love', not marriage, babies and family.

See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFURigdo-2I  (0:24 - 0:57)

ChildLine agrees.  Brook describes how sex should be ‘fun', as does the NHS, though it includes material about ‘relationships'.  One of the sites the NHS describes as ‘useful' for 16 year olds (plus)  is TheSite.Org, with tips on threesomes, bondage, anal sex, using porn ‘positively'  and the ‘100% Lust' one night stand.[2]

I give these examples because, worrying as they are, they are representative of a current culture which targets everyone with a message radically undermining of the true meaning and value of sex and marriage.  Sex is ‘no big deal', as depicted in Sharlene Azam'sOral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss (2008), descriptive of a sordid sexual landscape where nice 13 yr old girls perform fellatio on boys in school loos, at parties etc. Inhibitions are almost the sole taboo. I will focus on three common types of non-marital sex and its damaging consequences.

Promiscuity and Cohabitation

What happens in sex? - Many things, one of which is hormonal activity in the brain.   When a woman has sex her brain produces oxytocin (among other hormones) which bonds her physiologically and psychologically to her partner (and also offspring).  When a man has sex his brain produces vasopressin, which does much the same for him and his partner and offspring.  According to Hooked: New Science on how casual sex is affecting our children (2008), written by Joe S Mc Ilhaney, Jr., M.D. and Freda McKissic Bush, M.D., ‘The individual who goes from sex partner to sex partner is causing his or her brain to mold and gel so that it eventually begins accepting that sexual pattern as normal  ... Their inability to bond after multiple liaisons is almost like tape that loses its stickiness after being applied and removed multiple times' (p. 43) [3] Baggage from the past is always brought into marriage, which puts pressure on the couple and reduces the ability to relate, commit, and work through difficulties instead of ending the relationship.

This wave of promiscuity is touching youngsters even in Christian families. There is heart-ache and depression (from the above impact of continued bond rupture); unwanted  pregnancy (even when condoms are used) ending in abortion --- around 200,000 per year in Britain, and that up to birth for disabled babies; and increasing numbers of STIs and STDs, from two mid 20th century to between one to two dozen today.[4]

Sex should be the ultimate ‘giving of yourself', yet promiscuity undermines this ideal and damages the ability of the young to commit and love deeply. The unintended consequences are many.

Now, turning to cohabitation: some startling facts.

Cohabitation is generally short-lived. More than half of all cohabitees who separate do so in less than two years.

7% of cohabiting, versus 75% of married, couples are still together when their children are 16.

Couples who had previously cohabited are 60% more likely to divorce than those who have not first lived together. [5]

Cohabitation deceives couples with the notion that they can test the possibility of marriage --- trial marriage --- without making a full commitment . But you can't practice permanence! Children born in such homes lose out the most.

Pornography

In a recent survey conducted by Second Glance Ministries and ChristiaNet.com, 50 percent of Christian men who responded said they were addicted to pornography [6] And actually that is probably too low an estimate!

Some of the most popular porn now out comes from Japan and is called Bucokai, which involves variations of multiple males ejaculating onto the face of a woman who is crying. Men masturbate while watching these sorts of images, thus achieving momentary sexual release which can be and, for many, is increasingly addictive.

Emotional and sexual bonding with a spouse is severely compromised; the male becomes increasingly distant and disengaged which leads to divorce. As he objectifies ‘woman' and her body parts, he goes off real live flesh-and-blood women, whose bodies are just bad porn. There develops a need for harder, nastier, darker, more violent (i.e. rape or sadistic) porn: the law of diminishing returns kicks in with a vengeance.[7] 

Gay partnerships and marriage

Gay marriage impacts us all, for it alters our shared understanding of marriage According to Chuck Colson in Christianity Today, it ‘will exert enormous pressure throughout society to move from the Complementarity to the Choice model [of marriage] ... [In relation to the latter] marriage is [seen as] a human invention. And if people believe marriage is just an invention, then they will feel free to change it, redefine it, or even discard it'. And that is what in fact happens statistically in countries where gay marriage is legal, according to David Blankenhorn. [8]

According to a recent article (New York Times, 28 January 2010) of a ground-breaking survey in San Francisco,  about half of gay couples surveyed operate with a quite different and allegedly improved relational blueprint from that of the traditional heterosexual marriage model (sexual and emotional monogamy, one lover until death, and responsibility for the children produced by their sexual union). This new paradigm is based upon ‘love' but also sexual non-monogamy and ‘openness', which, far from harming gay unions, actually is said to enhance them. [9]

Andrew Sullivan, America's most eloquent spokesman for gay marriage, a Roman Catholic and gay himself, acknowledged the necessity and benefits of sexual non-monogamy in his classic, Virtually Normal (1995). In perhaps an unguarded moment, Andrew recently (May 2006) reiterated this need for additional sexual ‘outlets'. [10]

This new model of marriage, based on openness, is the most recent example of redefining the meaning of marriage, and many heterosexual married people are being seduced by this ultimately self-destructive model of marriage.

Finally, gay marriage damages all children because the social norm which had insisted that, if possible, children do best with their own mothers and fathers is destroyed. Two of either gender will do just fine; biology, kinship and gender do not matter. If gay marriage is valid, so too is the gay family.[11]

'Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. 
Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating.' Simone Weil

Sex, culture, youth and family:   Web resources  

---‘Teach my child that, and you'll be sorry', Miriam Grossman, 2010; 
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/teach_my_child_that_and_youll_be_sorry/  If this link does not seem to work go to the mercatornet site and search the article title. 
---‘You're teaching my child what?'  Miriam Grossman, 2009;http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/youre_teaching_my_child_what/
--- Miriam Grossman MD; www.miriamgrossmanmd.com

---Medical Institute: Sexual Health for Life; http://www.medinstitute.org/ 

---‘21 Reasons Why Gender Matters', 2007;http://www.gendermatters.org.au/Home_files/21%20Reasons%20Why%20Gender%20Matters(low%20res).pdf

---‘Why Marriage Matters', 2005; http://www.americanvalues.org/pdfs/wmmexsumm.pdf

http://www.nationformarriage.org/site/c.omL2KeN0LzH/b.3374833/k.E256/About_NOM.htm

---‘The Social Costs of Pornography'; The Witherspoon Institute (2008);  http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org/

---Robert A.J. Gagnon's site: http://www.robgagnon.net/

---‘Homophobia: An Unfinished Story' and ‘The Seeker'; J. Budziszewski http://www.exodusinternational.org/content/view/188/56/
http://www.exodusinternational.org/content/view/189/56/

Sex, culture, youth and family:  Book resources
 --- You're teaching my child what? A physician exposes the lies of sex education and how they harm your child, M. Grossman, M.D., 2009
---Hooked: New science on how casual sex is affecting our children, J. McIlhaney and F. McKissic Bush, 2008 
---Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss, S. Azam, 2008
---Unprotected:  A campus psychiatrist reveals how political correctness in her profession endangers every student, M. Grossman, 2006/7     
---Saving sex,  T. Stammers and T. Doak, 2006   
---Questions kids ask about sex, The Medical Institute for Sexual Health, 2005
---Strong fathers, strong daughters, M. Meeker M.D., 2006 
---Just sex: Is it ever just sex? G. Brandon, 2009 
---Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking relationships ..., D. Kuehne, 2009 
---God, Gays and the Church, ed. L. Nolland, C. Sugden, S. Finch, 2008
---The Heart of Female Same-Sex Attraction, J. Hallman, 2008
---God's grace and the homosexual next door, A. Chambers, 2006 
---The Bible and Homosexual Practice, R.A.J. Gagnon, 2002
---The Future of Marriage, D. Blankenhorn, 2009

Counselling resources
---G. McFarlane, Relationship Counselling & Sex Therapy; www.garymcfarlane.com
---Mrs L. Pilkington, Christian counsellor; lapilks@gmail.com
---Living Waters (London) Christian group for those with relationship and gender issues; www.living-waters-uk.org

Lisa Severine Nolland, ls.n@talktalk.net, Reform Conference, 20 October 2010

Footnotes

1/ Anthony Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy, 1992: ‘The Pure Relationship' and ‘Plastic Sexuality'.

2/ http://www.childline.org.uk/Explore/SexHealth/Pages/Sex.aspx
http://www.brook.org.uk/sex-and-relationships/sex http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Sexandyoungpeople/Pages/Readytogoalltheway.aspxhttp://www.thesite.org/sexandrelationships/havingsex/styleshttp://www.thesite.org/sexandrelationships/couples/lifeasacouple/pornandrelationships http://www.thesite.org/sexandrelationships/havingsex/styles/whatsyoursexstyle

3/ See also Miriam Grossman, M.D., You're teaching my child what? A physician exposes the lies of sex education and how they harm your child (2009), pp. 44-53.

4/ Meg Meeker, M.D., Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 secrets every father should know (2007), pp. 100-110.  

5/ Adapted from John Hayward and Guy Brandon, Cohabitation in the 21st Century, Jubilee Centre 2010; http://www.jubilee-centre.org

6/ www.christiannews.christianet.com/1154951956.html

7/ http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org/videos.php : Pamela Paul: ‘From pornography to porno to porn: How Porn Became the Norm'. Also http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org/index.php, The Social Costs of Pornography (2008).

8/ Quoted in God Gays and the Church, ed. L Nolland, C Sugden, S Finch (2008) p. 201; David Blankenhorn, The Future of Marriage (2009), pp. 213-40.

9/ for the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html?_r=2; for the survey itself:http://www.thecouplesstudy.com;  for research on gay non-monogamy: http://www.thecouplesstudy.com/?page_id=128

10/ Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal (1995): ‘There is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman'.  Gay relationships are said to be more necessarily honest, equal and flexible, an improvement on the traditional (and ‘stifling') heterosexual model of matrimony (pp. 202-3); Andrew Sullivan, ‘Two Generations', 31 May 2006; http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2006/05/two_generations.html

11/ ‘My Daddy's Name is Donor'; http://familyscholars.org/my-daddys-name-is-donor-2/ 
also http://familyscholars.org/2006/01/01/the-revolution-in-parenthood/; http://www.americanvalues.org/pdfs/parenthood.pdf