(I’m going to stick my serious in your funny again. Feel free to skip it.)

I tend to worry about teens having sex (oral, anal, vaginal) because something close to 99% of them aren’t emotionally ready for it. Protection against STDs is easy enough, protection against being hurt (emotionally) is not. I say this not as a 36 year old wringing his hands over “kids today!” but from 20+ years of seeing teenagers get hurt from relationships they thought they were ready for, but weren’t. (And I’m not just talking about the “OMG my mom found out” or someone who finds themselves face to face with someone who makes them feel like a “sinner” for having sex. I’m talking about a large number of people I’ve known who regret their early sexual experiences on their own.)

And of course anyone who sexually molests a child ought to be boiled in oil in the town square, or whatever worse punishment you can think of; similarly for rapists.

Those exceptions aside, I have to say:

God doesn’t care what you do with your genitals.

I was at a meeting not long ago where a man in his late 30s/early 40s stood up and made what I call the “plumbing” argument against homosexual sex.

You know the one: “Men’s parts and women’s parts clearly go together; therefore, gay sex is bad.”

Had I been a bit closer to the microphone I would have stood to ask, “Do you honestly believe that there are no heterosexual people engaging in oral or anal sex? Really? Because… I mean… wow.”

I told that story to a friend of mine, and she said “Kindly tell him that my ‘part’ and my girlfriend’s parts fit together just fine.”

It’s a dumb argument.

(At the same meeting someone said that they were “in favor of “Biblical marriage”. I did get up after that comment and reply that “Biblical marriage” is a strange concept for those of us who have actually read the Bible wherein you can find all sorts of arrangements that these people would not want to accept. Not the least of which is bigamy. A friend of mine who is a Baptist minister — but not the kind that you’re probably thinking of — likes to say that “Biblical marriage is one Jewish man, one Jewish woman, and as many concubines as he can afford to keep.”

Then there’s the pre-marital sex argument.

If I gave you a link to a Bible search engine and all the time you requested and asked you to bring me back a listing of all the verses in the Bible that talk about pre-marital sex, would you like to know how many you would find? Here’s a hint: if you ask the most conservative person how many verses there are about gay/lesbians, they would probably say 7 (although there’s much room for debate as to whether some of those are not more accurately talking about prostitution or rape).

Premarital sex? 0 passages.

Zero.

As in none.

Some friends are engaged to be married. They’ve been together for 5 years (both are 24 now). They’ve been planning to get married since November. Due to financial circumstances, they moved in with each other about a month before their wedding.

They had gone through pre-marital counseling with the groom-to-be’s friend, who is a Baptist minister.

Who is now refusing to marry them because they are living together.

Because, as we all know, it is impossible to have pre-martial sex unless you are living together.

I refer to this as “Worrying about the wrong things.” I’m more worried about couple’s sex lives drying up after marriage due to neglect and “being too busy” and “well, ever since the kid(s)/new job/whatever we just haven’t had the time/energy.”

(I also worry about teens of both genders who are subjected to a non-stop stream of “SEX IS BAD! SEX IS BAD! SEX IS BAD! SEX IS BAD! Oh, you’re married? Well sex is good.” I worry that the subliminal message that gets buried into their subconscious is that “Sex is bad” which makes it more difficult for them to really enjoy it later in life.)

That’s a symptom of a relationship in trouble from neglect, which leads to a whole bunch of destructive behavior that really have nothing to do with sex directly, but it’s the early warning sign.

But two people who really want to spend the rest of their lives together, and who are committed to each other, and who have been together for five years? Hell, I think I’d be much more worried if they weren’t having sex.

Anyway, pointless diatribe over, except to say that I wish a whole lot of Christians would worry less about what other consenting adults do with their genitals and worry more about people who can’t afford food and housing or find meaningful work.

Notes:

1) none of these comments should be taken as a response to those who have blogged/reblogged this earlier. I do think the group-joining chain of Jesus to Dirty Sex to Anal Sex lovers is funny but (as mentioned by someone else) not necessarily contradictory. Jesus didn’t have much to say about sex one way or the other, as far as I can recall. I blame St. Augustine for much of the church’s disdain for sex, or (more accurately) I blame his mother for making him break up with the woman he loved and the mother of his child because she was socially unsuitable. Augustine spent the rest of his life thinking women/sex were evil because he could not get over his grief. I think his mother was the evil one.

2) It would also be incorrect to read this as my saying “Sex is fine as long as you plan to get married.” That’s not what I mean at all.

Regarding the original picture: the girl’s name is “Amber”, FFS. If I was running Facebook I would have automatically assigned her to be a fan of Dity/Anal sex when she joined up.

(That was a joke. Probably.)

(via smartasshat: jonathaneunice: myonlyappeal)