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Sex
Resources
- What do I do if I’m sexually starved? Tony Campolo, 20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid To Touch, (Word Publ., Dallas; 1988), Chapter 5, pp. 57ff
- Charles Swindoll, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, p.262
- The Moral Catastrophe, David Hocking, Harvest House, 1990, pp. 64ff
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Family and Civilization
In Charles Swindoll’s new book, The Quest for Character (Multnomah), “sociologist and historian Carle Zimmerman, in his 1947 book Family and Civilization, recorded his keen observations as he compared the disintegration of various cultures with the parallel decline of family life in those cultures. Eight specific patterns of domestic behavior typified the downward spiral of each culture Zimmerman studied: Marriage loses its sacredness...is frequently broken by divorce; traditional meaning of the marriage ceremony is lost; feminist movements abound; there is increased public disrespect for parents and authority in general; an acceleration of juvenile delinquency, promiscuity and rebellion occurs; there is refusal of people with traditional marriages to accept family responsibilities; a growing desire for, and acceptance of, adultery is evident; there is increasing interest in, and spread of, sexual perversions and sex-related crimes.”
Confident Living, November 1987, p. 34.
There are No Silly Questions
It was time to tell my ten-year-old son the facts of life, so I took books out of the library and prepared myself for any questions he might ask. At the end of our lengthy chat, he looked confused. “If you have any questions,” I said, “please ask them. There are no silly questions.”
“Well, suppose I was married,” he said with some embarrassment, “my wife was pregnant and I had to rush her to the hospital. Okay?”
I nodded supportively.
He asked, “Can I go through red lights?”
Contributed by Crystal Lessard, Reader’s Digest, January, 1996, p. 160.
Magazines
- Number of new magazines in the U.S. in 1992: 679
- Number devoted to lifestyle: 60
- Number devoted to sports: 40
- Number devoted to crafts/games/hobbies: 35
- Number devoted to celebrities: 33
- Number devoted to sex: 97
Source unknown
Survey of 1500 Men on Sex
If you belong to a men’s group, you may not be surprised by the results of a survey of 1,500 men at the Promise Keepers gatherings last summer. Fifty-one percent of the sample reported a struggle with masturbation, and 51 percent also fantasize about having sex with women other than their wives. Seventy-four percent reported that their sexual thoughts concern them. Fifteen percent reported they were sexually unfaithful to their spouse. About 33 percent reported enjoyment in looking regularly at sexually- oriented material, including videos and magazines.
New Man November/December, 1994, p. 8
Printed on the Bottom
A three-year-old boy went with his dad to see a new litter of kittens. On returning home, he breathlessly informed his mother, “There were two boy kittens and two girl kittens.”
“How did you know that?” his mother asked.
“Daddy picked them up and looked underneath,” he replied. “I think it’s printed on the bottom.”
Pearl Scully in The Saturday Evening Post
Sexual Purity
We can supplement our accountability to others by reading slowly through literature designed to challenge our Christian maturity. Consider, as an example, these questions related to sexual purity that I had to read carefully as I read Kent Hughes’ Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome:
1. Are we being desensitized by the present evil world? Do things that once shocked us now pass us by with little notice? Have our sexual ethics slackened?
2. Where do our minds wander when we have no duties to perform?
3. What are we reading? Are there books or magazines or files in our libraries that we want no one else to see?
4. What are we renting at the local video stores? How many hours do we spend watching TV? How many adulteries did we watch last week? How many murders? How many did we watch with our children?
5. How many chapters of the Bible did we read last week?
Leading the Way by Paul Borthwick, Navpress, 1989, pp. 120-121
Studies and Surveys
1. A study at a Midwestern school showed that 80% of the women who had intercourse hoped to marry their partner. Only 12% of the men had the same expectation - Robert J. Collins in the Chicago Tribune, quoted in HIS, February, 1976
2. Sex is not the most important part of a love relationship. A Syracuse University survey asked married couples to rank the 10 most important things in a marriage relationship. Caring, a sense of humor and communication came in first, second and third. Sex came in ninth, just ahead of sharing household duties.
Dr. Thomas Lickona
Not a Normal Birth
A little boy asked his mother where he came from, and also where she had come from as a baby. His mother gave him a tall tale about a beautiful white-feathered bird. The boy asked his grandmother the same question and received a variation on the bird story. Outside to his playmate he said, “You know, there hasn’t been a normal birth in our family for three generations.”
Howard Hendricks, quoted in Homemade, September, 1989
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