Last week Robi and I were asked to speak to a group of college students about “healthy sexuality.”  It was a blast…the talk.  I was suffering from laryngitis, so my voice sounded like Barry White, which seriously helps when talking about sex.  Before we did our talk, I asked a few friends to weigh in on the topic.  One of the responses was so good that I decided (with permission) to post it here on The Drum.  The author is our dear friend and brilliant thinker, Nancy Janzen.  Here is the first part of her email (I’m not kidding, this is an email):

How would it be if when we talked about love or marriage or sex or all of the above, we did it within the context of a lifetime or even eternity… 

Or how about the idea of discussing marriage as a path with pleasure on it but in fact, not all of the pleasures or pleasure options in the world…

A phrase I love to use is the end-result perspective or back-mapping as it’s sometimes called. Your actions are taking you somewhere; do you know where it is?  The reality is you have to choose a path, commit to that path and work backward from there. Not just choose the person, but choose a path. I truly believe that there are sexual experiences specifically that are not on all the paths and are actually quite exclusive to what path you choose. 

For example, I am quite confident there are some really thrilling things about having an affair. There are aspects that might expand my life in some way, temporarily or possibly even permanently. I might learn some new thing about myself or have a new sexual experience even, not to be too detailed, that was ultra fantastic.

To be clear, this scenario is presented as one of the the highest values in our culture, an expansion of Self through sexual freedom and should rarely be limited. The idea of limiting sexual freedom conveys death, not that you are in fact taking on a greater, more expansive type of life and living. 

I think this is so important to grasp this because when you get married, most people initially perceive an affair as unthinkable because you are in love. The affair is Bad and marriage is Good.  But there will be a time when your marriage may have a bad day or even a bad week or month. Maybe a year or two or a whole season that is rocky. Suddenly things that you once thought were Bad need to be reevaluated, even considered Good under the right conditions.  If your whole frame of reference changes with time and if it started with the premise of a morality organized around happiness, then what you move in and out of will be very fluid. 

This means that you have almost a zero percent chance of experiencing what is truly glorious and amazing about marriage, much of which I believe happens the longer you are sexually monogamous and married. You are essentially on a path that has a minus depth factor, probably in all areas of life not just your marriage or sexuality.   You are becoming a person that organizes your relationships completely around Self. All the wisdom and sacred teachings for thousands of years all say the secrets and rewards and blessings of life come with about every other path besides this one… 

Disclaimer from Nancy: This is written to an audience of people either considering marriage or already married.  I am speaking from my own experience and am aware not everyone married twenty years is as excited about marriage or fidelity as I am, quite possibly for very valid reasons. And no, my marriage hasn’t been easy. Yes, he has great legs and I have straight, white teeth… Hardly a foundation in which to weather debt, food stamps, health issues, small business ownership, child rearing, and childhood sexual abuse issues we faced over the last 21 years of marriage. Thankfully, he picked his path and decided to stay. I am forever grateful to him, to Jesus, who saved us both so we could help save each other.

There is part one.  I will post the rest of her email tomorrow.  Stay tuned…

What do you think “healthy sexuality” means?  Does it involve more than the event of sex or is there more?  How has culture informed your perspective?