It’s time to address Sex Lie #4. This one is personal to me, because this Sex Lie controlled me until my 30’s and discovering the truth behind it empowered me not only to break my addiction to porn, but to end the reign of sexual fantasy over my thought life!

 

In short, I finally grasped what was actually driving my sex drive.

 

Now it’s possible, that prior to reading this post you thought the answer to that question was perfectly obvious. So simple we teach it to children in Junior High. (Or is it kindergarten now?)

 

Teacher: “Sex is a natural function of the body and an enjoyable activity. Now, who’d like to help me put a condom on this banana? Where’s the banana? OK, who took the banana? Billy! You get over here and – Billy you spit that banana out right now!”

 

Is that it? Is that what drives our sex drive: animal instinct and the pursuit of pleasure? (Hungry? Have a banana. Horny? Have sex!)

 

I think we were duped in sex ed class (and I talk more about that in a post called The Elephant in the G-String). In fact, this simplified explanation behind our sexual urges is…

 

Sex Lie #4: my sex drive is driven by hormones and the pursuit of happiness.

 

What then is driving your sex drive? If it’s more than biology and leisure, what is it?

 

Simply this: The desire for sex is driven by a relentless search for significance. In seeking a sexual relationship (whether it’s with a spouse, a one-night-stand or a prostitute) you are asking someone to validate you on a profoundly intimate level.

 

The question you have to answer is what kind of validation are you looking for? It’s unique for everyone.

 

One person wants to know, “How can I conquer?”

 

Another asks, “Will you accept me?”

 

The next, “Can I be the best?”

 

While someone else wonders, “Am I desirable?”

 

Each of these questions reveals an equally intense, but decidedly dissimilar motivation for sexual experience which has little to do with physical appetite or pleasure. Clearly our physical appetite and desire for pleasure play a role, but they don’t really drive us.

 

I encourage you to prayerfully consider the four questions above. Maybe you resonated with one. Maybe your question is entirely different, but once you discover the deeper emotional/relational need driving your sex drive here’s what will happen:

• First, you will take your attention off sex and place it on your soul, changing your focus from your hormones to your God.

• Secondly, you will realize that mere sexual intimacy – divorced from emotional and relational intimacy – will never sufficiently answer your question anyway.

• Finally, as you face the depth of your longing for the answer to your question, you’ll find that your sexual ambitions are actually intensifying your pain.

That’s a uber-condensed distillation of a discussion series I call The Rates Sex Talks, but I hope it makes sense to you. Because, for me, grasping these truths rendered the irresistible undertow of my sex drive REsistible.

 

I’m sure you’ve heard Paul’s admonition in 2 Cor 10:5: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. “

 

That’s precisely what we’re talking about here! “Take every thought captive!” In other words, figure out what your sexual fantasies are all about. Then “make them obedient to Christ,” the Christ who can fill the deepest yearning of your soul. The needs that no other relationship, sexual or otherwise, ever will.

 

Don’t believe the lie that your sex drive is driven by mere hormones and the pursuit of happiness. Discover what your soul is truly seeking from sexual experience and bring those needs before God. He is able and He is faithful!

 

For more help in this area, check out the blog series called The Sexual Intercourse at this link.