Who Really Owns Your Sexuality?

As a Christian man, my number one answer to this question would have been “God.” Of course, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and my sexuality is part of that!

But when I got home from church, the answer changed. Theoretically, I knew God was supposed to own my sexuality, but He never seemed to do very much about it.

Whenever I experienced sexual energy flowing through my body it felt more like horniness than holiness and I was ashamed that I couldn’t seem to control when it happened, how often it happened, or how much I enjoyed it – even though I wasn’t supposed to.

I wanted someone to teach me how to be curious, confident, and in control of my body, but the only time other guys talked about this was an occasional confession that we used porn more than we should – or sat through a men’s-only training on how sexual desire should only be stirred up by the woman we had married…otherwise it was sinful.

I wondered how we were ever supposed to marry a woman if there was no way to overcome the sin of sexual arousal, attraction, and desire. Who would want to end up with a sex addict like me who couldn’t stop the desire from coming around?

Even when I didn’t act on my desire or tried not to enjoy being aroused, I still felt guilty just for wanting sexual pleasure. I didn’t even have to act on my desires to feel guilty about having them.

I said God owned my sexuality but I had no idea what this might actually mean if it was true…maybe lifelong celibacy, living as a monk in the desert, finally successful at eliminating sexual desire by the age of 95?

Until then, something other than God owned my sexuality – and I also knew it wasn’t me. I had no clue how to “possess my own body with holiness and honor” because I had only learned how to feel things like shame, fear, and guilt.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God… (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5)

It would take me years to discover that ignorance was the primary source of my fear, shame, and guilt…and that it is possible to do something about ignorance.

I was called to be steward of my body rather than someone who lived in fear of how it was designed to function. One does not learn how to control a wild horse by running away from it in fear.

As long as I refused to learn about my body, about my sexuality, and about my desire, I would not know how it functioned and would have no capacity to respond in ways that felt aligned with my integrity.