The myth of the Christian eunuch

Last updated on: January 29, 2010 at 12:23 am by John Shore

The myth of the Christian eunuch 2010-01-29T00:23:18-08:00 John Shore

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Got this is:

John, I recently read where you said something about how throughout their days men will run quick porno loops through their imaginations. I hope you know that pornography is addictive and destructive to both men and women, not to mention children. I hope what you said was tongue-in-cheek! But if men really ARE that focused on lust, shouldn’t we be trying to do something to help change that? Like helping our sons to understand that it is unacceptable, and that the only way to stop focusing on one thing is to fill your mind and life with something better? Or to work yourself until you’re too exhausted to be filled with temptation? Stuff like that?

The ancient, persistent, pervasive idea that being a good Christian man means essentially being a eunuch is something that needs serious reconsideration. Men are men. Men lust. They lust constantly. They can’t help it. And I get real uncomfortable whenever I hear anyone say that men should stop lusting.

Do we really want men who don’t find women—lots of women, all the time—sexually attractive? Because that would mean men having less of a sex drive than they do now. And if you reduce a man’s sex drive, you automatically reduce a whole lot of stuff about him that you definitely want to think twice about reducing.

Do you want an ambitious man? Then you want a man with a strong sex drive. Do you want a man who will always protect his wife and children? Then you want a man with a strong sex drive. Do you want a man who will lay down his life for his country? Who will explore new territory? Who will take control of a bad situation? Who will champion the cause of the weak and oppressed? Who will clear trees, kill animals, build a home, and make sure that when the dust settles he and his are still standing? A man who, when things get tough, will roll up his sleeves and work? Then you want a man with a strong sex drive. And such a man could no sooner not lust after women than he could unhook his gonads and leave them at home in his sock drawer when he goes off to work every day.

No man should disrespect women, of course. And certainly no man should lose control of his behavior. And certainly pornography is problematic. But being a man means that in the sacred, inviolate privacy of his imagination he is going to think a great many lustful thoughts. That’s just a fact about being a man. That won’t change. It can’t change. It shouldn‘t change. The whole idea that somehow Christian men aren’t really supposed to be men is ridiculous and harmful.

Healthy sex isn’t just a good thing. It’s the necessary thing. It’s how our race survives. Sex makes the whole world go round.

If God didn’t want men to be men—to do their part to help the world go around—he wouldn’t have filled them with all that testosterone. But he did. And part of the effect of that does mean that by their very nature men are bound to instinctively lust for women.

I know what Matthew 5:27-28 says—which in The Message is translated:

You know the next commandment pretty well, too: “Don’t go to bed with another’s spouse.” But don’t think you’ve preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.”

I have got no problem with that. One’s heart certainly can be corrupted by lust, just like it can be corrupted by any unhealthy fixation. And certainly no man should ever look at a woman “leeringly,” because that’s obnoxious, invasive, and extremely disrespectful.

But the bottom line is this: Show me a man, Christian or otherwise, who says he isn’t forever imagining himself in all kinds of sexual situations with all kinds of different women, and I’ll show you a man who’s either lying like a dog or gay.

Um … and quick note. Gay men—and all kinds of people across the whole spectrum of gender identifications—can, do, and … must, basically, lust in the same way I’ve here described. I think it’s just a matter of testosterone.

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