Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Crescat

Home
Catholic
Expressing Love Beyond Sex and the Single Life …

Expressing Love Beyond Sex and the Single Life …

Last updated on: January 26, 2017 at 7:27 pm by Katrina Fernandez

Expressing Love Beyond Sex and the Single Life … 2017-01-26T19:27:50-05:00 Katrina Fernandez

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

… The fact that I still get almost daily emails about this one post proves to me there’s a need for practical relationship advice. It makes sense there’s such a need, what with the fracturing of the traditional family and free for all feminism.

Remember taking Home Economics in school? Yeah, me neither. The advice I got instead, through my health/sex-ed classes, was that women can “love like men”, which is code for being promiscuous. This ideal also hurts men, in that it implies men can only express love through sex. Hence, so much female confusion and frustration when they become sexually active outside of marriage.

Let’s talk about expressing love and having sex.

I get asked a lot, as a single person, about the “lack of love” in my life. How do I cope? Do I get lonely? Am I fulfilled? How do I express and experience love?

The implication here is that single people practicing chastity are not experiencing love. Also, it implies the only way two people can express love for each other is through sex. I would ask them, in turn, how they think married people show their spouses love outside the bedroom.

Look at this couple not loving each other!

Can you have love without sex? Of course you can! Think about all the important people in your life right now that you love dearly. Are you having sex with them all? Ew. Creepy. Of course you aren’t. Having sex with someone is not the only way we show love. If you think it is you may have a very narrow and perversely warped definition of what true love is.

Lastly, and probably most bizarrely, is the idea that married love is the only type of love that exists. If you aren’t married, than you must be living a loveless existence. Catholics know the value of the consecrated single life and religious vocations, but even still, single people continue to be viewed as a strange anomaly.

Lisa Hendey thoughtfully asks her single readers, Is Conscious Celibacy a “Yes” to Love?

Let’s talk simply about unmarried folks. How do they say, “Yes!” to love?

It would be my contention that they affirm their love for themselves and for God through their choice to live a faithful single life. Additionally, many of the single folks I know are in a better position to serve those around them in their communities…

I like that she included that bit about affirming love for ourselves. Because that’s really what being faithful to Church teaching on celibacy and chastity is – an act of love; love and respect for the Church and God, but just as important, love and respect for ourselves.

Healthy sex is the physical act of intimacy between a husband and wife. Anything outside that is unhealthy sex. Premarital sex is unhealthy and damaging. Accepting unhealthy affection for the sake of experiencing affection is not an act of “liberation” or “sexual freedom”. It’s also not an act of love, but rather, disrespect.

Just this week, I received four separate emails from various woman seeking advice about their partners. Each one wondering about their boyfriends intentions; however, one in particular struck me painfully. She didn’t understand why her boyfriend would want to live with her and share her bed but didn’t want to get married. Surely, he loved her, she stated. I replied back asking how he expresses his love, and how could she be so sure of his genuine love for her?

She answered, because they were having sex.

And so we’ve come to believe that sex = love. Or rather, to fully love someone you must be having sex with them. Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?

Because we’ve come to devalue other expressions of love as inferior to sex, it becomes unfathomable to think a person in relationship can even experience love outside of having sex with them. Which leads to the common thinking that us non-sex-having single folks must not be experiencing love at all.

So Lisa asks, how do unmarried folks say “yes” to love.

Well, aside from remaining celibate, I am open to love in a plethora of ways to a great many people – my son, my family, my friends, and yes, even strangers. I’m quite certain that God’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves meant pretty much everyone, not just the obvious spouses and children.

If you are truly a follower of Christ then you love period. You love the Lord, His Church, yourself, and everyone you encounter. Married or single, everyone is called to experience and express love. That’s why I am always bemused by the thinking that single people are loveless or not fully experiencing love.

Probably the most wonderful thing about being single is having my definition of love grandly expanded, as well as learning countless ways to express this love. I truly believe my singleness and celibacy is a gift that places me at an advantage to greatly experience love in ways that most married people don’t often get to experience.

This is why I believe premarital sex is so damaging to relationships. When women open their relationship up to sexual activity before marriage, they close themselves off from the spiritual growth and maturity that comes from learning the many different ways to express love and feel loved. Love has so many dimensions and isn’t just experienced through marriage or sex. Illustrating that point is this eloquent comment left on Lisa’s blog in response to her post.

I am a single, 26 year old gay man. I wouldn’t say that I have chosen a celibate life, but rather that I endeavor to live chastely, in accordance to the teachings of my church (which takes an orthodox view on sex and marriage), and as a practical result, I am celibate. If I had my own way, I’d be searching for a husband, because I feel a deep desire to “choose love” in the form of a romantic relationship. Instead I choose to live faithfully, because I ultimately believe that my desire to love and be loved finds its ultimate fulfillment in my relationship with Christ. In this sense, my choice does affirm your contention that I am choosing to honor myself and God…

… A couple years ago a dear friend of mine, a supernumerary of Opus Dei, gave me advice that has been very helpful me. He said that the truest way to grow in my love of the Lord (the point of faithful chastity) was to love my neighbors and to dedicate myself to being love in the world. I think this gets at what you suggest about single folk being able to choose love through service and engagement within our communities – how we love our neighbors becomes an act of devotion to a God we are trusting; a way of drawing close, and at the same time also opening ourselves to receive the philadelphic love of our community. It is also a pathway towards creating an identity beyond sexuality and singleness which is empowering and enlivening.

Isn’t that beautiful?

“…a pathway towards creating an identity beyond sexuality and singleness which is empowering and enlivening.”

Moving beyond sexuality is empowering and enlivening, ladies. Take note.

Previous Post

November 5, 2013

You Never Know Who Is Reading...

Next Post

November 8, 2013 Human Dignity...

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 30 Days of Dressing Like a Girl Adult Libations Advent Aiming To Misbehave Altar Boys Answered Prayers Art Art Behaving Badly Art Renewal Ask The Crescat AWAKE Baby Jesus Weeps Bad Ass Saints Bad Assery Bat Shit Crazy Beauty Being Single Blessed Virgin Mary Blogging Book Reviews Books Glorious Books Booze Boy Scouting Burnt Offerings BXVI Can You Hear My Eyes Rolling Canonizing Saints Caption Contests Catholic Bling & Finery Catholic Fangirl Catholic In The News Catholic Kitsch Catholic Social Teaching Catholics Behaving Badly Celebrity Catholics Charlotte Christmas Church MILITANT Church Posturing Church Teaching Church Universal Churches and Church Architecture Cinema Class Wars Classical Music Come Home Crafty Crescat Craptastic Craptastic Nativity Scenes Crescat Endorsements Damn Hippies Dear Crabby Death of the West Deep Thought With The Crescat Defenders of Faith Devotions Diocese of Charlotte Doctor Who DUH Easter Easter Liturgies Behaving Badly Eastern Catholicism Election 2012 End Rant Entertainment Exposing Obama Fan Girling Farmer Kat Fashion Feminism is Misogynistic Fine Art Friday Friday Features Friday Fishing Friday Fun Geekery Gender and Equality Girly Blather Give Aways Glaring Irony Gospel According to Crescat Hifreakinlarious Highly Suspect Hiss.Spit.Growl Holiday Gift Giving Guide Holy Days and Holidays How To Fail At Catholic Piety Humor Hump Day Humor I Actually Know What I Am Talking About Here I Blame The Parents I Call Bull Shit I Can't Hear You Over Your Own Hubris I Hear The Tiber Is Nice To Swim This Time of Year I Love You Nathan Fillion and You Will Be Mine One Day By God You Will I thought I saw Some Morals Around Here Somewhere Icons and Iconography In the News Is Outrage! It's Like I'm Martha Stewart if Martha Stewart Were Constantly Drunk and Incompetent Just Asking Just Because Kat's Been Drinking Again Learning Spanish Lent LENT2012 Liberal Lunacy Literature Literature Behaving Badly Liturgical Terrorists Liturgical Year Local Events Mad World Man-lace and Manliness Manufactured Outrage machine March For Life 2012 Martyrs Mass Appeal Mass Chat Mass Hysteria Mass Lunacy Maybe a Little Crazy Media Bias Memes Miracles and Wonders Molto Bello Monday Monk Gazing More Than Mortal Beauty Motivational Monday Movies Much Humble Music MUST HAVE ALL THE CHICKENS My Religion is Cooler Than Yours Natural Beauty Near Occasion of Sin News That Never Was Notable Birthdays Novenas Nun Gazing On The Rare Occasion I Actually Shut Up I Can Sometimes Hear God Orthodox Orthodoxy Outfreakingstanding Parenting Patheos Writers Perfectly Acceptable Wastes of Time Perils of Parenthood Persecution Personal Pinished That Shit Play Ball Politics Polls Pop Culture Pope Francis Potpourri of Popery Prayers and Devotions President Behaving Badly Propaganda Protecting Children PSA Punk Quoted Racial Issues Random Recipes Red Flags Redemption Relics Religion of Peace Reviews Roma Rosaries Russian Art Sacraments Saints Sanctity of Life Science and Religion Seems Legit Self Appointed Pontiffs Sexuality She is Too Fond of Books and it Has Turned Her Brain SHINY! Single Life Single Parenthood Small Victories Soap Box Spain Strangely Unrelated to Anything Stuff Stupid Things Stupid Things I Do On Any Given Day Swiss Guard Technical Stuff That's catholic with a little "c" The Boy The Catholic Five Talk Show The Narrative THE RACK! The Real The Sexes The Stuff Priests Are Made Of There I Fixed It Thirsty Thursday Time of Persecution Tipsy Tuesday Traditions True Story Tuesday Tunes TV Is Where My Brain Goes To Die Ugly Churches Uncategorized Vapid Cliched Inanity Disguised As Original And Intelligent Thought Vaticanista Videos Viral Virtues Vocation Wanderlust Warm and Fuzzy Welcome Home What Does The Church Really Teach Why I Am Still Single Works of Mercy Wussification of Boys WYD You Can't Spell "DIET" Without "DIE" You're Very Existence is God Granting Me An Exercise In Patience Youtube

Select a Month December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 April 2008 March 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 October 2006 June 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the first Judge of Israel?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Gideon Deborah Samson Othniel