Sacred Sexuality

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." taught Jesus in the sermon on the mount. Casting pearls before swine is one of those phrases that floats around today but is seldom given the consideration it deserves. On my mission I felt like I was walking a precarious line between sharing the gospel and casting pearls before swine.  But anyway I'm not writing now to talk about sharing the gospel. I've wanted to write for some time on sex, and this scripture came to mind when thinking what to write.

Sacred sexuality is one of those new-age sounding things that usually gets thrown around by those that want to talk about how great sex is.  That somewhat more snide than I intended remark aside, I think sacred sexuality is entirely real.  Sex is something sacred, and that's why in my life it's reserved for marriage (which is also holy).  Often in Christian circles the holiness of sex is directly related to the ability to bear children, and while I think we should hold the same gravitas for the acts of creating life as we do to destroying it I don't feel that this is what makes sex something holy.

So what is it that makes sex sacred, then?  The words sacred and holy both derive from the idea of setting something apart, reserving something for a higher purpose, or dedicating something to a greater cause.  Sex for me is something reserved for marriage.  That imbues it with the high purpose of strengthening marital bonds and by extension the family.  That makes sex a way to study selflessness and caring for another (without abnegating one's own needs or desires in the process).

I own a book of erotic myths and legends and read one together with my wife the other night.  The one we read was (perhaps a little bit surprisingly) rather tame with almost no mention of sex but rather an extended poetic meditation on love, longing, desire, loss, and union.  Although when reading we might have been looking to partake together in something a little more saucy, I'll also say I actually really liked this little legend of a lover comforting himself that his "beloved other" was not truly lost because they had become one soul.  Sex is a part of that, and that makes it sacred.