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Christian Studies
Sola Scripture Only
Adultery
Is it purifying “Love” or curing “Lust”?
Is it “Love Making” or “Making Love”?
Or is it just relieving & pairing captive Sperms and Eggs
or pure fornication?
With or without God’s clear precepts, it seems that this is the widespread male pattern of understanding of what should be considered adultery and that the women are the culprits throughout history until our present days: (the word) “Wife is the name of dignity, not bliss” (Verus, v: V)… and: “We keep mistresses for our pleasures, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children and to be our faithful housekeepers. Yet, because of the wrong done to the husband only, the Athenian lawgiver Solon allowed any man to kill an adulterer whom he had taken in the act” (Oration against Neaera – (Plutarch). (Bolding & underlining is the author’s)
“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body that is holy and honorable, not in a passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God… For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness” (1The 4:3-7)… “But every man (and woman) is tempted, when he/she is drawn away of his/her own lust, and enticed” (Jam 1:14)… “How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.” (Jud 1:18-19).
The heartbreak started right in Paradise during the period known as the “Age of Innocence”, where Eve practically lusted after the fruit of the forbidden tree even before being beguiled by the Serpent, and concocted a scheme if caught to say that the “Devil made me do it”, then enlisted her Adam as accomplice, cementing the concept, “it takes two to tango”, hence their experience and ours conform to the popular saying, “every forbidden is greatly desired (lusted after)”. It all started with a glance followed by a look then the strong desire to have, touch and enjoy:
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (body and soul) and that it was pleasant to the eyes (lust), and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” (Gen 3:6)… “Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.” (Rom 7:13).
The common denominator between “love making” and “making love” is the act of performing sexual exploits, be it with oneself through touching, masturbation and/or using imitation artificial artillery and contraptions; and with opposite or same sex through tens of improvised role-plays, foreplays, flirting, manipulations, stimulations of sensually sensitive hot spots besides the many acrobatic positions borrowed from the kuma sutra’s volumes, or finally with animals as well as imaginable and unimaginable concocted aliens and objects.
Is the slogan “love making/having sex” geared towards having freelance sex episodes in or out of wedlock just for the purpose of releasing oneself, satisfying sexual urges, or braggingly having someone under the sheets. Is the term “making love”, beside the intimacy and pleasures associated with it, the factory to produce babies?
First and foremost, let us distinguish between adultery and rape (unlawful forced sexual penetration whether coitus or sodomy, be it with adults or youngsters) by confirming that adultery is voluntary while rape is involuntary. With incest, adults do it voluntary, but with defenseless children and teens, it is involuntary on their part. The Latin-Greco etymology of the word “adultery” Latin: “Adulter”, Greek “Moich” implies “corruption” of godly and natural statutory laws, committed by “adults”, while the Arabic noun “zinã” and verb “zana” probably stem from the root “zi~na” (adornment) as “Beauty or Grace”, as in criminally violating the sanctity of the beauty of God masterpiece creature. Latin, Greek and Arabic infer “Adulthood” denoting predetermination and knowledge of what one is doing or planning to do.
Although adultery is clichéd hookups and wild ventures in extramarital affairs and is usually perpetrated by self-love and conceit by men through pure narcissism, unhealthy self-confidence, arrogant vanity, utter self-absorption, and finally women’s frigidity as looking for the # 1 stud; while for women, it is stirred up by sexual dissatisfaction, male impotence or lack of romancing tact and techniques, coquetries, economic aspirations, domestic abuses, desertion and most importantly because first: many are financially independent, and secondly: because of intrinsic revenge, inequality and sense of inferiority, which are generally triggered by freak paranoia and all kinds of insecurities.
All in all, contentions due to “envy, strife and satanic wisdom” (rephrased Jam 4:1-2) and “unbridled tongues” (rephrased Jam 1:26), together with indifference and divorces are the direct results of the seven deadly sins, whether combined or individual, practiced by either or both spouses; if one meditate on them, one realizes that they all opposite to the three kinds of godly love: pride, gluttony, melancholy (sloth), lust, greed and anger, committed first by our mother Eve with her accomplice in transgression our father Adam. The proof that couples are serious about themselves should be demonstrated by how serious they are about their duties and responsibilities in honoring their vows and pledges through dialogue and cooperation in “Joy and patience in the midst of trials” (rephrased Jam 1:2-4).
Adultery is often committed through pure frenzied lust, ecstasy, fantasy, idolatry as well as desire to change the status quo like with non-monogamy swingers and spouse swapping, threesomes and orgies, who lost all reactions to shock, shame, fear, awe, disgust among others, to defile the sacredness of marriage wedlock and to breach the reciprocated matrimonial vows, as if both are saying:
“And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die…Come you, say they, “I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” (Isa 22:13 + 56:12 +1Cor 15:32)… “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God… For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers’ lusts” (2Tim 3:2-4 & 6).
Does “love making” before marriage mean unchastity, fornication, infidelity, lasciviousness, covetousness, concupiscence, folly, whoredom, harlotry, idolatry and all acts of sexual immorality to include rape and incest, or does it denote having sex to generate intimacy and strengthen love to boom and bloom like in keeping the flame of passion ever blazing; or while experimenting, one hopes that it will lead to marriage to live happily ever after? Random statistics show that out of these sexual escapades: +/-5% led to successful lasting marriages, +/-25% led to unhappy marriages, 60% ended in divorce and misery.
Widespread studies show that 50% of men and 26% of women are in short and long term extramarital affairs, but I believe in these days with women emancipation, liberation, pro-choice movements and financial independence, women are almost up there with men in the percentage. Studies show also that men more than women swallow the wounding and humiliation. Men and women may continue with their somehow redeemed marriages dictated by bighearted forgiveness in genuine love scenarios, others due to social and religious pressures, economic and personal insecurities and/or merely for children’s sake.
The fact is once the rope has completely snapped, and even if one succeeds to reconnect it, it will always have that knot or lump as ground for distrust and mistrust due to fear of lapses and backsliding. But whether the rope snaps or only splinters, business as usual is no longer the norm as the healthy and balanced marriage is now infected with the notion that one spouse has defiled the sanctity of the wedlock. In either case, a couple might live on borrowed time and divorce is just put on hold for now. Studies show that an inflicted couple rarely adopt sincerely and genuinely the motto “forgive and forget” to overcome the bumps ahead.
Throughout history, the laws of the lands greatly vary when it comes to the bases of what constitute “Adultery” and the extent of the punishments that the offenders will face, whether stoning or flagellating to death, execution, ostracism, imprisonment and/or fines, depending on which religion, philosophy or culture one follows and which country one lives in. Many religions enacted laws to differentiate between spiritual “adultery” to include idolatry, covetousness and apostasy and carnal “adultery”, which entails that illicit physical intercourse committed in an extramarital affair. Both represent the distortion of the oneness of God and his stern commandments:
“If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” (Deut 22:22).
In a nutshell, it is the association of other gods and humans with God and uncovering of a non-spousal or betrothed person’s nakedness. Jesus went further and said, ““But I say unto you, “That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt 5:28); and also “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, and maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity…” (Rom 1:29).
In our era, while all societies and countries regard it as an illicit socially wrong and immoral great offense, they treat it as judgmentally neutral armed with the pretense that it is a personal choice in parallel with the new stance and tolerance of gay movement and abortion. They have unofficially de-criminalized adultery and eased the implementation of the pertinent sanctions and punishment statutory laws, even when lawsuits are launched and offenders are caught red-handed. Nevertheless, religions, theocracies and fundamental regimes still regard it as a crime and equate it including sodomy and apostasy with grave mortal sins and evil concupiscence. In these countries, even holding hands, kissing, courting and flirting fall within the same category as that of “adultery” and “fornication“; notwithstanding which is which, they still carry their ostracizing prescribed procedural religious death punishments methods. In certain instances, these countries suspend death laws and impose mutilations, jail time and/or monetary fines.
All religions and countries regardless of their laws define “adultery” (a man penetrates a woman with his penis (coitus) or (sodomy) as the illicit intercourse outside of marriage, whether going on or transient or one time stand, between a married or single man and a married or single woman. Adultery is inferred when using these catchphrases: “criminal conversation=common marriages”, “alienation of affection”, “crime against marriage”, and “conjugal infidelity” or “philandary” among others, and let us not forget the unofficial unwritten “common marriages” and “open marriages” practices. The illicit intercourse between a man and a woman whether either or both are married, including legally divorced or widowed individuals falls under fornication, debauchery, harlotry and prostitution. Many countries consider the married person as only committing adultery, but if both were separately married, then both have committed separate acts of adultery.
“But whoso commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding: he that does it destroys his own soul. A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away” (Prov 6:32-33).
Adultery’s laws are an integral part of the jurisdiction of fault-based religious and civil family laws. History books tell us that the husband in the then Roman Empire often took advantage of his legal immunity vis-à-vis adultery’ laws. The secular laws were often echoing the religious ones, where the woman is the property of a man, thus she is inferior to man, and the consequences of her committing adultery or fornication is criminally dishonoring her owner, which becomes grounds for the “honor killing” permissible and recommended as a swift retribution upon the adulterous female. Even in the USA, Texas had laws allowing the killing of the wife and the lover if caught in the act of adultery. This law was repealed in 1974. Once again, we see if the man catches his wife, what about if the wife catches the husband?
It seems there is no regard to breaking God’s laws, because what matters that she violated her husband and male members of his and her family’s rights of ownership. Many a time, the woman is slaughtered, gunned down or beaten to death, but the suitor lives because many consider the woman committing adultery but not her male suitor. The other consequences are summed up in unwanted pregnancies and bastardies, carrying or communicating diseases, and shaming of her family and society.
Honor and righteousness God has enshrined in each human being, but humans tend to violate their principles and commit statutory sex crimes by choosing evil over good, thus bringing dishonor and ostracism. Religions and societies regard these renegades together with those who yield to incestuous relationships, and they should, as public predators, criminal sex offenders and pedophiles.
Jewish and Muslim men among other heathen cultures have long benefited of their religions’ chauvinistic rules and prohibitions that favored them over women, where a man can give his wife a writ of divorce just for burning the food among other banal wrongdoings besides adultery in spite of their sacred books’ clear requirements that a husband should produce two witnesses of good reputation in Jewish courts and four witnesses in Islamic courts who will testify that the woman has committed adultery and caught red handed, do not often follow these legislations, leaving the woman under the mercy and conscience of her husband and his bought and bribed witnesses.
The other heartbreak is that while a man, in many religions and cultures, is allowed to have more than one wife, polygyny and polyandry are not afforded to women because of bastardies and confusion in parenthood of children and because the lineage’s purity of the children in the marriage will be sullied and tarnished.
The Arabs have a saying, “When a man commits adultery, he spits from the house to the street or the culprit woman’s house; when a woman commits adultery, she spits from the street to her house”, which is a sick reasoning because God created them equal in rights and choices. Confucius said: “Men and women’s natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them far apart.”. Contrary to the popular chauvinistic beliefs, a woman is not anatomically different than a man but she is different from a man in physiology and biology (the physical differences in gametes associated with the different sexes of an organism and body traits such as in their genitalia: a protruding larger size organ and more body hair in men while women have a cavity, protruding breasts, wider hips, and a menstrual cycle, et.). God equally asked both married man and woman (Exo 20:13) and by extension all humanity married or unmarried to be faithfully chaste and righteous, and to avoid coveting their neighbor’s husbands and wives, siblings and servant (Exo 20:17), and for unmarried to flee from lewdness, licentiousness, debauchery, promiscuity, lust and fornication.
This is another sick reasoning to reckon with: “Though destitute of virtue or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, yet a husband must be constantly worshiped as a god by a faithful wife …if a wife, proud of the greatness of her relatives or excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord (husband), the king shall cause her to be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many.” (Laws of Manu of ancient India, V, 154; VIII, 371).
“But we know that the law is good, if a man/woman use it lawfully” (1Tim 1:8)… “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world” (Tts 2:12).
These are but few examples of what is considered spiritually apostate and physically carnal adulteries from the Judeo-Christian statutes:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” (2Tim 4:3)… “An evil and adulterous generation (Jews &Christians) seeks after a sign” (Matt 12:39)…
“I am the Lord… None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: The nakedness of your father… mother … father’s wife … sister … brother …son, daughter, etc… You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter; neither shall you take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness… Moreover you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife, to defile yourself with her. You shall not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shall you lie with any beast to defile yourself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion” (Lev 18:6-23)… “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth: Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which are idolatry” (Col 3:5).
“Rejoice, O young man (and O young woman), in your youth; and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes: but know you that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh: for childhood and youth are vanities.” (Eccl 11:9-10)… “And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, “You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you.” (Luk 12:19-20). The same is in Psa 81:12; Jer 3:6, 8-9; Eze 16:32 and 1Cor 10:13.
It is worth mentioning that except when the Bible passage specifically addresses the particular gender for the action, sanction or portion, the use of man and woman separately in the many biblical passages applies indiscriminately, appropriately and simultaneously to both. God never requires chastity, righteousness and holiness from one on the expense of the other even in unequally yoked marriages. “It seems most unfair for a man to require from a wife the chastity he does not himself practice.” (Ulpian wrote in “Legal Maxim” as per William E.H. Lecky’ writings)… “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Luk 16:18).
What drives us to engage in all kinds of extramarital affairs committing adultery, including but not limited to unmarried folks who engage in transient and long term relationships based on implicit fidelity and commitment in common marriages? On the outside, adultery seems the lawn is greener and eye-catcher on the other side. Are secrecy and sense of adventure the driving buzz and force behind the thrill and the lure? These are but few that can wreck a marriage, collectively or separately: boredom, loneliness, stress, contentions, contempt, education, character, spouse’s or partner’s illnesses and diseases, wives and girlfriends’ menstrual indispositions, male impotence, female frigidity, infrequency of having sex, troubles in the couples’ bedrooms and/or household boardrooms due to unfulfilled sex life, money issues and/or rearing kids.
Adultery is in general ignited by the desire to re-experience the intensity of sex flame and convinces oneself as men that they still are studs, and for women, to make sure that they are still attractive and desirable. Is it triggered by pure jealousy, vengeance or economical aspirations; or finally and playfully pure lust and covetousness as in the more the merrier? While the list has a beginning but no end, God’s greatest mystery for our sexuality was and will always be a monogamous constructive more breathtaking pleasurable and not destructive relationship to avoid whatever triggers our lusting instincts and desires and causes our arousals and orgasms for someone else than our spouses.
“For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: To keep you from the evil woman/man, and from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman/man. Lust not after his/her beauty in your heart; neither let him/her take you with his/her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom; and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goes in to his neighbor’s wife; whosoever touches her shall not be innocent” (Prov 6:23-29).
This is my personal observation and assessment that the reason more men that women have extramarital affairs is perhaps they always long to go back to the tunnel through which they saw the first light of life, and to the bosom to nibble on the breast that fed them, and the warm and security they felt being held, cuddled and kissed; in other words, men will always be babies. For men and women to thrive, they love to be held, cuddled, kissed and caressed from their births to their death, they long for that physical innocent or sensuous contact. It is quite safe to conclude that humans are preloaded and pre-wired at the conception factory (their mothers’ wombs), cloned to carry their parents’ genes, with the itch of the power of love and the pleasures of sexuality and will intuitively learn how to scratch it to soothe its burning desires during the many slow process stages leading to adolescence where application and practice start.
God created us with the science and art of romance and courtship in our beans, genes and souls, and gave us genitalia to fit into each other to accomplish it through communicating effectively, passionately and properly with our sexuality, and to attain the one flesh fusion (Gen 2:24). There is a great difference between sex, which is often associated with physicality as well as cold pornographic negative connotations, servitude and perversions, and between God given sexuality, which is one of the highest forms of the art of experiencing the ultimate shared and reciprocated pleasures of spirituality then physicality between husband and wife. To ascertain that is it an art, all we have to do is to conclude from the 90% of paintings, sculptures, novels, plays, movies, poetries, lyrics, songs and music dealing with our evocative love and sexuality, yearning and burning, desiring and firing.
God made us team players: “I will make him/her a helper suitable for him/her” (Gen 2:18) in the exquisite and exclusive art of pair-bonding craving romance, happiness and success, which we should painstakingly learn and conscientiously earn. When aroused, men penile arteries stiffens once filled with blood and women’s vaginas and clitoris swell and engorge with the diverted blood which make us burn, itch and wild yet oxymoronically with mellow, soft, tender and loving touches and movements. Because of lusty flesh, we opted for sex not our God given sexuality; with sex, what is awful and awkward to one is pleasurable to another, be it having all kinds of premarital sex, extramarital affairs, sodomizing mankind, womankind and beasts or playing with oneself. Many create some kind of spiritual bond with their pets, and some engage physically in having sex with their pets and other animals in general, especially the snake, woman’s #1 enemy.
God created sex not only for humans to perform a job summed up mainly in the mysteries of the power of procreation, breeding and conception of offspring to ensure the continuity of mankind, but he also planned that there will be nonreproductive more steady life long sex episodes than having babies to keep the buzz and the thrill and to sustain couples’ spiritual, physical and emotional health and need for a life of commitment, togetherness and intimacy. He concentrated the desire for sex in the brain, hence the notion that 90% of sex is in the mind and the heart confirmed by Jesus when He said “That whosoever looks on (with mind’s eye) a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt 5:28). In the act of contrition, Christians repeat “… sinned in thoughts, words and deeds”.
God destined sexuality to be both pleasurable and fun through his science of biochemistry, so he equipped humans’ brains with neurotransmitter chemicals as well as our bodies, that are crucial in communicating between our brains and our genitalia to create excitement and arousals, to name few: oxytocin (the lubricants), dopamine, serotonin, nitric oxide, pheromones (dealing with responding to aromas), vasoactive intestinal & alpha melanocyte polypeptide stimulating hormones (adrenaline), dehydroepiandrostone, and estrogen, while hormones and testosterones for both men and women are the ultimate love steroids, to heighten the excitement and anticipation and to facilitate the rush of blood flow which will trigger the arousal, the erections and engorgements, and for women the secretion of fluids and body aromatic fragrances that make us fall in love and become love sick, love smitten, love struck, love obsessed and finally to be ready to experience and consummate climatically our sexual escapades.
Are male and female wired and programmed the same? Do they share the same chemicals that cause their lust, sexual desires, heavy breathing and sweating, arousals and orgasms? Studies have shown that both are psyched up differently but contrary to the beliefs held through history that testosterone was exclusively a male chemical and hormone was a female, they now believe male and female have hormones and testosterone, where rushing and gushing together dictate our actions and reactions. The other finding is contrary to the old belief, “Women lactate, men ejaculate“, they discovered that most women actually do both. I read that the American Procter and Gamble is marketing testosterone patches for women whose testosterone levels have decreased and lost their libido and for those who lost the urge to be sexually active.
“Yet your desire will be for your husband/wife” (Gen 3:16). To remain sexually active, couples must work on staying irresistibly lovable, desirable, and sensuous and I dare to add impulsively creative and inventive vis-à-vis approaches, ambiances and opportunities. Love and sex are an abstract sensation dead on arrival unless planned for a long journey of intimacy and togetherness to keep love alive and sex life exciting. Marriage is making sure that a personalized road map is created to abound in feelings, desires, atmospheres, motives and attitudes that can lead to a recurrent romantic ambience and rendezvous; in other words, recurrent lust for one another. Otherwise, couples lose interests in each other as sex becomes mechanical, and start taking detours looking elsewhere for that excitement they once felt and lived.
Companionship for life through love and passionate sex life will generate an enduring commitment to carry the couple through the years and beyond. Those are the ones who made of their good and bad lemons tasty refreshing lemonade. Marriage is like two raw pieces of iron that couples have to subject to intense heat of a roaring fire to smoothen out the edges and forge an ongoing alliance “Until death do us part”.
Studies have repeatedly shown that one of the main causes in scopes and ranges of broken marriages, even more than lack of sex, is silent treatment or monologues. For marriage to succeed there must be a continuous dialogue and open discussion to find solutions for all short and long term issues. No one can have argument from silence because silence breeds alienation and distancing, disaffection and hostilities, contentions and conflicts. The end result indifference and passivity creep in leading to dreadful if not tragic scenarios to include divorce and murder.
We are intuitively hotwired to know how to romantically express our sexual desires verbally, manipulatively, evocatively or seductively with words, gifts, eying and/or body language; and it is safe to say that there is no right and wrong way to do it because we are encouraged in marriage to bare our souls besides baring our bodies; the bottom line is to shout from the highest mountain, “I love you … I want you … I can’t live without you… you are my love and life …“. If the way we express our desires comes across in an awkward fashion, it does not necessarily diminish the intensity and sincerity of our love and desires. A friend of mine told me once, “I tell my wife about ten times a day that I love her, but she tells me once a month … I do not see unbalance, because she says it daily in hundreds of other ways.” Is “I love you” requires a formal retort of mechanical cliché “I love too” or “Me too“?
How about spicing it up once a while to “I desire you“, “I adore you“, ” you are so beautiful, gorgeous, ravishing, sexy, or you are a heartthrob, my pride“, “I want you and I want you now“. “You are my life … my sunshine, my only sunshine … my paradise … you are my every thing“. Or a husband telling his wife, “I am only a vase, and my vase shines because you are the only rose I want there, so that I can water you with kisses, I caress you with hugs and make you to blossom with love“. Or “Having you and your love gave meaning to my life, without you I was lost“. “I can’t imagine living without you“, “I can not tell you how appreciative I am you came into my life and for being my love and lover, my friend and mate, my partner and partaker“. “My heart aches for you, my mind think of you, and all my body longs for you“. “I could not wait to be with you and hold you in my arms“.
Some say that nothing can replace the pleasures of genital manipulation and union; I do agree on the principle but disagree on the message, because no human is a sex machine 24 hours but blood and flesh, body and bones, mind and soul. Scientists confirm that the neuro-transmitters chemicals epinephrine and norepinephrine increase our blood-plasma levels during sexual activities and may remain elevated up to 23 hours after, as it is said that “no day or night is wasted if it makes a memory“. What is more pleasant memory than to have been with the beloved in a breathtaking sexual joint venture?
The physical union is temporary and sporadic while the spiritual and emotional ones are 24/7/365, because every human will long, think and be preoccupied with the beloved 24/7/365. It is a reality that uttering loving words, darting sensuous looks, taking a walk holding hands, leaning on each other, or holding and passionately embracing and kissing each other on the couch or in bed, or in the park can be spiritually and physically as fulfilling and orgasmic sexual release and relieve as if having a full pledged physical intercourse, because it is the basis of long lasting marriages due to the attachment, closeness, togetherness, devotion, and constant yearning to be with the beloved.
The tenderness and eagerness of the uttered words, the exchanged looks, the suggestive and emitted vibes the couple masters to dart and initiate for making love are the spiritual transmitters that lead to that glorious celebration of the immeasurable and exhilarating gifts of God given sexuality in the loving and awe-inspiring desire-filled physical relationship. Love making is often spontaneous triggered by visual stimuli of what we see in and from the beloved’s verbal and physical suggestive signs, consciously or unconsciously, like surprising a spouse taking a shower, or asleep half naked or the way he/she sits, dresses, dances, etc.; in other instances, while it is sometimes pre-planned, it is subliminally understood and expected after hearing great news, after a night out, during romantic getaways, holidays and weekends, among many others.
“Love is blind” is not really a clichéd saying without any weight or truth because it proved to be the basis of many marriages and relationships’ failures and brokenness. Love is equated with charity in the Bible, so it is a charitable endeavor where a spouse renounces his/her personal liberty and needs and comfort for those they love and cherish and had vowed to protect and redeem. Love is also equated with affection and sympathy. I am reminded of the possessive and jealous love of the giant ape King Kong to the girl Anne Darrow (Naomi Watts) that showed him compassion and sympathy, so he went on a destruction spree until he was killed leaving the girl crying in horror and lamenting his tragic end. I am also reminded as well of Victor Hugo’s story of “Hunchback of Notre Dame” where Quasimodo, the crowned pope of fools, falls for Esméralda, the beautiful 16 years old gypsy girl. He only gave her water to drink to quench her thirst while she was tied down in the heat. Because of love, compassion and sympathy, he risked his life. After Esméralda execution and burial, Quasimodo goes to her grave, lies next to her and dies.
Falling in love is rarely a pre-planned well prepared occurrence as it is often an accidental and coincidental event, so is adultery. It should never be an obsequious undertaking as God’s plan and intent were to always be an evenly assertive complimentary and complementary heartwarming and enjoyable joint venture. Falling in love and love in marriage are never an utopian and platonic feeling as its reactionary reality and actuality are rooted in approachability and accessibility, ability and availability, attainability and sustainability while exploring its adaptability and accountability through harmonious compatibility and shared duty and responsibility utilizing all the faculties, capacities and capabilities to singe the vaults of our brains, the roofs of our mouths, and cavities of our hearts and guts while invigorating it and making it prevail and survive.
When a spouse commits adultery and defiles his/her wedlock, he/she forces his/her better half to become his/her bitter half, whether because of jealousy and inadequacy, “what the other has or does that I don’t have or do” followed by the feeling of being deceived, cheated, belittled, and rejected. And finally the cheated party comes to the conclusion that he/she is marginalized and unwanted, as if less than a real man or real woman. In the majority of the cases, adultery becomes the most valid ground for divorce. Someone once said, “Look before you leap, divorces and failures are never cheap.” As a matter of fact, it is much cheaper and rewarding to stick to your spouse than to have a partner in adultery crime, where your time and money, besides the momentary pleasures, are wasted in the web of anxiety, fear and guilt because they chose to purchase a temporary distraction to adultery theme park. While engaging in extramarital affairs, some are extremely nice to their spouses to hide their infidelity, most probably because they have no intention of ever divorcing, while others behave ferociously abusing their spouses to get divorced.
In our era where both spouses commute and work, possibly different times, shifts and lengths, they might have to slot sex in their busy and even hectic schedules, but the frequency of having sex remains erratically personal and impulsive. If those engaging in illicit extramarital affairs reserve the same attention, time and emotions they shower their lover with and stream them towards their spouses, adultery becomes a rarity and not the norm as in our present world. Regardless of how frequent one engages in actual sex, the majority of us think of it far more than we do it. Thinking of and having sex in itself generates all kinds of intensities, be it anticipated or actual physical and emotional feelings and sensations, pleasures and delights, to end with intense climactic orgasms, which only last for few seconds, but the ensuing intense pleasures will reverberate the rest of our day and/or night as we relive, re-sense and re-visualize the intensity of the pleasurable experience in longing for many more.
I leave you with these thoughts to ponder and digest:
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (1John 4:18).
Love Language
Love rises above petty annoyances.
Love creates sincere friendship, warm tenderness, conscious caring, mutual understanding, ardent passion, unfettered loyalty, generous soul and spirit, with kind heart.
Love is the delightful tremors and desires of the initial stages of sexual attraction, yearning and longing.
Love is the beauty of two halves making one body by infusing two souls.
Love needs constant nursing … Love is nurture not torture …
With Love, you discover faults and lovingly and tactfully correct them … With Love, you offer yourself a sacrifice on its altar, and your lover will erect for you a shrine to be idolized, adored, worshiped and redeemed.
In Love, you quarrel and disagree expressing the inner desires of your soul, but the body through the heart is ready and willing to forgive and forget and conquer back that spark and flame of closeness and attachment.
Love … is a labor without respite or repose,
Love … is repose within labor,
Love … is a pleasing and condescending madness,
Love … is hunger without surfeit,
And Love … that unquenchable thirst and fire.
No matter which of you is the culprit
I beg of you to reconcile and
Give GOD… LOVE, LIFE, SEX and PEACE a chance
Please … Please… Don’t give up