Written By: Yoknyam Dabale
Thank you Esi for the essay on Sex, you touched some basis that I believe alot of us sometimes are afraid to discuss, this shows your willingness to take risk by writing your views!!
Personally, I never got the sex talk from home( Nigeria). As a matter of fact, my mother used to be upset whenever she saw me talking to boys my age, as a result the older I got, I became very distant to men. And then after terrible incidents (sex related) while schooling in Sierra Leone with couple of men, I decided to call them all evil....that being said, when I moved to the U.S in my early twenties, my body began to act up strangely and I didn't know what to do with that. At the same time, I was dating a wonderful guy whom I thought would be my husband but then again I didn't want to have sex with him since, my previous encounter with sex was all negative. My boyfriend then didn't understand why if I cared so deeply about him...but wouldn't share my body with him, long story short, he broke up with me after two years.
Now when I moved to Duke in 2006, I decided to take matters into my own hands, so I decided to do a research for one of my classes titled "Unlocking the Sex Code". In my work, I looked into ways sex is viewed in both the secular and religious world. The summary of my work is that: In the secular world based on the research survey I conducted, the result was fifty, fifty in this way: Fifty percent of people believe that sex is like any activity, that is to say if a man or woman is horny and the opposite sex is available to have sex, then that is fine. The other fifty believe sex must take place only between to adults who agreed on such act in a committed relationship.
The religious perspective , espcailly for Protestants (majority) believe sex can take place between two people who care about each other in marriage...but this view went further to say that if couple are committed to each other and are not married, yet hoping to marry each other one day...then sex is okay.) For Christian Orthodoxy, sex must only take place between a huband and a wife ( that is final). Their argument is that marriage is sacred therefore must be treated as such and when two people are married hopefully in church, then they have become the body of Christ, Hence the Holy Spirit will help then have sex in a more honorable way with out using each others body simply as orgasm producer ( my phrase here).
Now in the process of my research, I learned that Marriage needed to be defined... and based on my study I uncovered that marriage wasn't a sacrament of the church (universal church). Sex was then called a sacrament in the church in the late fourth century, even later than that...the church decided to make sex a sacrament because people at the time were wonton, so to control such behavior, sex was made a sacrament. Now you ask, where did the idea of marriage come into picture? Well, marriage was the local custom of the time, people married for the purposes of economical gain. For example: A wealthy family married a wealthy family so to keep money amongst themselves.
My work concluded with a fifty, fifty asnwer to the question I asked: Is it alright to have sex before marriage? according to secular and religious perspectives ( Yes and No).
I concluded my work by suggesting that: even though views on sex are diverse, it is important that people know what exactly sex is before getting involved. And some of the ways in which people could learn about sex is by 1. talking about it, espically to younger people who might only know sex through what the media is presenting them, and sometimes the media doesn't present sex as honorable as it should be 2. read books and articles on sex and relationship 3. Parents should make it their duty to educate their children 4. Adults should have public discourse on sex, espically in settings like the continent of Africa where people talk about sexuality but not necessarly SEX, 5. Talk about sex in manners that will present it as a good thing but sometimes would go wrong if treated carelessly. For example: When sex is done right,a couple enjoy the pleasure it gives physically and sometimes provide babies for those who would like to have them. On the other hand if sex is done wrongly that is without protection when needed, sexual transmitted diseases are going to come into picture such as HIV/AIDS, HPV, Herpes, T.B etc and that leads to death!
And finally, allow God to lead one's decison on whether sex-ing at a particular time is the right thing to do. For those of us who are trying to be faithful to our Christian call know that, as finite beings we are doomed to fall if God is not there lifting us up. With God by our sides we can handle our desires to have sex with some dignity.
Thank you Esi for allowing me to post on your blog, I am looking forward to seeing you again in America!!!!!!!
Consider yourself hugged and Happy belated Thanksgiving...oh my bad every day is Thanksgiving....hahahahahha
Personally, I never got the sex talk from home( Nigeria). As a matter of fact, my mother used to be upset whenever she saw me talking to boys my age, as a result the older I got, I became very distant to men. And then after terrible incidents (sex related) while schooling in Sierra Leone with couple of men, I decided to call them all evil....that being said, when I moved to the U.S in my early twenties, my body began to act up strangely and I didn't know what to do with that. At the same time, I was dating a wonderful guy whom I thought would be my husband but then again I didn't want to have sex with him since, my previous encounter with sex was all negative. My boyfriend then didn't understand why if I cared so deeply about him...but wouldn't share my body with him, long story short, he broke up with me after two years.
Now when I moved to Duke in 2006, I decided to take matters into my own hands, so I decided to do a research for one of my classes titled "Unlocking the Sex Code". In my work, I looked into ways sex is viewed in both the secular and religious world. The summary of my work is that: In the secular world based on the research survey I conducted, the result was fifty, fifty in this way: Fifty percent of people believe that sex is like any activity, that is to say if a man or woman is horny and the opposite sex is available to have sex, then that is fine. The other fifty believe sex must take place only between to adults who agreed on such act in a committed relationship.
The religious perspective , espcailly for Protestants (majority) believe sex can take place between two people who care about each other in marriage...but this view went further to say that if couple are committed to each other and are not married, yet hoping to marry each other one day...then sex is okay.) For Christian Orthodoxy, sex must only take place between a huband and a wife ( that is final). Their argument is that marriage is sacred therefore must be treated as such and when two people are married hopefully in church, then they have become the body of Christ, Hence the Holy Spirit will help then have sex in a more honorable way with out using each others body simply as orgasm producer ( my phrase here).
Now in the process of my research, I learned that Marriage needed to be defined... and based on my study I uncovered that marriage wasn't a sacrament of the church (universal church). Sex was then called a sacrament in the church in the late fourth century, even later than that...the church decided to make sex a sacrament because people at the time were wonton, so to control such behavior, sex was made a sacrament. Now you ask, where did the idea of marriage come into picture? Well, marriage was the local custom of the time, people married for the purposes of economical gain. For example: A wealthy family married a wealthy family so to keep money amongst themselves.
My work concluded with a fifty, fifty asnwer to the question I asked: Is it alright to have sex before marriage? according to secular and religious perspectives ( Yes and No).
I concluded my work by suggesting that: even though views on sex are diverse, it is important that people know what exactly sex is before getting involved. And some of the ways in which people could learn about sex is by 1. talking about it, espically to younger people who might only know sex through what the media is presenting them, and sometimes the media doesn't present sex as honorable as it should be 2. read books and articles on sex and relationship 3. Parents should make it their duty to educate their children 4. Adults should have public discourse on sex, espically in settings like the continent of Africa where people talk about sexuality but not necessarly SEX, 5. Talk about sex in manners that will present it as a good thing but sometimes would go wrong if treated carelessly. For example: When sex is done right,a couple enjoy the pleasure it gives physically and sometimes provide babies for those who would like to have them. On the other hand if sex is done wrongly that is without protection when needed, sexual transmitted diseases are going to come into picture such as HIV/AIDS, HPV, Herpes, T.B etc and that leads to death!
And finally, allow God to lead one's decison on whether sex-ing at a particular time is the right thing to do. For those of us who are trying to be faithful to our Christian call know that, as finite beings we are doomed to fall if God is not there lifting us up. With God by our sides we can handle our desires to have sex with some dignity.
Thank you Esi for allowing me to post on your blog, I am looking forward to seeing you again in America!!!!!!!
Consider yourself hugged and Happy belated Thanksgiving...oh my bad every day is Thanksgiving....hahahahahha
bye
No comments:
Post a Comment