Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E5: 5 Myths About Sex

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E5: 5 Myths About Sex · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
Hi everyone, Welcome to the Lila Rose Show.
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This is Lila Rose, and today we're going to be talking about
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sex myths. Yes, myths that have to do with
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sex that I think are maybe not always explicitly stated in
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today's culture, in today's world, but I think underlie or
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are at the bottom of a lot of misconceptions,
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misunderstandings around sex. This is a topic that is a little
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mature. It is mature.
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So if you're listening to it and you're in a car with kids, I
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know some moms listen to this podcast.
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Just keep that in mind. It might be something you want
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to listen to later. I'm not going to get explicit or
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graphic, but I will be talking about something that is a mature
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topic. I think it is something though,
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that teenagers, all young people, and whether you're
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you're teen, you're in your 20s, people that are at any age, I
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think it's something that is worth us thinking about and
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talking about more. And the perspective I'm going to
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be sharing today is of course, coming from someone who's a
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young woman, somebody obviously a recent newlywed, somebody that
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has a lot of opinions about matters like this one.
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And I hope that this episode gives you something to think
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about. Of course, at any time.
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I love to hear thoughts and feedback from folks, so if you
1:16
do have feedback for me or thoughts about this episode,
1:21
please e-mail thoughts at lilaroseshow.com or you can
1:24
always direct message me on Instagram or leave a comment.
1:27
I try to get back to almost everyone.
1:30
Sometimes it takes me a little while, but I love getting
1:32
messages from you guys. All right, So that being said,
1:35
this episode is going to be on sex myths.
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There are actually 5 myths about sex that I want to get into
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today. And the context here is look,
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there's a lot of there are a lot of news articles, TV shows, it
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just in common culture like even open Instagram.
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And there's a lot being said or communicated about sex.
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Just this last week that Teen Vogue, which I don't know if any
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of you guys actually read Teen Vogue, but some people do and
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some very young teens read Teen Vogue.
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In fact, very young girls read Teen Vogue.
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Teen Vogue tweeted an article saying that sex work is real
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work, meaning prostitution or sex trafficking if you're a
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minor is real work. So it's written by someone
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trying to justify being selling your body for sex as something
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that is a good thing and just a great noble profession just like
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any other. I got really upset when I saw
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this because it's Teen Vogue. First of all, these are these
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are young girls. Many of them are minors.
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They're below the age of consent.
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That means that legally they can't consent to sex.
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So there's no such thing as prostitution for an underage
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girl. That's called sex trafficking.
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So I say that to say even Teen Vogue, which is sadly, I mean,
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they used to be more mainstream than they are now.
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They're getting more and more fringy and more and more leftist
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and more and more insane. But even they are trying to
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promote very false, blatantly false and dangerous ideas about
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sex, and they're trying to do it to vulnerable audiences.
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There's also an article in the last several months by The
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Atlantic. There's actually a few of these.
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I'm going to be referencing The Atlantic a couple times in this
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episode because they've been doing some really interesting
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research, or at least they're reporting on interesting
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research that's been done on sex in the last several years.
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But they've reported on something that they call the sex
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recession. So they're referencing studies
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that say that people in their early 20s or 2 1/2 early 20s
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today, So today people in their early 20s, so maybe a lot of you
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guys listening, people in their early 20s are 2 1/2 times as
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likely to be abstinent as Gen. Xers were at that age. 15%
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report having had no sex since they reached adult hood.
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So this is saying that there is a trend right now for people to
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have less sex. And I'm not going to be directly
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answering that question or exploring that question in
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today's sex myths episode. I will maybe get into it in the
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future. But the point here is our our
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behavior towards sex is changing.
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I think our understanding of sex is very, very challenge.
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I think a lot of people today think about sex, whether through
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the lens of something like the Me Too movement, or they think
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about sex just as this purely biological function.
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Or maybe sex is something that is seen as just like it has a
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lot of baggage attached to it. And I hope that the sex myths
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that I chose to discuss today will help to give you some food
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for thought. So first of all, the first myth
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that I get really upset about when I see it presented or
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seemingly presented in media is this idea that sex is just about
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consent. That as long as there's consent,
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then you're good. Then then that's, that is that
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is really the, the key to sex. And this is a lot to do with the
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Me Too movement in the last few years.
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So as many of you know, Me Too, I think it was launched last
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year or maybe it's been 2 years, but Me Too was launched because
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of just the increasing rate of sexual assault and abuse and
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harassment that is all over our world today.
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And I have a lot of theories about that.
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I think it has to do a lot with just the way we objectify each
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other. I mean, think about it, porn is
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so prevalent and it's so used by so many people.
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How is it so difficult to go from objectifying a, a nameless
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woman on a, on a screen to then objectifying someone in the
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workplace? So I just think there's this
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culture objectification, not just with porn, but with more
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pornographic TV shows or even with billboards that are heavily
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sexualizing and objectifying women, all of this.
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So Me Too was a response to that.
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I think that some of the intentions there were really
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good. And I and I, you know, know,
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people personally who have experienced sexual abuse,
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assault, it's everywhere. It's something that is so
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horrific. Well, the solution I've heard
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from a lot of feminists and a lot of journalists and a lot of
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people who promote the Me Too movement or who have been
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speaking out against it is that we need consent.
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You need to be able to consent and then you have groups
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explaining what consent means. You know this is when your your
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yes is required before every step of the sexual process.
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You need to say yes, you need to verbally consent and you need to
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be fully present. So first of all, I agree that
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absolutely anybody who has sex should have consented 100%.
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So yes, you should not. And nobody should endure any
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kind of sexual harassment or abuse.
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Absolutely not. We have the right, we have the
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freedom, we should have the freedom to decide when and with
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whom to have sex. I think that that is ultimately
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a decision that we should make. It should, I think, be something
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that we make through moral decision making, through a lot
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of discussion and understanding and discretion based on moral
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laws that we're trying to follow.
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I think sex does have morality attached to it.
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And obviously I think many of, you know, I believe that sex is
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for marriage, but I'm going to get more to that in a minute.
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But the bottom line here is I think that sex is, yes, it's
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about consent, but it's about a whole lot more.
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The bottom line is consent is not enough.
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And we know this because look, I mean, I remember in college
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girls that I knew who would sleep with a guy.
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Maybe they didn't know him very well.
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Maybe they just met him. Maybe they met him at a party.
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And yes, they consented, but they're not happy when they get
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up in the morning. They're not happy at in the
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aftermath, they were not happy with that experience.
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The consent didn't make their sex great.
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So sex does not equal great sex. Sex consent does not equal great
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sex. Consent does not mean all of a
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sudden you are satisfied and sex is has this the right role in
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your life. And I think that's really
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important because there is a lot being said about consent.
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It's being discussed. And I think that there's a lot
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of fear now around sex and there should be fear as far as respect
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for other people. But I think that this just in a
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way cheapens sex and makes it just about this consent, almost
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like this agreement that we make with another person as opposed
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to a relationship, as opposed to the reality that sex is
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incredibly bonding and personal. And especially for women, it's
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psychological. I mean, it's psychological for
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men and women. And we want, what are we wired
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for? Human beings are wired for
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relationship. We're wired for for love.
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We're wired for trust. We're wired for sacrifice.
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We're wired for lifelong relationships.
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And this idea that sex exists in a vacuum, separate from our
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desire for relationship, I think is really harmful.
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And that's where I think this myth that sex is just about
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consent. As long as you consent, you
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know, you're good to do whatever.
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I don't think that actually makes us happy.
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It actually serves us. It's actually the right thing
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for us or for anybody that we may choose to have sex with.
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So that's number one. Sex is just about consent.
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Yes, of course, it has to include consent, but it's not
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enough. Sex is about a whole lot more
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than consent. We'll be exploring a little bit
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more of that when I discuss these other myths, All right?
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Myth #2 myth #2 sex is just about physical, fleeting
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pleasure, right? I mean, you may have heard
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different versions of this. Like sex is just a physical
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thing. It's a biological urge.
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Everybody has it. And, you know, that's why we
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have to have sex. And don't be.
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So don't be so rigid about it. That's what sex is.
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Well, yes, of course sex is about physical pleasure.
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Sex includes physical pleasure, but sex is also not just
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physical pleasure. Because if you follow that to
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its logical conclusion and it's really just about this momentary
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experience of intense pleasure, you don't even need another
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person for that. And unfortunately, a lot of
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people today are focused through because of the rise of
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pornography and because of a lot of the isolation and fear around
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relationships and people just not understanding the role and
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the purpose of sex in their lives and just loneliness and
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all these things. If people aren't even having sex
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anymore, according to The Atlantic, we're basically having
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sex with ourselves. I mean, that's what pornography
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provides for. And that's not actually
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satisfied on an emotional, psychological, spiritual level
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because it's just about this moment of pleasure.
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It's like when you eat that whole bin of ice cream and it's
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amazing, but you don't really feel good afterwards.
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You might feel sick and you regret it the next day because
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you're like, shoot, you know, that was not part of my
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nutritional plan. You know, now I'm all with
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eating the ice cream and I think pleasure measures a beautiful
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gift. I think it's a gift that we've
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been given that we should enjoy, but I think that it has to be
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enjoyed in the right context. It's like you eat your ice cream
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after dinner. I mean, you don't always have to
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eat your ice cream after dinner. That that's not a hard and fast
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rule, of course. But I think with sex, because
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it's so incredibly personal, it's so incredibly powerful and
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it involves more than just an A moment of physical pleasure or
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moments of physical pleasure. It involves your your emotions,
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your psychology. I mean, I think it's meant to
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involve those things. I think for men, it may be
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easier at times to separate and to kind of compartmentalize, but
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for women, it absolutely involves our psychology, our
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emotions. And I think for men and women,
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100% it involves our spirituality, our moral decision
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making. It's who we have sex with.
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It's how we treat them before and after.
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It's, it's how who they are to us.
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Is this someone we just met at a party and now we're having sex
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with them just to, just to feel an urge to answer an urge or a
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desire? Or is this someone that we, we
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love, We've, we've committed to, we've sacrificed to and we want
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to, we've, we've pledged our life to, we're married to.
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I mean, that is very different kinds of sex.
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And both have, both May have pleasure, but one of them has a
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much more deeper and lasting, you could say pleasure or joy.
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Something greater than pleasure, which is joy because you know
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that this is someone that you're uniting yourself to.
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I think the other part of this too is, look, sex can create
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children, as we all know, and there's no perfect contraceptive
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method. That reality is sex can bring
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life into the world. And when you're just having sex
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with anybody for any reason, and it's not that lifelong committed
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marriage that that that spouse for life, then you're also
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risking something where you're opening yourself up to this
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incredible intimacy that can bring a new human soul, precious
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soul into the world. And it's with someone that you
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hardly know or that someone that you don't want to be with
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lifelong or you don't trust and you don't actually want to see
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for the rest of your life. So these are all, I think, key
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things to consider because sex is more than about momentary or
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moments of fleeting physical pleasure.
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It's about so much more. And from a spiritual
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perspective, it's actually about, I believe spiritual
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bonding. Your, your body is, is sending a
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spiritual math message of unity to the other person.
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It's a physical unity, but it's also the potential for a
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spiritual unity. And when those two are combined,
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that's when both are strengthened.
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And that's when you're, you know, if you're married, sex is
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a way to bring you 2 together because you're uniting
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yourselves physically as you are united spiritually and
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emotionally for the rest of your lives.
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So yes #2 sex is just about momentary physical pleasure.
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It's just a biological urge. Yeah, it, it does include
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biological urges. It does include physical
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pleasure and momentary, momentary physical pleasure.
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But it's about a lot more than that.
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All right #3 sex is safe with contraception.
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Have you heard about safe sex? You probably heard about it
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because it's something that is taught in classrooms today and
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it's something that's discussed in most women's or, you know,
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teen mags. And it's something that is
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talked about in politics. And it's this idea that you can
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make safe set, you can make sex quote UN quote, safe as long as
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you use contraception. So a few things here.
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First of all, let's unpack that. If you use contraception, let's
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talk about hormonal contraception for a moment.
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So what women usually are told to use by their doctors or
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they're put on from young ages, sometimes it's not even as a
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contraceptive, it's to treat other conditions.
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Sometimes it is as a kind of more often it is as a
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contraceptive. It's called healthcare.
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This is essential for women. Well, hormonal contraception
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does nothing to protect us from any sexually transmitted
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infection. So it doesn't protect us from
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any. SD is it is designed to prevent
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pregnancy, but the reality is it does not do 100% job of
14:14
preventing pregnancy. That is the reality.
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That's why according to Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion
14:20
chain, So they do research on this.
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Their own research arm is called Guttmacher.
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According to them, over half, so 51% of their patients as they
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say. So people that come into their
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facilities for abortion in the United States said that they had
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been using a contraceptive method in the month before they
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became pregnant. So what this is saying is half
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of the people who are getting abortions today, according to
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Planned Parenthood themselves, basically their research on
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Guttmacher Institute, were on some form of contraception.
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Contraception does not quote UN quote, keep you safe from
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pregnancy. And by the way, I don't like
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this idea that you need to be kept safe from pregnancy.
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A child is not this like horrific animal that's coming,
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going to come and attack you. And a child is this beautiful
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soul and this gift from God that is a natural result of sex can
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be a natural result of sex. So this idea that you're safe
15:13
with contraception because you won't get pregnant is false.
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This idea that hormonal contraception is going to
15:18
prevent you from STI's sexually transmitted infections is
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completely false. It does not that and even
15:23
condoms or barrier methods as they call them, do not protect
15:27
you from herpes. Sorry to be so explicit here
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again, if you got, if you're a mom listening with small kids,
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we're just we're talking about this.
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We're not going to be super explicit, but these are the
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facts. Barrier methods.
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Condoms do not protect you from herpes, genital warts, syphilis,
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etcetera, which are spread through skin to skin contact.
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So this idea that you are safe if you use contraception is a
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lie. You are not safe from disease.
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You're not quote UN quote, safe from pregnancy.
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Although I hate that concept, I think it's a really wrongful
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concept. A child is totally innocent and
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defenseless and tiny and needs, needs to be safe.
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With our protection. We're the ones that need to keep
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the child safe. It's not like we need to be kept
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safe from the child. All that being said, there's no
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such thing as 100% safe sex. Now, if you want safe as far as
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trusting, loving, beautiful, committed sex, that's called
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marriage, that's called you dating and finding someone and,
16:28
and getting to know them that shares your values that you can
16:31
trust. You get to know their families.
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I mean, I did a whole episode on dating and some of you guys have
16:35
listened to it, but that is somebody that you commit your
16:38
life to, you marry, you pledge yourself to in front of front of
16:41
God, in front of your family and friends.
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And then you have, I think in that situation, as far as you're
16:47
considered emotionally, physically, mentally in every
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way, that is the safest. If you want to talk about
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protection from the heartache, protection from diseases, from
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multiple partners, sexual partners, protection from not
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being ready to be a mother or a father because you went into it,
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because you're preparing to be a mother or father, that is truly
17:07
safe. If there's such a thing as safe
17:09
sex, it's actually in a marriage where you are open to life.
17:12
You are prepared to love this person for the rest of your
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life. You ideally avoided having sex
17:18
as much as you could or were even avoided any sex beforehand.
17:21
So you don't have AIS or STD's to give your, your spouse.
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That is the safest situation. Not everybody is going to
17:29
experience that because of mistakes we've made in our past.
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But our past doesn't need to be our present or our future.
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So no matter what we've done in the past here we've been
17:37
practicing, you know, actually unsafe, quote UN quote safe sex.
17:40
That's, that doesn't need to be our future.
17:42
That can be our past. And the reality here is there is
17:45
no such thing as quote UN quote safe sex because contraception
17:48
does not keep you safe physically.
17:50
Contraception also does not keep you safe emotionally or
17:54
psychologically, because look, a sexual relationship.
17:58
Having sex with someone is not just as myth #2 it's not just a
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biological urge. It's not just a momentary
18:03
physical pleasure. It has lasting impact on our
18:05
psyche. It has lasting impact on our
18:07
emotions. We actually bond with that
18:10
person physically. Oxytocin, a hormone, is passed
18:12
between us. It actually creates this intense
18:14
bonding with that person that lasts long after we've had sex
18:17
with them. These are the realities
18:21
physically and emotionally around sex.
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And that is why this idea of safe sex if you just use a
18:27
condom or you use you're just on hormonal contraception is really
18:30
harmful and wrong. One other quick note, I was
18:33
recently, I've gotten a lot of Twitter fights about this, but
18:37
look, contraception, hormonal contraception, which so many
18:40
women are given as quote UN quote healthcare.
18:43
And I'm not talking about hormones that are used to treat
18:46
another health condition, although I think that I have a
18:48
lot of opinions on that too. But I think that when we look at
18:53
our bodies and we look at our fertility as something that
18:56
needs to be medicated, like fertility is a sign of health.
18:58
It means our body is working. Some doctors, I've heard call it
19:01
the 6th vital sign. This, when we look at our bodies
19:06
and their fertility as something that needs to be suppressed with
19:08
artificial hormones, I don't think that's good for our long
19:12
term health. And we know that because of the
19:14
studies and the research that's been done on hormonal
19:16
contraceptives and the, and the harm and the damage they can do
19:18
to women's bodies. But can they?
19:20
What they can do to us mentally? They can cause depression, they
19:22
can cause anxiety, they can cause cancer, they can cause
19:24
stroke. I mean, they're all these health
19:27
effects, consequences that they can cause, and yet we're being
19:30
told it's safe to use them and you should.
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So I think that's another element of this that is very
19:36
frustrating to me when I see it constantly being communicated in
19:39
media, by politicians, et cetera.
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All right, so that's myth #3 that sex is safe as long as you
19:44
use contraception. There's no such thing as quote,
19:47
UN quote safe. And if you want to be actually
19:50
safe in the sense that secure, secure, you're in a trusting,
19:53
loving, lifelong relationship and you're actually on the same
19:57
page with your spouse about being open to life.
19:59
So a baby isn't going to destroy your, your, your moment of, of
20:03
reality that you think, wow, this is actually something I'm
20:06
preparing to do with this spouse that I want to be the father or
20:09
the mother of my children. Then all of a sudden that that
20:12
is the most quote UN quote secure.
20:14
I would call is a better word secure.
20:16
Sexual relationship in a marriage, in a loving marriage.
20:19
All right #4 sex is independent of children.
20:24
You may, I mean, this is, it's kind of funny because this is, I
20:27
think everywhere sex is presented in the context of just
20:30
something that you do when you're single or when you're,
20:34
when you're dating or whatever you want to do with a boyfriend
20:36
or whomever you want to do it with.
20:38
And that it is something that you just, you know, you do it on
20:42
your own terms, whatever lifestyle you have, and children
20:45
should not result from it, period.
20:47
As long as, of course, this is myth #3 you're practicing the
20:50
quote UN quote, safe sex. Well, look, the reality is sex
20:56
naturally can create children. That's how children, I mean,
20:59
this is kind of sex education 101.
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That's how children are conceived is after having sex,
21:05
pregnancy. It happens.
21:07
And pregnancy happens because people have sex.
21:09
It doesn't happen because you're walking down the street and all
21:12
of a sudden magically you get pregnant.
21:14
You're you're, you get pregnant because you have sex.
21:17
And this idea of completely disconnecting procreation,
21:21
bringing children into the world from sex, I think has really
21:24
done a huge disservice to everybody.
21:27
It's a huge disservice to everybody.
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And I know that for a fact because of the abortion rate.
21:30
I mean, we have nearly 1,000,000 abortions, 1,000,000 abortions
21:35
happen in our country every single year.
21:38
And these are because of they say, quote UN quote, unexpected
21:41
or unintended pregnancy. Well, actually, if you're
21:45
properly educated, you should not.
21:48
I think you're getting pregnant unexpectedly, or it should be
21:51
unintended because you should know that sex can bring human
21:54
beings into the world. And that is part of your
21:57
decision making about when and with whom you have sex is that
22:00
you're not going to have sex before you're ready for
22:02
children. And you're also not going to
22:04
have sex with someone that you don't want to be the mother or
22:06
the father of your children. And I think if we reconnect sex
22:10
to children, and that doesn't mean every single time you have
22:13
sex, you can have a baby because that just isn't physically the
22:16
reality. Women's bodies are only fertile
22:18
a few days a month. Men are always fertile.
22:21
Women are only fertile if they're healthy anyways.
22:24
Women are only fertile a few days a month.
22:26
But the reality is when we're having sex, that should be part
22:29
of the equation is that this can bring life into the world.
22:32
And that should not be seen as, I mean, yes, it's something that
22:34
is very intense and huge. I mean, a new soul into the
22:38
world world. But it shouldn't be seen as
22:40
something completely independent of sex.
22:43
Because if we separate the two in our minds and in our culture
22:46
and in our conversations and in how we approach sex and in
22:49
everything else in our relationships, we're going to
22:51
deal with a lot of these quote UN quote, unexpected
22:55
pregnancies. Like we have no idea where this
22:57
child came from. Well, they came from sex and
23:00
coming from this other person that you had sex with, you
23:02
joined your body with. And that means because our
23:05
mentality is so separate, separating of sex and children,
23:09
that means abortion is going to look really attractive to a lot
23:11
of people. And that's going to mean a lot
23:12
of deaths for a lot of children, a lot of trauma for a lot of
23:15
women and a lot of men, and a lot of broken relationships.
23:19
That is not setting us up for happiness or success.
23:22
So I think we need to reconnect sex with children.
23:25
We need to reconnect the reality that sex can bring life and it
23:30
is how life is brought into this world.
23:31
And that's a beautiful thing. That's a good thing.
23:33
It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
23:36
And that we should approach sex with that respect and even that
23:41
reverence that this is not just a physical moment of pleasure.
23:44
This is not just about consent. This is not just about, you
23:47
know, what we want in the moment, but this is about
23:50
potentially a lifetime of relationships, whether it's with
23:54
the person having sex with or the life we could bring into the
23:57
world. And so we approach it with the
23:59
responsibility and the seriousness.
24:01
It's really the seriousness that it deserves.
24:04
Now, that doesn't mean that sex isn't fun and amazing.
24:06
And it's not, you know, serious in the sense that it's all I'm
24:10
so serious all the time. I mean, I'm married now and sex
24:14
is an amazing, fun, wonderful thing.
24:16
But it's so wonderful and amazing and fun because this is
24:18
a man that I've dated, I've gotten to know, I've chosen
24:22
freely to marry to unite myself with physically, emotionally,
24:26
spiritually in every way and who I want to be the father of my
24:29
children. And thank God he is now, you
24:32
know, I'm pregnant and we're so excited about it.
24:34
Yes, it's, it's this huge, in many ways, overwhelming thing
24:37
because, you know, I think many people, they feel, wow, I, I
24:41
don't know if I'm ever ready to be a parent because it's such a
24:43
huge responsibility, but it is also such an incredible,
24:47
incredible blessing and gift. And if we approach it with that
24:50
reverence, I think we're going to be a lot happier and
24:54
healthier overall. So this idea that sex is
24:57
independent of children, not true sex has very much to do
25:00
with children. And that's not a bad thing.
25:03
All right, the last one, the last one is monogamy isn't
25:07
natural. You may have seen, I mean,
25:09
there's that there's shows, I don't know which network does
25:13
it, but the polygamy Sister Wives show, you may have heard
25:17
of it. This idea that look, it's not
25:19
natural, you know, for men to have only one woman.
25:23
It's not natural for, you know, people to have only one sexual
25:26
partner. You got to experiment.
25:28
You got to try different things on whatever, right?
25:30
Look, the word natural has to do with the concept of our nature,
25:34
our human nature. What is the deepest human
25:37
desire? I think the deepest human desire
25:39
in this would be what Viktor Frankel would say, a
25:42
psychiatrist who was also a a, a Jew who was actually in
25:46
concentration camps during the Holocaust.
25:48
And he wrote Man's Search for meaning.
25:50
This is the, I think, underlying principle of most world
25:53
religions. It's certainly of Christianity.
25:55
But our deeper deepest desire is to to live out our truest
25:59
meaning. And as a Christian, I believe
26:01
that's to bring glory to God and to be forever in union with God,
26:04
to be loved and to love God, and then also all of the other
26:08
persons that he has created and all of humanity and to be in
26:11
heaven forever with the angels of the states.
26:13
OK, a little bit of a, a rabbit trail there.
26:16
But my point here is another way to say this.
26:18
We, we, we desire meaning. We desire true meaning as human
26:22
beings. We desire for something outside
26:24
of ourselves. We actually desire for
26:25
communion, for communion with other people is how we find our
26:30
deepest meaning. So this idea that we just desire
26:33
to have sex and that's like our urge.
26:35
And so that's what our human nature is, to just have it with
26:37
whomever is actually, yes, it's true.
26:39
As far as we do desire sex, we do have that biological urge,
26:43
but we want something much deeper as humans and our human
26:46
nature wants for us. It it, it, it, it guides us to,
26:50
it wants us to when it's not broken and corrupted and
26:53
miseducated by all the pain and the and the sin and the and the
26:56
brokenness in the world. But it wants us to discover
27:00
meaning in loving others and being loved by them.
27:05
And the beautiful, most secure, most in, I shouldn't say most,
27:12
but one of the most beautiful examples of that because I think
27:15
any human relationship can have a lot of beauty and true
27:17
sacrificial love of parent and their child.
27:20
A, you know, a, a, a priest and their congregation, a brother
27:25
and a sister, a friend and a friend.
27:27
But a marriage is this intense friendship between two people
27:31
who are also uniting themselves physically for life and open to
27:35
a family. And I think our deepest desire
27:38
as humans is for meaning, is for communion, is for communion with
27:41
others. It's not just biological urges.
27:44
And when we order, when we make our decisions based on what is
27:47
our deepest desire instead of what is our immediate desire,
27:50
this is a really important point.
27:52
When we understand our nature, not based on what our immediate
27:56
desire is, our fleeting desire, our temporary desire, but based
28:00
on our deepest desire. When we get to understand
28:03
ourselves, when we have self-awareness, when we really
28:06
delve into our own hearts and souls, we discover that our
28:09
deepest meaning is not for momentary pleasure.
28:12
That actually doesn't make us happy.
28:13
It makes us sad. It makes us, it doesn't make us
28:16
happy the next day, especially if it's pursued at the cost of
28:20
the deeper desire which is for union.
28:23
And look, The Atlantic, I mentioned them earlier, they've
28:26
done a lot of reporting on this and the studies about it, but
28:29
they've found that that Americans, and this is one
28:33
study, for example, Americans who have only ever slept with
28:38
their spouses are most likely to report being in a happy
28:42
marriage. Meanwhile, the lowest odds of
28:44
marital happiness about 13 percentage points lower than the
28:48
one partner. Women belong to women who have
28:50
had 6 to 10 sexual partners in their lives.
28:52
Now, this is not necessarily causation, it's correlation.
28:55
But I think the key here is those that practice monogamy,
28:59
even to the point of not having sex with anyone until they got
29:02
married, they chose not to have sex with anyone until they got
29:05
married because they only wanted to have sex with their spouse.
29:07
They are, according to the statistics of studies, they are
29:11
actually in, quote UN quote, a very happy marriage, happier
29:15
than those that did not practice monogamy, or I should say
29:19
celibacy before marriage. Now, this doesn't mean that if
29:22
you didn't practice celibacy before marriage, you're, you're,
29:25
you're in, you know, there's no hope for you.
29:28
And you're, you know, too bad. Of course not, because look,
29:31
it's about our decision making and how we view the other
29:34
person. And we can, I believe, at any
29:37
moment change our life, change our trajectory and say, look,
29:40
that may be how I behaved in the past.
29:41
That's not how I want to behave in the future.
29:43
And I want to only have sex with my spouse that, that I want to
29:46
be the way that I live my life. And that means if I don't have a
29:50
spouse yet, I'm not having sex. I'm, I'm, I'm dating.
29:53
I'm looking to see if I want to even get married or who that
29:55
spouse could be. And then when I marry them, then
29:57
I will have my secure, lifelong sexual relationship with this
30:02
one person who I trust and I sacrifice for, and they
30:05
sacrifice for me. The research has also found that
30:09
even for men, there's still a dip in marital satisfaction
30:12
after one partner. So you might say, well, it's
30:14
just for women because they're so emotional and they approach
30:15
sex differently. Yes, there are differences in
30:17
how men and women approach sex, but not as is profound as you
30:21
might think. Men are affected too.
30:23
And men also experience a dip in marital satisfaction if they've
30:27
had more than one partner. Now, again, this is not
30:30
causation. It doesn't have to be that way.
30:32
And if there's a history that you have, you can change and you
30:35
can change the trajectory of your life.
30:37
But this is just saying statistically, for those that
30:39
approach sex this way, these are the numbers that bear out.
30:42
It also found that women with zero or one previous sex
30:45
partners before marriage were also the least likely to
30:48
divorce. Well, those with 10 or more were
30:51
the most likely. So it's saying monogamy actually
30:54
works really well. It's saying actually celibacy
30:57
actually works really well for those that want to have very
31:01
happy and faithful marriages that do not lead to divorce.
31:05
And I think that's what we want. I mean, look, if you do want to
31:09
be married, if that you feel is your calling, it's not
31:12
everybody's calling, but I think everybody wants to be with
31:15
someone that they can trust that they're that they're not
31:17
compared. That person's not comparing them
31:18
to past sexual partners, that this is someone that has really
31:24
practiced self-control and proven themselves to be able to
31:27
live self-control before they got married.
31:30
Because you want them to live it after you get married.
31:32
You want them to be faithful before and after you get
31:34
married, while you're dating, and then of course when you're
31:36
married, especially when you're married.
31:38
So I think that the reality is, look, monogamy is actually deep
31:43
in our natures. It to want to be with that one
31:47
person and to be faithful to that one person in a marriage.
31:50
I think that that is something that is deep within us because
31:53
of our longing for meaning and because of the way that it
31:56
actually brings us the most happiness.
31:58
And because we're free, we're free to choose.
32:00
I mean, we have freedom, we have free will as human beings.
32:03
I think this is very important. We're not just animals that go
32:05
off of instinct. We have free will to choose, to
32:08
think and to choose. And when we look at sex and we
32:11
think about these myths and we think about what actually brings
32:15
happiness and joy and true meaning, and when we think about
32:18
the potential for bringing life into the world, human life into
32:21
the world, I think it leads us to this, the reality of that.
32:26
Monogamy is beautiful. It's good.
32:28
And it's not just any monogamy. It's monogamy with someone that
32:31
we have chosen for life freely and they've chosen us for life.
32:35
They want to sacrifice for us. We want to sacrifice for them.
32:37
And it's someone we would want to be the father or the mother
32:40
of our children. So these are the sex myths that
32:43
I wanted to discuss today. Thank you for listening.
32:45
Thank you for letting me share my thoughts and my opinions on
32:47
these on these matters. I would have loved to.
32:50
I would love to hear if you or think there are other sex myths
32:53
that I haven't discussed. I'm sure there are others out
32:55
there. Actually came across a few
32:57
others that I thought could make interesting sex myths.
32:58
But I didn't want this episode to be way too long so I might
33:02
address others in future episodes.
33:03
So please, again, send me your thoughts, thoughts at Lila,
33:07
thoughts at Lilaro show dot dot com or you can message me on
33:11
Instagram. And yeah, I, I think this is so
33:14
important because look, you know, according to the Atlantic,
33:17
there's actually a sex recession and many people are not even
33:21
getting married. They're I think a lot of people
33:23
are lonely and isolated today. And I think we're, it's because
33:25
we have disordered our understanding of even sex and
33:29
its purpose, as well as our own relationships and what we're
33:32
looking for out of them. And I think the deepest purpose
33:35
here is love. It is love, and love is
33:38
sacrifice. Love is knowledge of the other.
33:41
It's wanting to understand and be united to the other.
33:44
And love is wanting what's good for the other person as they
33:47
want what's good for you. And that's of course what I want
33:50
for every single person. Listening is for us all to
33:52
experience that love and to live that love.
33:55
So thank you again for listening.
33:56
If you enjoyed this episode or found it interesting or useful,
33:59
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34:01
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34:03
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