Is there anything we haven’t eaten in the past week: ham, tamales,
potatoes, chocolate, brandy, wine…and…
On the way to eating, there is tasting, munching, nibbling and
sipping. Whatever you call it, the food goes in…and settles in for
a long winter’s nap…right around the waist.
One week later, stuffed to the gills, we must face the truth. A
diet is in order. The belt is tight, and we are too bottom-heavy to
lift out of the recliner. Eating may be natural, but it certainly
has its limits.
Guided by New Year’s Resolutions, millions of Americans begin to set
boundaries on what we put in our mouth. We post calorie counts on
the refrigerator door, we empty the kitchen of temptation and we
carry boxed chocolates to the office.
Indulging at the banquet table comes at a cost. Anyone laboring to
shed a few “holiday pounds” knows the painful and difficult process
of “paying for our pleasure.” Food is only one item on a long list
of indulgences…each with a cost.
For the past thirty years, we have winked at sexual indulgences, and
our children are paying the price. An epidemic of sexually
transmitted diseases and thousands of children raised by single moms
are testimony to the need for a diet of a different kind.
Abstinence education is about more than sex. It is a diet for the
soul. It is about making the connections for our children between
the indulgence and the consequence. It offers children hope because
it tells them they don’t have to pay a price if they can learn
restraint.
Abstinence education is about the dreams of our children, about the
quality of their lives both now and forever. It works to give young
people the imagination, confidence and tools to fulfill their
dreams. Sex is a part of the dream. And so is restraint.
Debates over sex education continue to rage. Millions of dollars
are being poured into campaigns to paint abstinence educators as
fear-filled, shame-based fools. After all, one condom-friendly
sexpert lectured her audience…sex is natural…like eating.
This was the major point she wanted to make? A woman with over
twenty years experience in teaching our children about sex?
She turned to face an abstinence teacher and lashed out in her most
indignant voice. “We want our children to celebrate sex. We don’t
need them to be fearful and filled with shame. We want them to feel
at home with their sexuality. After all, sex is perfectly
natural.”
She smiled…smugly. She had trumped any challenge to acting on a
sexual urge. Well…after thirty years of reassuring our children
that sex is natural, these sexperts have achieved their goal…and
more.
No fear and no shame…this goes a long way to explain Superbowl
XXXVIII and its international show of bumping and grinding center
stage…pelvic thrusts set to music…complete with one naked breast.
Not to mention MTV. And this sexpert wants us to believe the most
pressing thing to teach our children is that sex is natural?
Eating is natural. But it is only healthy when it is managed,
limited, and held inside the bounds of medical realities by
exercising self control. Eating is not to be feared. But it is to
be restrained. If not, why bother with New Year’s Resolutions?
Sex, just like dining at a banquet table filled with delectable
dishes, is a passion best enjoyed when boundaries are observed.
Natural desires have natural consequences. This is the truth from
which we build New Year’s Resolutions…both for the kitchen and for
the bedroom.
No fear. No shame. Teaching our children restraint is not about
teaching shame. Restraint is their ultimate liberation from the
very real fear of paying a consequence more severe than a few extra
holiday pounds around the waist.
Our children need more than the simplistic reassurance that sex is
natural. They need the perfection of nature’s ultimate truth: Our
greatest hopes and dreams are more often than not fulfilled with a
simple resolution of self control made…and kept.
Happy New Year.
