Relationships, Sex, Love And Marriage

In my aspiration to serve God I started these web pages as a means to get in touch with people in the hopes of helping them and bringing them closer to God. But it turns out that most of the people who ask for my help are often seeking someone to talk to regarding their relationship problems. A compassionate ear. A shoulder to rest their troubled head on. This wasn't the purpose of this website or my original plan, but I do have a compassionate ear so I help them anyway.
I guess we are physical creatures of comfort who, on the one hand, by our biological drive to procreate inevitably have desires and urges we feel a need to satisfy; while on the other hand, because we are physical beings of flesh, we desire a physical sense of comfort and assurance that on first glance might not seem possibly satisfied by any Spirit. I'd like to assure you that satisfaction by the Spirit (living Spirit of Jesus, for example) can be quite intense, but as Paul says, it comes into direct conflict against the desires of the flesh. The two are essentially at war with one another. If you submit to temptation and consent to satisfying the physical desires of your flesh, you will fall away from the Spirit and lose out on those fruits. It is difficult to focus on one's spiritual entity because it requires a denial and absence of the physical urges. One can be celibate for a year but if they still struggle with their desires, even if only in their head, they are still detracting from the Spirit.
But that is another subject, in a way. Today this Sunday my mind was wandering, as it can during these days when I force myself not to work (because I truly do enjoy what I do), and it wandered around the subject of relationships, sex, love and marriage. Two things came to my mind which could touch a lot of issues: intimacy and marriage, fking in terms of sex, homophobia, and the type of physical contact you have with your parents, whether it is touchy feely supportive, or simple physical abuse. A rather broad range I have to admit but in a way it is all related.
My first thoughts started about a girl I adore and I imagined one day meeting a girl like her with whom we could have a pure and innocent, love-based relationship, a plutonic one for perhaps a year, eventually get married because we love each other, hug and perhaps kiss up to that time, and only THEN get physically intimate. I often fantasized that I would marry the girl of my dreams that way. It's quite possible or even probable that I'll never marry, because I prefer to devote myself to God, but it is a nice fantasy nevertheless. But I believe that, in God's great wisdom and his understanding of our urges, he sees this as our best alternative. But in these times or generally we are so bombarded by lusty advertisements and a sense of insecurity and competition amongst our friends that such an approach does not seem very viable. You might be prodded by your friends to "show what you can do", or you might be just plain insecure and feel that an intimate relationship with another person will give you the confidence you need to successfully face society. There are many reasons, but they all fall short of the most important - love. Ideally you would want to pursue love first and intimacy second, but in today's ever "why not right here right now?" mentality, most couldn't even fathom why on earth they should wait for something as enjoyable and gratifying as sex. But I feel that it can take away from a relationship, which would better grow in innocence and left to mature slowly, like a fine wine, until it culminates in a perfect "marriage" between physical expression and love.
So I feel that a lot of the relationship problems people experience are because they are too often willing to rush into the sexual aspect of a relationship and not let the friendship and feeling of love develop first. I find that, when I first get involved with someone physically, my feelings for them develop much faster and deeper than they would have without it, and it can often lead to problems. Like rushing a good wine. Our relationship has become deeper and faster than our friendship, which can inevitably lead to jealousy, insecurity, and all the arguments that those feelings can lead to. Wondering if the other person feels as strongly as you do. On the other hand, I find that rushing in this way can often spoil the relationship as well. It's as if something has crystallized or catalyzed. We have become overly familiar with each other and a certain magic has been lost. So I would urge you to ignore the prodding of your friends or the lusty bombardments of advertisements everywhere (no, a certain brand of bubble gum will not get you a beautiful partner) and focus on friendship, taking your time, and let the fine wine ferment on its own.
Then my thoughts turned to the prodding of those who are not my friends. Those that might be watching our relationship develop and ask me a crass question like, "So, did you bag her yet or what?" Which led me to the thought of fking. Contrary to what I was originally told, the word fk is apparently not an anagram (or whatever the word is) meaning "foreign unlawful carnal knowledge" but rather an old Dutch word referring to hitting, or a combination of hitting and sex. Basically as the word is used. And it made me think that people who seek to have sex in this way are probably not very comfortable with themselves or in touch with their own feelings. Which can be sad and result in much of the violence we see in the world today. Which can also stem from the physical relationship we had with our parents. If it lacked a lot of touchy and feely, as was the case in my own upbringing, I can understand how the leap into bed can almost seem like an impenetrable gap and lead to such a lunge to overcome the distance and inadvertently end in fking. Without necessarily any emotions or feelings of love. As if, considering the creatures of comfort that we are, our lack of regular day-to-day caressing or human contact builds up to the point of overcompensation. In spite of the lack of human contact during my childhood I have been making efforts to actually reach out to people around me, perhaps rest my hand on their shoulder from time to time, and it is interesting what a mutual sense of comfort and assurance such a small gesture can bring. I recommend you try it. It is almost contagious and it is nice.
So in my fantasy I was explaining to this red neck moron why I hadn't "bagged her yet", as he asked me so crassly, and imagined that the resulting discussion about physical intimacy and all that it entails was making him angry, and I imagined that his father was violent to him during his youth and why this individual has never been in touch with his own feelings, and why he will probably never develop a loving relationship with a female. And why he is so homophobic and himself prone to violence - against homosexuals and against females in general. It's as if the lack of touchy feely during his youth but rather the occasional violent contact has defined for him his physical relationship with others. Whether if it is in the form of violently beating up a homosexual because they provoke these thoughts in their head and they are not mature enough to deal with them, or in the form of fking, almost violently, a female.
And then I remembered how Jesus would say that "forgiveness heals". This is about the only way that this violent person could ever heal himself and stop the mindless perpetuality of the violence - which is to come to grips with his own feelings, heal, eventually approach his father, forgive him and tell him his feelings, and heal himself further. Heck, he might be surprised in the reaction of his father. Quite possibly his father had and has deep feelings of love for his son, somewhere buried inside him, but he himself lives the life of an emotional cripple because he had the same relationship with his own father. So he grew up to be a homophobe and would approach his son with violence any time he saw any softness in him. It's a perpetual continuation of stupidity, and the reason why there is so much violence in the world, and why so many men cannot have a healthy and loving relationship with a woman - but its understandable.
Meanwhile, God, a spiritual creature not burdened by these frothing desires of the flesh, must look down on the vileness and insecurity of humanity and truly feel sorry for us.
But I think that all these issues are interconnected and it is good to analyse them and oneself in the process, for in this way you will mature, come to better grips with your feelings, and eventually have a healthier relationship with others. Hope I gave you some insight!