"Lust claims that love without sex is impossible and that sex without love still satisfies. But both claims are wrong. Paradoxically, the profligate is more frustrated than fulfilled.
Expressed more positively, the biblical view of sexual intercourse is that it is not only procreative but expressive. It is the ultimate expression of intimacy, of complete and unconditional unveiling, of which two human beings are capable. As such, it is an act that is misleading and damaging outside marriage, which is the only setting that is totally self-giving.
Like food, sex is of course good in the biblical understanding. But at certain times in the Christian past, its goodness has been severely undervalued, chiefly because of a dualism inherited from the Greeks who saw the mind as positive and the body is negative. From this warped viewpoint, we worship with our minds and sin with our bodies... From the biblical point of view, however, the challenge is quite the opposite: We worship God with our bodies as well as our minds and hearts, and we sin above all with our minds, not our bodies.
At the same time, sexuality has been freed from its former ties to procreation, setting the stage for the isolation and exaggeration of the sexual impulse. This movement reaches its climax in the advocates of sexual mysticism who regard sexual intercourse as the ultimate revelatory breakthrough between human beings- as if love-making were the equivalent of Mt. Sinai or the resurrection...
Lust essentially "uses" and dehumanizes another. But the users deceive themselves, too. Lust-driven seduction without personal engagement ends only in the void of empty-armedness and even deeper longing."
- Os Guinness, "Steering Through Chaos: Vice and Virtue in an Age of Moral Confusion"
"Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack'd any thing.
A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat."
- George Herbert, "Love (III)"
"Wasted time. I can not say that I was ready for this.
But when worlds collide, and all that I have is all that I want,
the words seem to flow and the thoughts they keep running.
And all that I have is yours.
All that I am is yours.
Painted skies. I've seen so many that can not compare
to your ocean eyes. The pictures you took
that cover your room. And it was just like the sun,
but more like the moon. A light
that can reach it all.
So now I'm branded for taking the fall.
So when you say "forever" can't you see?
You've already captured me."
- Lyrics from Everglow, "The Sun and the Moon", by Mae
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