Never has network television been so explicitly sexualized. Never has television sex been so promoted and packaged for commercial consumption. And there is at least one reason why orthodox Christians should turn off the televisions-the sex is too boring for us.
Some NBC television executive thought he’d found the Holy Grail of Nielsen ratings. Since American culture is so sexualized, why not just organize a situation comedy around the gimmick of pushing the sexual envelope as far as possible, as many times as possible in a 22 minute segment. And so NBC advertised endlessly the new situation comedy Coupling highlighting the sexual vocabulary and bedroom scenes of the actors. This comedy might be decadent, and it might be inappropriate, but one would think that it would at least be sexy. Not according to USA Today television critic Robert Bianco. According to the newspaper, Coupling “tackles the subject of sex with all the single-minded fervor of a Soviet tractor documentary, and with just as much allure.” Much the same could be said of the rest of the vast wasteland of the flickering
screen.
But it is not only this television season that has managed to make sex boring. Psychologists tell us that pornography addiction is an accelerating cycle of the addict trying to find a “high” in images more explicit than the ones he now considers “boring” and mundane. In fact, Slate magazine now reports that the fad in Japan is pornography without humans-computerized animated characters acting out the most violent and anti-social sexual fantasies with alien-like creatures. Why? Pornographic sex-of the human sort-has grown boring. The same trend extends even to the most sexualized of all demographic groups-teenagers. When I was in junior high school, a group of boys would laugh and wink while reading the King James Version of Song of Solomon. Now, just a few years later, boys like us stare blankly at the ceiling while comprehensive
sex education teachers explain every conceivable detail of human anatomy and sex technique. It is just, well, boring.
This is where the church has an explanation-and a glorious alternative-that we have been too hesitant, or too ignorant, to reveal to the watching world. Evangelical Christians in particular have too often adopted the culture’s view of sex-and so evangelical Christians wind up with sex lives just as boring as that of our neighbors. And so we publish advice manuals on contorted techniques and marital gimmicks. Remember “Wives, wrap yourselves in cellophane for your own husbands”? That’s not from the Book of Ephesians. Walk into your local Christian bookstore, and you will find aisle after aisle of baptized Harlequin romance novels. They are nicely sanitized of bedroom scenes and profanity, but they are escapist romance for evangelical Protestant wives who seem to be missing something.
But what is it about sex that makes it so universally exciting for the human race? It is not the thrill of the forbidden. That is gone as soon as we wall over our calloused consciences-as any adulterer knows. It is the mysteriousness of the sexual union-the sense in which this act of union transcends everyday life, the sense in which this act reaches the very core of who we are. The apostolic faith tells us precisely why this is.
Why does the Creator pronounce it “not good” that Adam should be alone (Gen 2:18)? Why is it that Elohim gives to the primeval man a woman formed from his own flesh and bone, for whom he is to leave everything to become “one flesh” (Gen 2:22-24)? Why is it that rebellion against the Creator always manifests itself in rebellion against the order of human sexuality (Gen 6:1-2; Rom 1:24)? The Apostle Paul tells us precisely why-because human sexuality points to a grander cosmic mystery that has now been revealed in these last days of human history. Paul reveals the church at Ephesus that the “mystery” of God is now being revealed in the “summing up of all things” under the lordship of the Man from Nazareth (Eph 1:9-10). He reveals that the “mystery” of the ages is further revealed to the cosmic powers through the calling together of a Body for this Messiah-a Jew/Gentile church (Eph 3:10). And then Paul makes a stunning claim. He points to the male/female one-flesh union of Genesis and argues that human sexuality is patterned after the archetype of this mystery-the one-flesh union of Christ and his church (Eph 5:32).
This is why sexual revolutions always turn out so boring. This is why the sterile, condom-clad vision of sex in the contraceptive culture is so dull. This is why pornography is so numbing to the soul. This is because in the search for sexual excitement men and women are not really looking for biochemical sensations or the responses of nerve endings. And, in fact, they are not ultimately even looking for each other. They are searching desperately, not for mere sex, but for that to which sex points-something they know exists but they just can’t identify. They are looking to be part of an all-encompassing cosmic mystery. They are looking for a love that is stronger than death. They can’t articulate it, and they would be horrified to know it, but, behind all their sexual frenzy, they are looking for a glorious Messiah, Jesus, and his glorious bride, the church.
This is why biblical teaching on gender, sexuality, and marriage is so central to the existence of our churches. These things are not just about morality or ethics. They are about the gospel itself. This is why we must do more than preach marriage tips and sexual restraint. We must proclaim the reason for all these things. We must preach Christ. And this is why we cannot simply shake our heads at the sexual libertinism of our culture. We need to see it as a cry of desperation. And we need to show a more excellent way-in our marriages and in our churches.
In short, we need to stop acting as though the culture’s sexuality is too racy, too daring, too exciting. We need to tell them the truth-your sex is just
too boring.
Sources: Robert Bianco, “Fall
TV: It’s Not for the Squeamish, Prudish,” USA Today, 14 October 2003,
D1; Seth Stevenson, “Tokyo on One Cliché a Day,” Slate, http://slate.msn.com/id/2089630/entry/2089646/
