We feel this post addresses what is a really important aspect of our ministry, and that is singleness. So much of the wider church’s theological and ministerial assumptions are made on the basis that all adult people will become married, when we know that is not the case. And even if it were, marriage is preceded by singleness. And the most important thing about singleness is that we need to get to be good at it in order to prepare for marriage. In other words, we can’t expect marriage is going to solve our life problems if we haven’t successfully addressed them whilst we were single. Our marriages will be so much stronger and off to a better start if we have been able to prepare ourselves properly whilst single. Furthermore, there are those who for various reasons may remain single for an extended period, or in fact for their entire lifetime, and the church at large is only just starting to wake up to these realities as we escape from the distorted misogynistic influences of complementarianist theology including its offshoot the purity movement.
Ok, that may seem an odd way of addressing the title of this post; however, it ties in very well with how a godly woman addresses the sexual attraction she poses to males. Because it is necessary for such women to successfully resist the sexual pressure they will come under from men in society. Unfortunately that pressure is overwhelmingly driven by sexual lust that is extremely prevalent in the world, which is primary evidence that the world at large remains male dominated and misogynistic in general. So it is a fact that as a woman of God, you do have a beautiful body and that you do attract sexualised attention from males, much of it unwanted. We are not going to get into discussions about the way you should dress or whatever, but what is clearly necessary for you in order to preserve your sexual purity is to become very good at asserting yourself and the ownership of your body.
To do this, we believe, you have to accept that parts of your body are very “sexy” and will attract the most attention. The key is to assert that you own and have control of these body parts and that their sexy qualities are first and foremost for your own use in choosing to glorify God with your body. As long as you are single, as you will be throughout adolescence until you choose to marry, if that is the course you are to follow, then essentially that is the primary focus for your sexuality, to have it centred around Godly standards that are worshipful to Him. We have already explained in many previous posts how we consider masturbation can be a devotional act as long as there is no sinful activity such as lust involved. Singleness is a time for you to discover your body and develop your sexuality in order to prepare yourself for marriage, or for a percentage, to remain successfully single for life.
So the most important aspect of singleness is for you to accept that God has given you a sexy body, something that is a very significant part of your whole sexuality. We believe the way to address this is to assert and own that sexy quality of each particular area of your body in a time of sexual devotion. Choose to enjoy touching or caressing each of those parts during such a time and give yourself permission to become sexually aroused each time you happen in the course of your everyday private moments to touch any of the particular areas of your body or catch a glance of yourself in a mirror. Give thanks to God for the sexual qualities of each body area and speak out words of personal affirmation for yourself as well. The best form of sexual affirmation is, of course, to masturbate at the same time as making these declarations, which also helps you to assert the ownership of your body and the focus of your sexuality as part of your single lifestyle.
We have chosen to address this topic at a time when it is becoming clear that society has really not become more enlightened since the rise of feminism and Christian egalitarianism. Despite the shift in attitudes to female sexuality in general, society is still overwhelmingly dominated by the sexual demands and expectations of males. The problem as it affects Christian women, in particular singles including adolescents, sees them, due to the widespread availability of pornography via the Internet, placed under ever increasing pressure to yield to male sexual advances. Because of this, Christian women are actually not all that far behind men in their rates of usage of and addiction to pornography. We believe that Christians have been given the means, through masturbation, to successfully resist temptation to sexual adultery by being able to address physical pressures within their own bodies in a way that enhances and strengthens their sexual purity and is fully pleasing to God. For single Christian women, these techniques should be regularly practised as part of acts of personal, spiritual and sexual devotion.