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The Mystery of Sex

So I recently learned that Kim Kardashain took 1200 selfies and sent them to Kanye West as a Valentine’s Day gift, because apparently “all guys love it when a girl sends them sexy pics.”

Yesterday I was at the store and I saw the latest issue of Cosmo, and Emmy Rossum was on the cover. She was quoted as saying “Men only need two things—grilled cheese and sex.”

Today, on Hulu, I was looking at the list of movies they have available for watching, and one of them was simply called “Pornography.”

Sex is literally everywhere.

It’s so disappointing and disheartening. Sex is such a beautiful thing, and beautiful things should be honored and cherished, not thrown in your face until you become numb to them.

I grew up by the lake. I remember telling my mother as a child that the lake was just a giant puddle, and not very exciting. I saw it every day, and I thought it was lame.

Despite this, there was a part of me that knew I was wrong. There was a part of me that knew the lake was beautiful and special, and that it was actually quite a gift to be able to live near it. But I grew used to seeing it all the time, so I took it for granted.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to truly see the beauty of the lake, and now when I visit home I realize every moment I have there by the water is a moment spent basking in the glory of creation, and it’s awesome.

We, as a culture, have made sex into what that lake was to me as a child – something that is taken for granted. We see sex on every magazine cover, in every television show, and in every book we read. Sex is on nearly every website, and in the ads on social media, calling out to us to buy into it.

Sex is so in our face, and such a common thing, that we are slowly becoming more and more numb to it.

This is why pornography is so prevalent today. People are bored with sex, so they feel the need to find new and exciting ways to change it.

But if we could all just take some time to think about what sex really is and what it’s meant to be, maybe we would all appreciate it for the glory that it contains.

Sex is super awesome. It has power. It has mystery. It is beautiful.

But beautiful things are meant to be honored and cherished.

They are meant to be something, that when encountered, resound in the depths of our very being. Beautiful things are meant to be a little mysterious, to draw us in, and to slowly reveal to us the glory that lies within them.

Would you like to live a life void of beauty and mystery?

I have good news: you don’t have to.

You are meant to be a beautiful mystery to the world. You were made for unraveling and unveiling in the presence of someone who loves you, honors you, cherishes you, guards and protects you.

Ladies, you don’t have to send sexy pics to anyone just because Kim says it’s what men want. You don’t have to make grilled cheese sandwiches and give in to the pressure of having sex just because Emmy says it’s what men need. You don’t have to buy into sex as our world wants to sell it to you.

And men, you don’t have to be that guy. You don’t have to ask for sexy photos of your girlfriend, just because our world says you want them. You don’t have to be the guy who lives off grilled cheese and a woman’s body because you’re told it’s all you want. You don’t have to fall prey to the sex-obsessed stereotype the media portrays you to be.

We are all made for more.

Go against the culture—take mystery back! Claim sex for what it was meant to be! Let the beauty of human sexuality be a mystery to you! Let it be something you honor. Let it be something that, when you finally encounter it within marriage, rocks your world and reaches the depths of your very being, revealing to you the power that is unleashed in it—the creative power of the One who made you. Don’t let it become commonplace. Don’t let it get boring. Don’t take sex for granted. Because the best news is: it doesn’t have to be.

_______________________________________

ash

Ashley Ackerman is first and foremost a daughter of God, and after that she works for His glory as a high school religion teacher, campus minster, speaker, and blogger. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, where she earned her master’s degree in Theology. You can read more of Ashley’s blog posts by visiting her personal blog, “A Heart Made for Grace” where she shares her musings on all things Catholic.

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