Sexual Misconduct Quickscan
Lust is the ape that gibbers in our loins. Tame him as we will by day, he rages all the wilder in our dreams by night. Just when we think we're safe from him, he raises up his ugly head and smirks, and there's no river in the world flows cold and strong enough to strike him down. Almighty God, why dost thou deck men out with such a loathsome toy?
Frederick Buechner
In an age when some people wear the scarlet A more with the pride of conquest than the shame of disgrace, sexual sin still occasions crisis. Although practiced for centuries, adultery retains its ability to spark emergencies.
Premarital sex — fornication, to use a biblical term — casts an even wider shadow. Rare is the couple that enters marriage without prior intercourse, and an unintentional pregnancy or a broken relationship throws crisis into the picture.
Bogus sex bought through pornography or prostitution, violent sex acted out in rape, and twisted sex perversely found in sadomasochism or fetishes — to be out of control in any of these ways damages both the user and the used.
This chapter looks at the several crises caused by sexual misconduct.
A Misused Gift
In the fall 1982 issue of Leadership Journal, an anonymous pastor recounted his addiction to pornography. His crisis began one night on a trip, when he took a cab across town to see a former Miss Peach Bowl perform her exotic strip in a seedy bar. She was good at it, and he found it enticing. He began to search out movies, magazines, live acts — the gamut. He barely stopped short of hiring the body of one of the professionals.
Often he tried to stop. Such a "hobby" hardly squared with his Christian vocation. He felt dirty, lewd, sinful. It threw up a wall between him and God. It dominated his thoughts, even ...
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