On Sexual Appetite and Morbid Obesity 

Sexual appetite, libido, and sex drive are all synonyms for a person’s desire for sexual activity. Today it seems to be common knowledge that sex is a good thing and having a “healthy” sexual appetite can be a beautiful thing physically, mentally, and emotionally.  But there’s a huge problem, something has gone wrong with our sexual appetites. 

We have indulged and indulged and just as an enlarged stomach demands more food, so we demand more and more sex. While we are all responsible for our own choices, all of the blame for our sexual brokenness cannot be placed at the doorstep of the individual. Our society has not made it easy to resist. We are constantly bombarded with sex, sex and even more sex. 

Companies profit from inflaming our sexual desires and when they find that it works, they turn up the heat even more. “Hey bros, do you like booooobs? Well check out these booobs in our muffler commercial! Buy from us you big horny idiot!” 

And it’s not just from guys anymore. Ladies have been “liberated” and taught that being promiscuous is the best way to engage their sexual appetite. “There’s nothing wrong with me enjoying sex” is the new battle cry for the independent young lady today. The same “pigs” that these ladies were rebelling against years ago when they sought their liberation, are the same guys who the liberated ladies are hooking up with today. The kind of pigs who objectified women and abandoned them when they got what they wanted, ironically still get exactly what they want today. The pigs just sat still while the sexual degeneration of society brought the ladies right back to ’em. But now the liberated ladies have no justification for complaining that men are pigs because their own curly tails are showing. 

I know at this point many will be triggered. I mean who the hell do I think I am? I’m no saint! Not only have I enjoyed the fruit of this dastardly sexual degradation, I’ve been a vicious perpetrator. I cultivated a public Christian persona while giving in to my inner “Mr. Hyde”. My actions have been egregious for years and years. To those I’ve hurt along the way, I am deeply sorry and I hope you can forgive me for not treating you with the respect you deserve as an image bearer of our Creator. I should have been sharing the gospel with you, but instead I pushed you further from Christ and my hypocrisy gave Christians a bad name. If you’re reading this and you’re still feeling resentment towards me then please send me a message so we can talk and I can personally apologize to you. 

Some might say that my personal weakness and debauchery disqualify me from writing a post critiquing the culture’s morbid sexual obesity, but I’d argue that my own personal failures uniquely qualify me to speak into it. I’ve experienced it, been victimized by it, and have used it to hurt others. Yes, I’m a hypocrite and a scoundrel and a douche. Even though I’ve been redeemed by God and forgiven of my sins through Christ, I’m still a sinner, so please don’t read the rest of this post as if I’m saying I’m “better than thou”. I’m not, I freely admit it. 

With that being said, I can’t be the only one who’s sick of the constant bombardment with sex everywhere I turn. I mean does everything have to be sexualized? I’m sure those who’ve taken a psychology class in college will label me “sexually frustrated”, but then again maybe I am. Not in the traditional sense, but I am frustrated with how we’ve ruined a good thing like sex and turned it into a compulsory action. We’ve been conditioned like Pavlov’s Dog to bay and howl for booooobs. We’ve become as mindless jackals. Our sexual appetites are over indulged and we’ve become morbidly obese. 

C.S. Lewis aptly described the situation way back in the 1940’s, “You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act- that is, to watch a girl undress on stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?” (Mere Christianity, 96.) 

Lewis’ illustration is pretty funny to imagine, but the thrust of his argument is clear and inescapable. If sexuality is a natural human appetite, similar to our appetite for food, then the abuse of the sexual appetite should be at least as odd to us as the gents hootin’ and hollerin’ at a bacon strip tease.

Lewis goes on to say that perhaps in a culture where there was an extreme famine it might make sense for this kind of weird food behavior, but not in a culture of plenty. The same goes for the exploitation of sex. It takes place, most often, not where there is a sexual drought but in cultures that most over indulge in sexual promiscuity.

So what’s my point? Who cares? Well, we should all care. Our overindulgence of sex is causing morbidly obese sexual appetites and it’s having all sorts of adverse effects on our society and us as individuals . It’s shaping how we view one another and humanity as a whole. People are not masturbation machines for us to manipulate. We have intrinsic worth and value because we’ve been made in the image of God, our Creator. He made us and gave us good instructions for our bodies, our societies, and our sexual relations. We continually neglect His instructions and try to figure it out on our own to our own peril. But there’s hope! For those who know they’ve messed up, who know they are messed up, Christ is the answer. Jesus demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners he died for us to save us from our sins. Putting your hope in Jesus doesn’t mean you need to clean up your act first then experience forgiveness. Following Christ means making a choice today to follow him, as you are. Jesus loves you as you are but what you’ll soon find out is that he loves you too much to let you stay where you are. 

Come to Jesus and experience freedom from lust and porn and objectification. Experience healing in your soul . Come enjoy a new heart and a new mind with new desires to love God and love your neighbor. Sex is a great gift from God, but when it’s elevated to god status it makes a cruel master, the evidence for that is all around us.  

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