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Home > Singles > Talk Amongst Yourselves

Sexuality Without Sex
5 singles share how to be a sexual being who's not having sex.
July 2, 2008
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Faithful and Flirty
My 20something daughter and I are both feminine single women, though we're not girlie girls. We're active in church and in our Christian walks, yet we also enjoy male attention and flirting. Both of us are comfortable in how that looks for a healthy Christian. We differentiate between dressing to embrace our femininity and dressing to seduce, and we find ways to be flirtatious yet still be wholesome.

The key to achieving such a balance is to ask this question: Do you see your sexuality as a good, God-created, blessed part of who you are? Or do you fear it? When you visualize yourself before God, do you see yourself as a woman or man with all that entails, or as some disembodied spirit? Once you're comfortable with your sexuality before God, you'll be much more comfortable in your sexuality around other people.

God created us male and female. Gender involves much more than interest in cars vs. shoes. It's about sexuality, which God created and called good. Like anything else, it can be used for evil. But Christians should be at the forefront of liberating sexuality to glorify God, not leaving it to secularists to abuse.

Of course, even with this liberated approach, we'll still sometimes struggle to establish and maintain healthy boundaries. We'll still face misunderstandings—from our own gender, from the opposite one, and certainly from other Christians. But we need to redeem what God's given us in this area. And we should let no one call "unclean" what God's created.
-Julie

Affirmative Action
I agree we singles can embrace our sexuality without having sex. A recent ChristianSinglesToday.com article about male-female friendship reflects how I do so. When a dear male friend and I have coffee and discuss our confusion over romantic interests, he affirms my femininity. I ask for his male perspective, and he asks for my female angle. Our friendship is a great way to remember I'm indeed uniquely created as a woman.
-Chany

Religious and Rigid
As a 32-year-old virgin who's had minimal contact with men, I have no idea how sexuality looks for people not having sex.

Although I'm responsible for how I handle negatives in my life, I feel my religious background played a huge role in making me the way I am: rigid and timid. My childhood church condemned anything seemingly sexual: makeup, short sleeves, tank tops, short skirts, pants for women. The list went on and on, outlining many other silly restrictions the "old folks" enforced to keep the young folks "pure." (Ironically, that ministry has an unusually high rate of teenage and out-of-wedlock pregnancies.)

As a result of that environment, I don't know what to do with male attention. My body is extremely curvy, so, quite naturally, men stare. For the most part, I ignore them, but I've probably missed potential mates because I've been afraid of being "sexy."

I'm slowly coming to embrace my sexuality, and God's undoing that religious bondage. Still I often feel asexual and pray just not to feel anything. Why embrace something I can't act on?
-Andrea

The Dark Side of Sexuality
Since my divorce last year, I've missed sex terribly. With my ex-husband, however, sex was shaky territory because of his addiction to porn and sexually deviant thoughts and images—hence our divorce. I never knew whether my husband was thinking about me or fantasizing about another woman.

My husband and I also struggled because we'd "fooled around" before marriage. We repented after every type of intimate encounter, but kept fooling around. Our failure to truly turn from sin must have hurt God greatly. I'm now wary of any type of sexual act outside the bounds of a loving, healthy marriage, especially because I've been face to face with the insidious sin of porn addiction.

I've learned settling and compromising my Christian values isn't ever worth it, so I'll never do so again. As a result, I'll just have to do without that intimate part of marriage until God, if he chooses, brings me another husband.
-Brenda

Needed Discussion
I'm a single woman who loves wearing heels, skirts, and lip gloss. I see them as an external expression of gratitude for my femininity, which consequently connects to my sexuality. I've often told my female friends I believe God expects us women to learn a healthy manner to express the sexuality he's given us.

The church has shied away from the topic of single sexuality, but we desperately need more honest, open communication about it. Many people fall into sin because we don't talk about what to do with our God-given desires in this season of life. I believe God wants his people to grow in this area.
-Jesaira

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