I wrote the following as a position paper for my Christian Social Ethics class last semester, and I thought I'd share it with all of you. My professor said it was a little out of the box for a position paper, but he let me fly with it, and I'm grateful for his flexibility. The assignment was to explain the opposing side before backing up my own views. All I will say is that this paper has certainly inspired some very rich and beneficial conversations in my own life, just through talking with different people of different ages with different views about this topic. You don't have to agree with me, but I do hope that this challenges you enough to start wrestling with God and with others about this topic, whether or not you reach the same conclusions I did.
Remember that you can be yourself here, because that's beautiful. So, with no further ado, here it is.
Taking Our Sex Drive Cues from Harry and Sally: Re-Examining the Dilemma of Platonic, Cross-Sex Friendships
“What I’m saying, and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form, is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way,” Harry says to Sally, looking over at her as they drive side-by-side through the night. “No man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.” While this is just one short scene, played for laughs in the hit comedy, When Harry Met Sally, it accurately reflects how often times society, but also the church, views non-romantic relationships between the opposite sex. Stretching way back to Freud’s theories on the sexualization of boys and girls at a young age, and spanning up to today’s rampant usage of pornography, the world has by and large objectified the way we look at people, and as a result, how we relate to them. A lot of the church has not escaped from this trend, often encouraging distance and disconnect in any cross-sex, non-romantic relationships, an attempt to preserve purity and sexual morality. I propose a new way forward, one centered on the life-changing ways of the Gospel and how that equips Christian believers to engage in faithful, self-giving Kingdom work alongside one another, not as sexual objects, but as brothers and sisters in Christ.
When Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899, he elaborated on what would later be named The Oedipus Complex. In short, this theory states that the sexual drive for humans begins very early on, often between the ages of three and five, resulting in children desiring sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex, and as a result, igniting a jealous rivalry with the parent of the same sex. “To express the matter boldly, it is as though a sexual preference becomes active at an early period, as though the boy regards his father as a rival in love, and as though the girl takes the same attitude toward her mother—a rival by getting rid of whom he or she cannot but profit” (Freud 216).
While numerous psychologists and sociologists have since then pointed out the numerous flaws in many of Freud’s theories, it cannot be ignored that he started a shift in society that put sex and sexual drives at the center of human relationships. “Freud genitalized all sensuality – not just foreplay. He genitalized emotional closeness and depth” (Brennan 39). The fact that he attributed such carnal desires to children as young as three years old also increased the width and breadth of sexuality, since children, often viewed as innocent and naïve, were now centered on their sexual urges. In this system, close cross-sex friendships are not an option, since the raging sexual drives prevent people from seeing others as actual people. Parents become either sexual objects or predators for the children, sending our society down a slow, but sure path of human objectification.
While numerous psychologists and sociologists have since then pointed out the numerous flaws in many of Freud’s theories, it cannot be ignored that he started a shift in society that put sex and sexual drives at the center of human relationships. “Freud genitalized all sensuality – not just foreplay. He genitalized emotional closeness and depth” (Brennan 39). The fact that he attributed such carnal desires to children as young as three years old also increased the width and breadth of sexuality, since children, often viewed as innocent and naïve, were now centered on their sexual urges. In this system, close cross-sex friendships are not an option, since the raging sexual drives prevent people from seeing others as actual people. Parents become either sexual objects or predators for the children, sending our society down a slow, but sure path of human objectification.
In today’s day and age, sex and romance are often seen as interchangeable. Most romantic comedies depict sex as a natural progression of a romance, often times outside the bounds of marriage. And that’s really just the beginning. “Current popular music contains more references to sexual activity than any other entertainment medium” (Primack, NCBI). Violently sexual books such as Fifty Shades of Grey (often referred to as ‘mommy porn’) dominate the bestseller list for weeks at a time. The porn industry rakes in $97.06 billion dollars a year, or $3,075.64 dollars a second, and 1 in 3 users are women. The average age of someone to first be exposed to pornography is 11 years old, while 90% of 8-16 year olds have viewed porn online (“Pornography Statistics,” Family Safe Media).
As a result, while Freud’s theory of the Oedipal Complex may not still be widely accepted, our society is still raising people from a young age to sexually objectify each other. When pornography becomes the lens through which we see others, it makes sense why it becomes harder for men and women to have deep, platonic friendships, as they aren’t actual people, just sexual objects to be used to find pleasure. Love does not become self-giving and other centered, like the agape love expressed in 1 Corinthians 13, but a selfish love, the kind that seeks temporary sexual highs for personal enjoyment. Relationships confined to this view of normal sexuality and relationships ultimately support Harry’s view of cross-sex friendships, as sex becomes synonymous with intimacy and pleasure. Therefore, a relationship where sex is absent is seen as abnormal and not profitable for fulfillment. Friendships collapse into transactions.
As a result, while Freud’s theory of the Oedipal Complex may not still be widely accepted, our society is still raising people from a young age to sexually objectify each other. When pornography becomes the lens through which we see others, it makes sense why it becomes harder for men and women to have deep, platonic friendships, as they aren’t actual people, just sexual objects to be used to find pleasure. Love does not become self-giving and other centered, like the agape love expressed in 1 Corinthians 13, but a selfish love, the kind that seeks temporary sexual highs for personal enjoyment. Relationships confined to this view of normal sexuality and relationships ultimately support Harry’s view of cross-sex friendships, as sex becomes synonymous with intimacy and pleasure. Therefore, a relationship where sex is absent is seen as abnormal and not profitable for fulfillment. Friendships collapse into transactions.
In a way, while most of the church has never supported sex before marriage, it has still been widely influenced by society’s increasing sexualization of human beings and their relationships, often coming out through their views on cross-sex friendships. In many evangelical Christian circles, deep and authentic, but nonromantic relationships between men and women are frowned upon, often with the underlying assumptions that they will only foster confusion and temptation. They rely on passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, which exhort Christians to live in purity, that “no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter” (v. 6). They view Romans 14:1-15:7 as a discourse on lifting up those that are weaker above you, watching out for their well being and not trying to “make another stumble” (14:21), which they then trace back to male-female friendships. “Intimate friendships between men and women almost always produce confusion and frustration for at least one of the parties involved. Close friendships… tend to involve much of the type of intimacy and companionship involved in – and meant for – marriage. No matter how clearly one or both of you have defined what’s happening as ‘just friends,’ your actions are constantly saying, ‘I enjoy being with you and interacting with you in a way that suggests marriage’” (Croft, Boundless.org). Therefore, single men and women are instructed to either more deliberately pursue marriage or back off in the friendship.
Toward the end of the article, Croft advises men and women to hang out in groups, chat, and be friendly with one another, very loose terms that steer away from the type of intimacy that a lot of the church sees as only acceptable within the confines of marriage. In this system, marriage is kept at the relational center, reserved as the best and most Biblically appropriate relationship for true intimacy, communion and depth. All other friendships with the opposite sex need to be kept at a distance for the sake of keeping marriages pure. They appeal to the numerous verses throughout the New Testament that command Christians to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18), seeing cross-sex friendships as another temptation that can easily lead to that. And because of society’s rampant objectification of human beings, this message is stressed even more, assuming that men and women in this society are raised to see each other as sexual objects. Thus, the need to strive for purity in relationships and back off from non-marital, cross-sex intimacy is huge and almost necessary to honor Christ.
While I truly believe this line of thought in the church has good intentions at heart, I think it goes about the issue of sexual purity in the wrong way. I believe it lets society’s view of sexuality and intimacy influence the way we see people, namely the interactions between men and women, leading to lots of rules and checklists, legalism and generalizations, all done in a truly valiant effort to preserve sexual purity. I agree in that I too long to see the day when we are not held back by our sexual desires, our lustful fantasies, and can embrace each other fully and completely in God’s shalom. However, when I look at the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, I see an overarching theme of God’s love that transcends all of the rules, all of the check marks, all of the negatively themed arguments that try to scare people into purity.
To elaborate on my position, I’d like to focus on the apostle Paul and his ministry. He says in Philippians 4:2-3, “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers” (emphasis added). While the English Standard Version translates that these two women ‘labored side-by-side,’ the Greek word is actually the same word used in Philippians 1:27, when Paul beseeches them to stand firm “in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (emphasis added). The terms, ‘labored’ and ‘striving’ should actually be translated, ‘stand,’ a military metaphor from Paul’s culture. “If the Roman military element appreciated the military associations with the word, ‘stand,’ the Greek population would identify with the necessity of ‘contending as one man’ as was demanded in athletic games” (Melick 90). Both uses of the metaphor take place in the context of spreading the faith of the Gospel, and it gives the idea of truly struggling, of working and fighting hard for unity in Christ. This paints the relationship of Paul and these two women in a completely new light for me, as I see an intimacy there, a truly intense friendship that was put on the same level as his friendship with Clement, a male fellow worker. And it doesn’t just stop there. Paul lists numerous female friends and Gospel fellow workers in Romans 16, including Priscilla, Mary, Phoebe, and Junia (vs. 1-4, 6-7). They are all placed on a par, with no distinctions, with the various males he mentions throughout the chapter.
If we look at Paul’s discourse on marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 7, we begin to understand how Paul was able to have such intimate relationships with both males and females without straying too far or giving in to his lustful desires. It is here that Paul lifts up marriage and celibacy as two viable options for Christians, while still stressing why he chooses singleness and highlighting its multiple benefits. “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife… I say this for your own benefit… to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord (vs. 32-33, 35). That is how Paul was able to flee from his lustful desires and sinful temptations – by focusing his undivided attention on the Lord. He was able to successfully struggle side-by-side with Euodia and Syntyche because they were working together to further the Kingdom of the Gospel, with their minds and wills given over to the Christ of that Gospel and not held down by worldly restraints.
This is the path I believe Christians should take, the one that recognizes that God brings all of us together into deep, authentic, intense ‘side-by-side’ community not just for our own sakes, but for his, so that his Word of Life and Way of Love can spread out like seeds in the organic soil to “all nations” (Matt. 28:19).
From my viewpoint, I don't think we can eradicate sexual immorality by focusing solely on sex, painting it in a negative light with a whole list of consequences when we fail. Many Christians are taught to fear sex, to steer away from intimacy outside of marriage, to pursue accountability, to spend more time in the Bible, to just keep working and working and working to make ourselves more pure. And while most of those are great goals to have, it is still a fear-based (and works-based) method of getting rid of sin, and one that has stretched over to the realm of male-female friendships, often times causing us to view the opposite sex as nothing more than potential temptations to be feared. But “not all attraction is romanticized, not all physical pleasure is romanticized, and not all extraordinary closeness is romanticized. There is a ‘third way’ of classical friendship – a way of spirituality and intimacy in which intimacy is not all about romance and genital expression” (Brennan 45).
From my viewpoint, I don't think we can eradicate sexual immorality by focusing solely on sex, painting it in a negative light with a whole list of consequences when we fail. Many Christians are taught to fear sex, to steer away from intimacy outside of marriage, to pursue accountability, to spend more time in the Bible, to just keep working and working and working to make ourselves more pure. And while most of those are great goals to have, it is still a fear-based (and works-based) method of getting rid of sin, and one that has stretched over to the realm of male-female friendships, often times causing us to view the opposite sex as nothing more than potential temptations to be feared. But “not all attraction is romanticized, not all physical pleasure is romanticized, and not all extraordinary closeness is romanticized. There is a ‘third way’ of classical friendship – a way of spirituality and intimacy in which intimacy is not all about romance and genital expression” (Brennan 45).
I truly believe that if Christians start centering themselves on the work of Christ that has already been done for us, all of our efforts, desires, expectations and goals will slowly start to merge and become one with “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6). As our inner selves are being “renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16), and we are transformed from “one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18), our primary focus does not become one particular sin and its negative repercussions to scare us into submission, but the vast love of God that is able to cleanse our minds, our impurities, our faults, and all of the things that weigh us down. We no longer need to view the opposite sex solely through the lens of sexual urges, but through a lens of agape love that seeks the best for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a love that spurs us on to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15), to confess our sins and pray for one another (James 5:16), and to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21), all commands given to the entire church, not just males or females. Paul was able to experience this kind of unity with both genders by setting his worldly desires beside, even marriage, to “run with endurance the race” that was set before him (Heb. 12:1).
The beautiful part is that this relational paradigm shift in focusing on the redeeming work of the Holy Spirit over our own worn out efforts applies to singles and married people alike. God’s idea of true community and relational depth does not just extend to one type of person, but to all children of God. When we are walking in the Light and resting in the Vine, we are able to be fully engaged and fully present with friends of the opposite sex, and not have to worry about danger or consequences or temptation-turned-sin. Just as we are able to look at our biological siblings without our sexual drives getting in the way, I believe it’s possible to look at our fellow Christians in the same way, seeing that Paul calls us siblings throughout all of his letters. This is not an easy process, and one that will take fervent prayer and a drive to constantly surrender our fleshly desires to the Lord, but I believe it’s a path that every Christ-follower can walk, one baby step at a time, a path that is not restrained by fear or legalism, but one that rejoices in the truth and the freedom that comes through both loving God and loving others. So no, Harry. The sex part doesn’t always have to get in the way.
The beautiful part is that this relational paradigm shift in focusing on the redeeming work of the Holy Spirit over our own worn out efforts applies to singles and married people alike. God’s idea of true community and relational depth does not just extend to one type of person, but to all children of God. When we are walking in the Light and resting in the Vine, we are able to be fully engaged and fully present with friends of the opposite sex, and not have to worry about danger or consequences or temptation-turned-sin. Just as we are able to look at our biological siblings without our sexual drives getting in the way, I believe it’s possible to look at our fellow Christians in the same way, seeing that Paul calls us siblings throughout all of his letters. This is not an easy process, and one that will take fervent prayer and a drive to constantly surrender our fleshly desires to the Lord, but I believe it’s a path that every Christ-follower can walk, one baby step at a time, a path that is not restrained by fear or legalism, but one that rejoices in the truth and the freedom that comes through both loving God and loving others. So no, Harry. The sex part doesn’t always have to get in the way.
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Works Cited
Brennan, Dan. Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Engaging the Mystery of Friendship
Between Men and Women. Illinois: Faith Dance Publishing. 2010. Print.
Croft, Scott. “Biblical Dating: Just Friends.” Boundless. 29 March, 2007. Web.
18 November, 2013.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: The MacMillan Company.
1913. Print.
1913. Print.
Melick, Richard. The New American Commentary, Volume 32: Philippians, Colossians,
Philemon. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group. 1991. Print.
“Pornography Statistics.” Family Safe Media. 2007. Web. 18 November, 2013.
Primack, Brian, et al. “Degrading and Non-Degrading Sex in Popular Music: A Content
Analysis.” The National Center for Biotechnology Information. 2008. Web.
20 November, 2013.
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Yellowtree Update:
After taking two weeks off, I'm back in the game with a little less than a week left before I start up school again. I thought the time off would be good time to get a start on the revising process. I currently have finished making what Laurie Halse Anderson calls a "roadmap" for my novel (learn about the process here), outlining each scene, along with the location, conversations and emotional notes they end on. I now have a clear, big picture overview of the story, and I can start taking out unnecessary scenes, switching things around, and making different notes about the various parts of my story, as it really helps having such a clear-cut eagle's eye view of everything. Read the work-in-progress first chapter here.
All right, enough blogging. Back to work!
---
Yellowtree Update:
After taking two weeks off, I'm back in the game with a little less than a week left before I start up school again. I thought the time off would be good time to get a start on the revising process. I currently have finished making what Laurie Halse Anderson calls a "roadmap" for my novel (learn about the process here), outlining each scene, along with the location, conversations and emotional notes they end on. I now have a clear, big picture overview of the story, and I can start taking out unnecessary scenes, switching things around, and making different notes about the various parts of my story, as it really helps having such a clear-cut eagle's eye view of everything. Read the work-in-progress first chapter here.
All right, enough blogging. Back to work!
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