What Playboy Doesn't Have Right About Sex

Photo Credit: photobunny

In a sex-saturated society such as ours, it should come as no surprise that many of us have a messed up view of our sexuality. In a culture that seems to prize sex above all else, how is it that so many problems we face revolve around this issue?

In a new article posted on Kyria.com, Les Parrot tackles this complicated topic in a piece entitled "Sex as Sacred." Examining the influence that Playboy and its founder, Hugh Hefner, have had on our society, Parrot unpacks God's intentions for our sexuality.

He says this:

"Hugh Hefner thinks of himself as a prophet, even a missionary, who has led America out of sexual repression into a new era of sexual freedom. He never admits that it is all based on a lie—probably because he was too intoxicated on his own hedonistic hysteria to even notice. He never figured out that the sexually liberated society he envisioned, and that we now live in, is built on a warped and distorted attitude toward sex. 

By the standards of today's "liberated" man, the purpose of sex is personal pleasure—and women, along with pornography or whatever else strikes his fancy—are to be used as a means to achieving it. In Hef's world women are merely sexual playthings for male fantasies. Hefner, in his drive to free us from sexual self-restraint and modesty, has neglected to figure out the true purpose and pleasure of sex. 

Of course, that's understandable. He's not looking for it. He's not attempting to live his life by God's standards. Quite the contrary. He even scoffs at the idea of sexual morality. He doesn't care to be honorable and monogamous in his sex life. But you and I do. And that's why, for us, the purpose of sex is paramount. 

...When we sever the connection of sex from the sacred, we neglect our spiritual longings. The French sociologist Jacques Ellul saw our modern fixation with sex as the symptom of a breakdown in intimacy. Having detached the physical act of sex from relationship, we become spiritually bankrupt. And I've worked with enough men in my counseling office to see firsthand the desperate looks of loneliness and despair when men have compulsively reduced sex to simple self-gratification. It's inevitable when we neglect the sacred aspect of the gift of sex."

God is not against sex. In fact, he invented it. But when we seek to find sexual fulfillment outside of his intended plans, we miss out on all that God had in mind when He created humans as unique sexual beings. We find ourselves searching outside of God's design to fulfill our need for physical pleasure, even though this quest often leaves us feeling heartbroken and empty.

As the great British writer, C.S. Lewis, said in "The Weight of Glory":

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."