Usually when I write a blog I will try and come from a place of where I have some sort of experience. Now other than coming across S & M occasionally when I looked at porn, I have had no personal participation in it. So usually I would do a bit of detective work and research the topic online. But try having that conversation with your accountability partner when they receive your x3 report.
So I did the next best thing. I opened up a discussion on my Facebook page and got everyone else to do the work…. Just kidding. Well kind of.
The opinions ranged from the complete disgust by the shear thought of it to the belief that in a loving safe relationship, it is for some people a legitimate way of being turned on.
But is it possible for S & M (sadomasochism) which, according to Wikipedia, involves the receiving of sexual pleasure through the infliction or reception of pain, to be glorifying to God?
Can a God who came to release people from spiritual bondage, be happy with sex involving physical bondage?
Or is S & M just one out of many ways that two people in a loving marriage can enjoy the pleasure and the gratification that God created through sex?
These may seem like easy questions to answer. But perhaps they aren’t.
Maybe you stand on the side that views it as wrong and a deviant act that God would not want us to partake in. But when two people are in love, married, have complete trust, understand the boundaries they have set, and are having fun (because let’s not forget sex IS supposed to be fun), then who is anyone to tell them otherwise?!
Or maybe you see it as a natural and exciting way to keep sex interesting. But what happens if one person becomes too comfortable having control over someone sexually? What if that begins to make the other person feel vulnerable and unsafe and more distant from their spouse? What if that spills out into their normal every day lives?
Ok so enough sitting on the fence I hear you say (which incidentally is NOT a sex position).
There are many ways to feel sexual pleasure. But there are not too many ways that bring you closer to God, closer to your spouse and more connected to life.
Masturbation? Nah, sex on your own leads to selfishness. Visiting a strip club? No thanks. Women are objectified enough without my help.
Having one person dominate another physically so both can feel sexual pleasure?
When God created man and woman he created them equally. Sure we have different roles sometimes but God created Eve out ofAdamsrib. He never intended it to be a relationship where control was used as a way of sexually pleasing yourself or someone else. S & M uses the feeling of shame or at least a playacting shame as a way of being sexually arousing. But we know from Genesis that there was no shame. At least not until it was corrupted.
But this is more than just whether the act of physically dominating or submitting to someone is wrong.
It’s not just about whether it is sexually pleasing.
It’s just that it’s not sexually pleasing enough.
So much of the time Christians seem to want to spoil the party. We’ve been accused of being prudish and shy when it comes to sex. And the truth is we have.
But our view of sex should line up with God’s. And God created sex for two people to enjoy, in mutual respect and with the focus on Him bringing them closer. When that happens there is no need for anything else. There is no need to pretend to be someone you are not. There is no need to control someone. Because when you control someone, they are missing out on something. And when they miss out, you miss out.
Maybe the reason we want to explore ways of sex where one person dominates someone is because we have lost sight of how really great sex can be with God at the center.
It’s not fashionable to talk about sex in those terms but when the need to physically control someone or be controlled takes over a person during sex, they are missing out on something incredible.
And when this comes to porn it’s pretty much the same, only perhaps more extreme. Viewing S & M or even visiting a club that offers S & M to clients, only ensures that we become more isolated and more distant from each other. When we view porn we are doing that enough as it is. So when it comes to a proper relationship with another person, we are stuck in a mindset that does not work well in loving committed marriages. We want the power that porn brings. The power to decide where and when it happens. And sex was never created like that.
S & M, however mutually agreed two people are on what is acceptable or not acceptable, involves the dominance of one person over another.
God came to set us free from oppression and if sex is the way we connect deeper with God’s desires and love for us then sex should mirror that. It should be the place where there is submission. But only when both submit. It should be the place that we feel safe and loved in complete union with God. But only when both submit.
Submission then becomes power.
A power that God shows fully through His love for us and our love for each other.
A love that is fully apparent through sex where two people are treated equally.
And that’s something we can all get tied into.