"Sexual Integrity" YOUTH Blog
BLOG for Youth & Teens. How to overcome the temptation of self stimulation. Find your WHY and learn practical tips on saving the special explosion of true love for your future spouse.
INSPIRATION
“There is a definite correlation between one's development of a healthy sexuality and one's spiritual growth towards a virtuous adulthood. All these elements are needed in order to successfully build a bond of true and lasting love in marriage. On that foundation, man and woman can establish a strong couple and become good parents for their children, transmitting to them a true tradition of love to follow. This is the divine principle.”
- Sun Myung Moon
"Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil."
- Proverbs 4:25-27
“Straightforwardness and honesty in the activities of one's body, speech, and mind lead to an auspicious path.”
- Jainism. Tattvarthasutra 6.23
"Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?"
- 1 Corinthians 3:16
INTRO
Imagine this, a meteor crashed down in your backyard. It was the middle of the night but you had to check it out. As you get closer you notice an eerie green glow, it compels you to come closer. Suddenly you feel a strange power surge through your body.
Over the next couple of days you notice changes in your body. You feel clearer, you feel stronger but most surprisingly you find that you can turn yourself invisible on command. You try it out sneaking around your house and you go completely unnoticed. Awesome, you think.
What will you do with this new found power of invisibility? What will you do when no one can see you?
Would you listen in on conversations? Would you go to places you wouldn’t normally be allowed in? Would you look at things that are inappropriate?
Sexual Integrity
This is a question of integrity. What do you choose to do when no one is around or watching? We need to set ourselves firmly in being good people for the sole purpose of being good.
“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not.”
- Oprah Winfrey
God has a design for each of us to become true owners of our life. God gives us His Principles that can guide us but asks us to take responsibility for our own actions. Having this ability put us in control of our life instead of being at the whim of our own and others impulses. We must become masters of ourselves.
“Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” - W. Clement Stone
There are different areas of integrity we all have to address, whether it be with our health, finances, interpersonal relationships or our sexuality. In all areas of our life we need to learn to respect ourselves and others.
Sexual integrity can be one of the hardest areas to manage as we can step over the line with no one seeing.
So we have these sexual urges, we have passion flowing through us but we need to learn to become masters of ourselves and not let our urges guide us.
One of the trademarks of being a teen is impulsiveness. In your teens there is a need to just do things now, do what you feel like doing. This is your chance to live and you don’t want to miss out. Everything is so new and exciting you want to be a part of it. On the same token there is also a feeling of invincibility.
There’s a whole large pizza in front of you, why not eat it all? There’s a cliff overlooking the river, let’s jump. That boy just asked you to grab a frappuccino together after school, why not? You are on the internet just a click away from sexual gratification, who would it hurt? It is my body, my life and I can do what I want, right?
There is so much excitement about being a teen. You can do so much more and there is a drive in you to explore. Suddenly you have many feelings bubbling inside of you, sometimes they don’t make sense and sometimes you just feel crazy.
It’s true that this is a time to discover yourself. This is a time meant for you to ask questions, study, to practice and to grow. Some things you try won’t work out for you, some might even blow up in your face. Somethings you’ll like and some you will never want to do again.
But are there some things that you can’t take back? There are some things you might want to try that can really end up hurting you.
"Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body." 1 Corinthians 6:18
Our sexuality is one big area that comes to mind. There may be a desire to engage with others in flirtatious behavior and to gain attention from others. You may long for the touch of someone else and crave physical closeness. The need for physical touch or stress may become so much that the thought may cross your mind to touch yourself.
While these urges may come from your body, fulfilling them will not have the desired effect. In addition to the emotional depletion it could also have the negative effect of making your marital sexual life less fulfilling and pleasurable.Your goal is pleasure, your goal is feeling complete, but sexual stimulation without love will end up making you feel less whole. The sensation without the emotional and spiritual connection found with your future spouse will only make the emptiness seem more vast.
Some may tell you that self stimulation or masturbation won’t hurt anyone. Some may say that it is a required release, your body needs to be satisfied. Some even say that masturbation is supposed to help you prepare (or train) for a relationship with a real person like a spouse.
In this way you are only conditioning yourself to disassociate sex with from your heart and spirit. You are programming yourself to see sex as merely a physical activity. It's also conditioning you to cope with stress, boredom, anxiety, or whatever with sexual self-stimulation. The habit of self gratification can become an addiction that’s hard to kick. Masturbation can lead to the belief that you don't need another person to take care of you sexually and that sex is about taking, not giving.
Sex is so much more. Don’t rob yourself of the amazingness that sex is by limiting it to a physical experience.
As the scripture says, flee from sexual immorality because it only hurts yourself.
So how can you steer away from these seemingly natural urges? How can we become people of integrity when it comes to sex? How can we be owners of our love and sexuality and not simply slaves to our impulses?
TIPS
1. First, find your why. Remind yourself of the purpose of your sexuality.
God designed sex to bring two people together into oneness. God designed the desires to draw us close and the orgasm to bind us together. That we would associate that pleasure, the release with the one who we give our heart and soul to. Sex has a binding nature that is desinged for marriage.
“There are two kinds of sexual organs: male and female. God originally divided the sexual organ into two, creating a little distance, so that their drawing together and meeting would be like an explosion. This is where the stimulating excitement would take place. This is what God wanted.” - Sun Myung Moon
2. Second, notice what situations or experiences make you crave sexual release.
Find ways to avoid these circumstances.
Many times loneliness, stress and boredom lead to masturbation. When we are feeling low, we look for stimulation to lift us back up. This can be found in healthy manners, exercise, sports, games with friends or a good conversation.
Just as often though, people find unhealthy ways to fill the void, drugs, alcohol or sexual activity. When you engage in these activities you weaken your ability to self regulate your emotions and it can be more difficult to navigate life’s natural ups and downs.
3. Third, we need to train our body, mind and heart to work together.
We all need to grow into being better at following through with what we know is best for us. Mind and body unity requires training. It will be at times very difficult to do what you know you need to do.
If you need to wake up earlier for school you may need to go to bed earlier. This might not seem like fun at night to go to bed, but if you stay up too late the next day is definitely no fun. You are only taking from tomorrow’s happiness.
4. Fourth, find someone to confide in to talk this through with.
Your parents can be an asset as accountability and support in this area. You might not believe it but they have been right where you are now. They were teens and had to figure this out too and best of all they love you. If you need an alternate support person, try another trusted adult from your faith community or join a group with HIGHNOON.
However you choose, don’t go it alone, having others in your life is your best defense.
In Conclusion
The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in. ~B.K.S. Iyengar, Yogi
You know that sex is meant for marriage, that it can be the most wonderful thing. Now is the time to prepare yourself for the full release by getting your heart, mind, body and soul in unity. When sex can be a full heart, mind, body and soul experience that is the greatest gift you can give yourself and your future spouse.
Don’t settle for a cheap imitation of love. Try to live your life in a way that you wouldn’t want to be invisible. Live in a way that you can be proud. It might not be easy now, you may have even slipped up already, but with practice you can be a master of your own sexuality. In this way you become the author of your destiny, and not simply a bystander.
If you’d like help in becoming a person of sexual integrity check out www.highnoon.org
Prayer Points:
Ask God to see yourself through His eyes, to appreciate your whole body and value yourself as a precious treasure.
Ask for strength to be patient with discovering your sexuality. (Like waiting for a tomato to fully ripen and taste it’s best, rather than picking it too early.)
Pray that you can honor your future spouse and give them your best by waiting to explore yourself and instead save that adventure for the two of you.
Additional Quotes:
“To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.”
-Proverbs 21:3
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
-Philipians 4:18
“The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”
-Proverbs 11:3
“Whenever anyone mentions this sexual organ in the secular world it is the worst kind of curse or feeling. No matter how handsome or pretty you may be, you all have the destiny to secure that holy place. The sacred place of your sexual organ is the final place that you have to conquer. Ever since His creation, God has been seeking after that most holy of places. Because that is where Love, Life and Lineage emerges.”
- Rev. Sun Myung Moon
“Unless we can overcome sexual, physical desire, we cannot be connected to God. In other words, we need God's help. Otherwise, we will fail. Sexual desire is so strong. That is how we were created.”
-Rev. Sun Myung Moon
“When we are born as a man or woman, who is the owner of our sexual organ? Actually the owner of a husband's sexual organ is his wife, and the owner of a wife's sexual organ is her husband. We did not know that the sexual organ is owned by the opposite sex. This is a simple truth.”
- Rev. Sun Myung Moon
“Until now all human being's sexual organs were considered bad. But originally it was the central love palace place. This is the Holy of Holies Headquarters Palace Place. How wonderful. Without that sexual organ connecting place we can never discover True Love, True Life and True Lineage.”
- Rev. Sun Myung Moon
RESOURCE Links:
High Noon PODCAST: Love Life Legacy
