Sex: It Is So Much More

Often times when we teach about sex we focus on it being used for the creating of children. We are taught that it is not to be used outside the bonds of marriage. Throughout our years growing up, we hear how it is wrong to participate in sex until one is married. It leads one to believe that sex is dirty; that it is only to be used when creating children. While sex is to be employed only between a man and a woman lawfully married, there is much more to it. I am single so I do not have much experience with this which is why I want to focus this article on teaching the youth the true meaning of intimacy. There were times in young women’s that I felt that this part of intimacy was dirty. I know that I dreaded law of chastity lessons. Heavenly Father did not create sexual intimacy so we would fear it. There is a greater purpose to it that we must understand.

In the Meridian Magazine Sean E Brother talks about the purpose of intimacy in marriage. Prior to marriage he was trying to learn what to expect. He asked his mother what sexual intimacy was like. “My mother laughed and said that sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was comforting, sometimes it was romantic, sometimes it was spiritual, and sometimes it was just a willingness to love.” Heavenly Father gave us sexual intimacy so that a couple can nearer together. It is meant to be more than creating children. It is a binding of two souls together throughout the experiences and trials of life.

Hugh B Brown said,   “Thousands of young people come to the marriage altar almost illiterate insofar as this basic and fundamental function is concerned. The sex instinct is not something which we need to fear or be ashamed of. It is God-given and has a high and holy purpose … We want our young people to know that sex is not an unmentionable human misfortune, and certainly it should not be regarded as a sordid but necessary part of marriage. There is no excuse for approaching this most intimate relationship in life without true knowledge of its meaning and its high purpose.” The thing that youth need to understand is that these urges were given to us by our Heavenly Father. It is a beautiful expression of love between a man and a woman when done as commanded. President Harold B Lee taught, “The divine impulse within every true man and woman that impels companionship with the opposite sex is intended by our Maker as a holy impulse for a holy purpose, not to be satisfied as a mere biological urge or as a lust of the flesh in promiscuous associations, but to be reserved as an expression of true love in holy wedlock.”

One of my companions had a friend who was getting married. The friend told her that her whole life she had been told not to have sex. In one night she was supposed to forget those years of being told not to do it. It is a great disservice to our youth. We need to help youth understand sex is not dirty. We need to be open and frank with them. We must help them understand that it is truly beautiful when done in the Lord’s way. They need to understand the eternal purpose of sexual intimacy.