The Collegian
Thursday, March 28, 2024

What's love got to do with it?

"When you're ready, come and get it." "The way you grab me...must want to get nasty." "We're up all night to get lucky." "So I cross my heart and I hope to die, that I'll only stay with you one more night." "And then you bite your lip, whisper and say, we're going all the way." "Let's go all the way tonight. No regrets; just love." "We're in the bed like..." "When I lay you down and love you right." This does not even include Ke$ha.

Last year, I denounced "hook-ups" as mutually demeaning and entirely selfish acts. I showed how the use of someone else as a means to your pleasure is shameful and disrespectful. However, modern culture has been unrelenting in conveying its attitude regarding sex--PG-13 movies without a zesty romance are uncommon and radio stations play hits that are disturbingly (and often explicitly) sexual. Even university professors enjoy describing their extracurricular life in their published works: [Describing adolescence] "I just wanted to be left alone to do the things I liked to do...loving and making love to my girlfriend."

I have previously attempted to convince you what sex is not--a tool used for an end. I will now appeal to your conscience about what sex is--total self-giving. Sex is not self-seeking, it is entirely self-sacrificial. The opposite of love is not hate--it is use. To say "sex is good" is entirely understated--sex is glorious. Many have chosen to live lives of momentary and selfish indulgence, using another person for pleasure and losing sight of the glory of sex in marriage. Women, you will marry a man who will be willing to die for you without a moment's pause, and he is worth waiting for! The message is so often missed: Sex is the total gift of self.

It is meant to be the glue that binds a couple together in complete fidelity, a glue that is not meant to be separated. In short, sex is unitive. I know it is entirely counter cultural, but please, do not devalue sex to pleasure. If sex is for pleasure as food is for pleasure, then a sex-partner would be as useful to you as a fork. (Practical note: This is not a guilt trip, this is a reality check: next time you are hooking-up with someone at random, consider if you are totally giving yourself up for her, or are finding her about as useful to you as a fork.) Cherish the day when you can say to your spouse, "I saved everything I have for you." On the other hand, your future wife might ask what Taylor Swift asks of us: "Was she worth it?"

I am at a loss for how this is not a truly feminist position. I am not saying that one's worth is dictated by one's virginity. I am saying that, for men and women alike, it is utterly inconsiderate to use someone's body for your own pleasure. Do not be fooled when the WILL program teaches you that purity is a social construction meant to control women, (as if the same standards do not also apply to men). Do not let them equate chastity with "slut-shaming" or tell you that what you do with your body is "right" simply because it is your own body. Men, do you feel manly when you use a girl for her body? Women, do you feel truly "liberated" when you give yourself to a stranger? What is a "slut walk" if not the embrace of a lifestyle that involves using other people for one's own pleasure?

I want nothing more from this opinion than this: that you long for a life of total self-giving. Love is not a fuzzy feeling; it is a frightening fidelity. Love is not made in a bed, it is there consummated. She is someone's daughter. He is someone's son. You will be someone's wife. You will be someone's husband. Please rediscover the meaning of sex and its role in the glory of marital union.

Until death do us part.

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