When I wrote Scandalous, I knew I was taking on a taboo topic. I was fully prepared to meet with some resistance. What I did not expect was the full on assault that came from a few strangers, friends, and family who felt that I crossed a line that no Christian should. I was told that I was going to hell by a family member, a stranger showed up at my door to announce that I had been possessed by a demon, and friends labeled the book vulgar and crude with polite suggestions that I remove it from sales. 

Being the sort of person I am, I found it rather amusing the majority of negative complaints I received came from those who either had not read the book or had only read portions of the book. However, their words did make me aware of a crucial need within the Christian community, and that is to reclaim a Biblical basis for speaking on the topic of sex. 

To build a full case would require the writing of another book, and maybe one day, but for now I will offer the first and what I now consider to be the most important pieces of evidence for considering sex as a valid and vital centerpiece for Christian conversations. 

We begin in Genesis 3, but first I would encourage you pause here and reread the opening chapters of this book. Really make an effort to place yourself in the story. See the lights blazing to life as God speaks the word, witness the trees erupting from the ground as he calls them into being, consider a silent world without the song of birds or the hum of insects and then feel the weight of their presence as they fill that void, and then hold your breath as the fingers of God reach out to sculpt the clay that will become Adam. Do you see his thumbs hollow out the sockets that will hold that carefully engineered bit of mastery we call the eye? Can you see how his fingertips trace the path of the blood vessels and separate the muscles, tendon, and skin? Does your mind stop there or can you see him crafting those organs that will allow Adam to pass on this precious gift of life? For many that is a thought too far, but it is what the Bible tells us God did as he created man, and then again in his creation of woman as fit together each elegant part of our anatomy. 

And now, let us focus on one verse in particular: Genesis 3:16. 

Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit. The purity of creation had been defiled and now they stand before God to the learn consequences of their action. God curses the serpent, and yet in the midst of the curse, he offers the hope of restoration for humanity. His addresses not just the physical aspects of this beings conditions, but looks deeper to reveal the spiritual conflict that will now encompass the realm of humanity. 

Then he turns his focus to Eve, saying:

               “I will multiply your pain in childbearing;                

                in pain you will bring forth children. 

                Your desire shall be for your husband 

                and he shall rule over you.”

Look closely at the elements of what God is saying: childbearing, bringing forth children, desire, husband, and the husband’s rule over his wife. Now what is the unifying theme of these elements? If you guessed sex, congratulations.  God is not just talking to Eve, he is having THE TALK with Eve. He is explaining how her body is going to change, it is not going to be like before, and she needs to be prepared for this stage in her life. Sound familiar? 

And God isn’t giving her pack of tampons and telling her to deal with it. He addressing both the physical changes and the emotional changes. She is going to have a sex drive, a desire for her husband, and he is going to rule over her because of it. We have softened this verse to simply mean that the husband is the God-appointed head of the household, but is that really all that he is saying here? I do not think so. I think he is addressing an issue that every woman must deal with and that is we desire the men in our lives, we live our lives in orbit around them. Be it in how we dress (or don’t dress), what we say, what cook for dinner, and if we shave our legs – it is all to demonstrate our desire for intimacy that is primarily fueled and expressed through our sexuality.

It would be tempting to designate the expression of our desire as negative as it is given after the fall, but there is no condemnation in God’s words. He is simply explaining the new situation. Before the fall, intimacy was easy. The barriers that we now consider normal for the human condition did not exist, either between God and his creation or between Adam and his wife. This separation and the longing it would create is a totally new condition for Eve and she must learn how to cope. God is gracious and kind as he teaches her of this new reality as he knows that to leave her ignorant would be an act of cruelty. 

When we consider the conversation from this perspective we are confronted with two questions: 1.) If God was kind enough to prepare Eve for the realities of her sexuality, how can we consider such conversations as taboo? 2.) Are we failing to be kind when we fail to discuss the realities of sex as set forth in God’s word? I would argue that we are.