There are two types of sexual reality, one is the way God tells us it should be, the other is how it is being acted out and portrayed in our world today.  In this book we are examining both.  This may come as a surprise to many people.  SEX WAS Gods IDEA.  He alone came up with this concept. Today the fact that sex was Gods idea seems to be lost in all the sexual chaos that men have conjured up in these last days. The Bible plainly shows us that Sex was Gods idea.  Shortly after God formed Adam and Eve, he told them to BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY.  In essence what he was telling them was to have SEX.    While it's true (by Gods design) that sex is not only for pleasure, it is also the means by which the human race is perpetuated.  God made this plain in his instructions given to Adam and Eve.  "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth",  Gen. 1: 27.  This fact does not take away from the pleasure aspects of our sexuality.   Eventhough the Bible has much to say about sex, most churches shy away from this subject.  Most people have to look elsewhere to get vital information on this subject, this should not be.  GOD GIVES US GUIDELINES CONCERNING SEX WHICH ARE RELEVANT FOR THE TIME WE NOW LIVE IN.   When God designed man with his sexual ability, God had more in mind than just the reproduction of the human race.  By design, it was Gods intent that sex be the source of immense pleasure within the marital bonds.  

There is a growing trend in our western society involving couples simply living together out of wedlock.  Our modern society has redefined "shacking up"  with fancy names such as "cohabitation" and has for the most part,  now mostly decided to approve of it.  It appears that women may be some of the leaders in the cohabitation movement.  In times past,  women, as a rule, used to want and demanded the security of marriage, and the security of having a man in charge. The rise of feminism has gradually changed this mindset, in many women. There has been a dramatic increase in the level of premarital sex, and the loss of virginity before getting married.  Many today postpone marriage, but not their desire for sexual intimacy.  The Bible clearly tells us,  if we want to be sexually active, we need to be married.   Some Bible teachers class sexual desire, as a option, rather than a need.  Some, for example who are against remarriage after divorce,  tell divorcees that they must remain celibate, and ignore their sexual desires (which for the divorcee, they call evil lust).  They tell them to pray these sexual desires off, (which they label as a want not a need) and focus on God.  The Bible on the other hand tells us a completely different story about our sexual desires.  It tells us, for many individual, their sexual desires are strong and in reality is a need, which must be met.  Paul said, for those who burn with strong sexual passions (which is not in themselves sinful) they need to be, if it is at all possible married.  Paul also said, for those who have so decreed in themselves to deny themselves sexually, and can live a celibate lifestyle (such as he, Paul did)  they have the right to remain single if they so choose.  God will show us what category we fit into.   8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. 9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn,  1st Cor 7:8-9.  

Minister Josh Robinson tells us "premarital sex is a huge problem in today's world, yet  many shy away from talking about its true ramifications. Taking a look at the Bible, it never says, "Thou shalt not live together in a house   and have sex before thou are married." Because many people are looking for exact wordage to correct their lives, they miss the principles in the Bible. People usually look for "loopholes" in Scripture that they can use to rationalize their lifestyle, instead of looking at it for what it says. "Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God's people." Ephesians 5:3.  People who live together and/or engage in sexual relations outside of marriage, take part in what we call premarital sex. Have you watched TV or movies lately? The whole view of marriage is thwarted in media. It is the norm and completely tolerated for couples to live together before they are married, sometimes it is even encouraged. We use terms like, "make love" to describe sex before or outside of marriage. In popular shows we see that premarital sex is something a person does when they "love" the other person, with no mention of commitment or marriage. Without knowing it, this generation is faced with a decision to obey God's Word or the world's teaching.   Paul writes this to the church at Corinth:   "Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:18-20.  The Greek word translated "sexual immorality" or "fornication" in these verses is porneia (modern word for "pornography").   It basically means, "unlawful lust."The meaning of the word "fornication" means any unlawful (or outside the law-abiding act of marriage) sexual intercourse, including adultery. 1 Corinthians 6:13 says, "But you can't say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. The reasons people "shack up  Financial reasons. Usually this is the main reason people live together. Usually the financial reason quickly disappears. The "separate room" mentality quickly changes into sharing a room together. Fornication quickly follows. My encouragement would be if you are living together, to go get married! If you are "burning with passion" then you should be married. See what the Apostle Paul says,  "But if they can't control themselves, they should go ahead and marry. It's better to marry than to burn with lust." 1 Corinthians 7:9.     People want to sleep together with no strings attached, especially guys. To be honest, women get the raw end of the deal. Usually they are bringing more to the table, emotionally and physically while men bring low commitment and security to the woman. David Popenhoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University say, "Men experience few social pressures to marry, gain many of the benefits of marriage by cohabiting with a romantic partner, and are ever more reluctant to commit to marriage in their early adult years." The reality is that sexual sin affects the mind, will and the emotions. According to God's Word, sexual fulfillment is only blessed in covenant marriage between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5). Anything outside of marriage (premarital sex, adultery, homosexuality) is sin." (joshrobinson.cc)

As a pastor, my council to those who are single and burning in strong sexual desire,  has always  the same as that given by the apostle Paul.   Paul's advice was,  if you find yourself  with a strong burning desire for sex, it's best to get married, rather than commit fornication.  (I GIVE THIS ADVICE TO THOSE WHO ARE SINGLE, HAVING NEVER BEEN MARRIED AND TO THOSE WHO ARE SINGLE BY VIRTUE OF DIVORCE OR WIDOWHOOD).   "2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.   9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.  1st Cor 7:2&9.   After marriage comes the realization that not everyone has, retains, or maintains the same degree of sexual desire.  While it is true those in marriage don't always have the same degree of sexual desire, (sex drive) this does not give the spouse with the lower sex drive the right to sexually deny their spouse.  Being too tired, busy, disinterested, or having a headache, does not diminish the sexual desire of one's spouse.  Neither does the lack of a sex drive, on the part of one's spouse, lessen the temptation of the other spouse (the one being sexually denied) to seek to have their sexual urge satisfied by other means.  Just because the husband can satisfy his needs in two minutes does not give him the right to ignore the needs of his wife (which often requires more than a few minutes to satisfy).   Paul also addressed this issue,  he told those who were married, that it was not enough for them to just have sex.  Paul told those who were married, that they were to strive to give thier spouse sexual fulfillment. "The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.  Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency". 1st Cor .7:4-5 .   We have a God ordained responsibility to try within the best of our ability to satisfy our mate.  Paul told the married believers their spouse had the right to use their bodies for sexual fulfillment and vice versa. Paul warned to deny one's spouse of their orgasmic rights, could lead to sexual temptations on the part of the one who is being defrauded.  

Many husbands have expressed their frustration, with the dramatic drop in their wives sexual desires, as their marriage progressed.   Some have blamed a lack of continual courtship and romance on the part of the man after marriage as a major culprit. While in some marriages this is the case, researchers have found another major contributing factor. Researchers have found that women's libido plummets very rapidly when they believe they are in a secure relationship so much so that after just four years the proportion of 30-year-old women wanting regular sex falls below 50 per cent. Dr Dietrich Klusmann  The researchers from Hamburg-Eppendorf University interviewed 530 men and women about their relationships. They found 60% of 30-year-old women wanted sex "often" at the beginning of a relationship, but within four years of the relationship this figure fell to under 50%, and after 20 years it dropped to about 20%.  In contrast, they found the proportion of men wanting regular sex remained at between 60-80%, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship. The findings for women contrast with those for men, whose sexual appetite hardly flagged at all up to 40 years after marriage. The study, by researchers at Hamburg-Eppendorf University in Germany, challenges the popular image of modern women as equal to men in sexual appetite. "Female   theremotivation matches male sexual motivation in the first years of the partnership and then steadily decreases,"   The study also revealed that tenderness was important for women in a relationship.  About 90% of women wanted tenderness, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship, but only 25% of men who had been in a relationship for 10 years said they were still seeking tenderness from their partner.    This is not to say that all wives fit into this category,  there are some wives who have a stronger sex drive than their husband.   But in most cases Study after study illustrates that men's sex drives are not only stronger than women's, but much more straightforward. The sources of women's libidos, by contrast, are much more difficult to pin down.  It's common wisdom that women place more value on emotional connection as a spark of sexual desire. But women also appear to be heavily influenced by social and cultural factors as well. 

There has been a dramatic change in the sexual landscape--  God in his perfect wisdom and knowledge of the future, knew in advance what would come with the increase in man's knowledge.  It was for this reason at the tower of Babel, God purposely slowed down the advancement of the  increase in knowledge, until the time of the end.  The advent of the world of electronic media has changed the sexual landscape in ways, which just a few short years ago would have not been imaginable.  Exposure to sexual imagery is not new, but the development of the internet has contributed to a marked shift towards more extreme and more violent sexual imagery.   The sexual reality today is that the sexual flood-gates have been ripped off the hinges.   Sexual images and acts of every description and some which defy description, are readily available on the internet. These are more than just sounds and pictures on a screen. They are images that are ripe with meanings about men and women, what they like and about how they ought to treat each other. They are images that have lasting impact on the perceptions, attitudes and behavior of the individuals which are viewing them. The exposure of young people to pornography, including violent pornography, is particularly disturbing. Marcia Segelstein says, "Most people probably don't picture kids when they think about who is viewing pornography.  But according to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, the largest group of viewers of Internet pornography is children between the ages of 12 and 17.  And there's more.  The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11.  Eighty percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hardcore pornography.  Nine out of ten children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework. Scary stuff.  Many marriages are being profoundly affected by the violative sexual landscape we as a society now face.

For many young people today, the only thing that stands in the way of them seeing hardcore sexual images of every type is the warning we list here.  As we know this warning is completely ignored, as they click into the new sexual horizon.  Television, radio, movies, and now the Internet are sexually exerting influence upon young people, in ways we have never seen before. We are witnessing a major sexual cultural revolution that is having an incredible impact on our society. Yet, despite numerous warnings, few seem to understand what is really going on or where this surging wave of social change is taking us!   One college educator addressing the question "Is TV corrupting our kids?" states that "because much of the content of television and other mass media involves issues of sexual conduct, the potential for influence in this area is especially great" (Atlanta Journal, May 24, 1992). Another professor observes that "the media are so compelling and so filled with sex, it's hard for any adult let alone a  kid,  to resist. I think of the media as our true sex educators" (USN&WR, Sept. 11, 1995)?yet films and television rarely show the serious consequences of promiscuous sex. The continuous portrayal of promiscuity as exciting, adultery as normal, and homosexuality as natural, plays a powerful role in molding attitudes and behaviors of the younger generation.  When the human mind is constantly bombarded with images it is unable to think and reflect. The immediate availability of novelty, excitement and titillating thrills provide a pleasurable escape for young people who find their existence boring, empty, lonely or frustrating.  Hillary Freeman tells us, "There was a time when pornography seemed passive, merely a girly magazine, on the top shelf of the store.  Now, pornography - much of it hardcore and depicting abusive sexual acts few of us can even imagine, let alone want to try - is available at the click of a mouse in every teenage bedroom. Porn is no longer something that is sought out discreetly. On the contrary, now you have actively to avoid it.  The saddest irony  is that  the over exposure of all this sexual activity, has not made today's youth more knowledgeable about sex or helped them to have more fulfilling sex lives; quite the opposite. Has happened . Today's young people have the same old problems. Unfortunately, they also have new ones. How can a young teenager, ignorant about sex and relationships, discriminate between what is normal and what is extreme?  How can a boy who has seen dozens of images of women being abused by several men at a time learn to respect women, or see them as anything other than sex objects? How can a girl understand that it is OK to say no to sex? How can anyone learn to reconcile these images with the idea of sex in a loving relationship?"                                                                                                                             

According to Dr Peter Hammond,  "One of the most serious threats to our younger generation comes through the entertainment industry. Superficial, sensational and immoral material predominates in the modern entertainment industry and it is producing an increasingly superficial, selfish, mindless and immoral society.  Television,  Ipods,  mobile phone screens, and the Internet are filling the void in the aimless and meaningless lives of all too many young people.   Due to all this graphic exposure, the young generation today is exhibiting  a marked increase in the interest and participatory level of sexual issues,  at a much earlier age. The younger generation is crying out for sexual answers, our response must not be panicked silence. Sex education in schools is insufficient, claimed Anna Martinez, head of a Sex Education Forum. She said: "Young people continue to tell us that there is a big gap between the sex education they need and the sex education they are getting in school, church, and from their parents.  The younger generation is being taught a version of what sex looks like, and sounds like, its weird, violent, without restraints, and extremes, Parents and the church cannot ignore the phenomenon. Sex on TV and porn on the Internet is pervasive, and seemingly unstoppable. If banning it is a lost cause and blocking it at home in most cases  ineffectual, then parents and Bible teachers have to gird their loins and talk about it.  Internet porn and the way sexual activity is depicted, on TV, can't be allowed to exist in a vacuum of silence; otherwise young people, on the cusp of sexual experience, might believe in its unrealistic depiction: that being sexually active is a must,  that all girls are Brazilian bikini-waxed nymphomaniacs; that good sex amounts to "harder, and  harder thrusting" that boys are devoid of  true love, tenderness, and commitment. etc.

SEXUAL REALITY-THE FLOOD-GATES HAVE BEEN RIPPED OFF THE HINGES

The rapid increase in the exposure of explicit sexual situations, is leading to more and more confusion and frustration. A crisis center which deals with this matter, say they are noticing a marked increse in the volume of emails, which denotes desperate, sexual concerns and confusion.  The operator of this site say they have lost count of the number of young women in their late teens and early 20s, who write in with the same concern.  They say their boyfriend and in many cases their husband, can't stop watching porn: 'Why does he watch porn so much when he's with me?'; 'How can I ever measure up to the women in porn?'; 'Why aren't I good enough?'; 'Is it normal to have pubic hair?"    Girls really do think they're expected to look like life-sized Barbie dolls: long of limb, large of breast and with no body hair whatsoever. Young men too are beset by insecurities and misapprehensions, fueled by exposure to porn: 'My penis is too small compared to the ones I've seen on the internet, how can I get it enlarged?'; 'I want to watch my girlfriend have sex with my best friend. Is this a good idea??  The floodgates of sexual information and misinformation, have not only been swung wide open, but have been ripped of the hinges, there is now no way to close them. This sudden and dramatic shift to the exposure of sexual imagery has left the various components of our society, who try to explain it all, (parents, churches, educational system, etc). Scrambling, in an attempt to explain to the younger generation, what it all means.  

           PORN----A UNREALISTIC VIEW OF SEX