For many years, the Indian way to think about sexual desires was simple. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Traditional India equated sexual desires with evil desires—necessary for procreation, but shameful even to mention.
With the open door of the internet, the invention of the iPhone, and the ubiquity of dating apps, sexual desires have turned into commonplace desires. Now traditional India is wrestling with a new India—emerging out of the past like a nation going through a moral puberty.
Today, the way Indians think about sexual desires is as diverse as its languages. Now we have unprecedented conversations in the Supreme Court about same-sex marriage, intellectuals bemoaning how colonialism erased India’s history of gender-fluidity, a new sexual imagination in India’s Netflix presence, growing individualistic self-expression on Instagram, and the complicated rise of rainbow capitalism.
How do Christians navigate our way through a conversation that no one wants us to participate in? What can we say to the nation about sexual desires that should resonate with every Indian?
Sexual Desires Are Powerful
Sexual desire is powerful in many ways. It has the power to overcome your rationality and good sense so that you make bad decisions and regret them later. Like a spark that lights a flame that turns into a blazing fire, sexual desires can consume your thinking, imagining, and behaving. You do not have to be a Christian to know the cost of the regret-filled phrase, “one thing led to another” (James 1:13-15).
Sexual actions are so powerful they can have a lasting impact on our emotional health and well-being. For instance, therapist, minister, and researcher Jay Stringer says that if a child is touched inappropriately for just ten seconds, it can radically re-alter the trajectory of their life.
Sexual habits, like indulging in pornography, can create neural pathways in our brains so that we train ourselves to gratify ourselves, with increasing intensity, until we no longer have control over our desires; they have control over us. That said, the brain is plastic, mouldable, and re-trainable. Through new repeated tasks, the brain can create fresh neural pathways that help put the old ways to death (Col. 3:9-10).
We may have differences with the world over the moral utility of pornography. Some in the world argue for its benefits. However, at least we can agree that repeated sexual habits exert such force on a person’s choices that it can become overpoweringly second nature (Rom. 6:16).
Sexual Desires Are Not Morally Neutral
There is an ideological battle over whether some sexual behaviours should be affirmed or questioned—sexual relations before marriage, same-sex relationships, polyamorous relationships, and the like. However, none of us ought to be too quick to suggest that any and all sexual desires, behaviours, or actions are morally justified simply by virtue of their existence. No one should affirm everything (Deut. 12:8).
We simply do not, and must not, have a posture towards sexual desires that is amoral.
Everyone, regardless of religious or moral persuasion, considers some sexual behaviour or the other immoral—not merely undesirable or uninteresting (Eph. 5:6).
For different reasons, the church and the world can together affirm that sexual actions between adults and children are immoral. We feel this way, even if there are people who think they are normal, justifiable, moral, and enjoyable (Eph. 5:11-12).
We simply do not, and must not, have a posture towards sexual desires that is amoral. That is far too dangerous for us to even imagine (Judg. 21:25).
Sexual Desires and Power Do Not Go Well Together
When people in positions of power do not have power over their sexual desire, it can destroy the lives of all who trusted them (1 Tim. 6:9, 1 Thess. 4:4-6).
In May 2023, some of India’s top wrestlers demanded the removal and arrest of the president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), for allegedly sexually harassing female athletes for more than a decade.
Whether it is the casting couch in the Indian cinema industry, the #MeToo movement in Hollywood, special favours for quick promotions, unholy priests who take advantage of trusting children, or shepherds who are just wolves in sheep’s clothing, sexual desires and power do not go well together (Titus 1:16, 2 Tim. 3:6-7).
What if God created us with a holy imagination to go with our sexual desires? What if the fall of man corrupted that imagination so that our sexual desires are like ships without a rudder helplessly trying to stay afloat on a sea with a squall?
Unwanted Sexual Behaviours Are a Reality to Reckon With
You can hold two conflicting desires at the same time. You can feel the powerful longing to indulge your sexual desire. At the same time, you can feel the strong desire to resist them for various reasons. Unwanted sexual behaviours exist when our longing to indulge them continually overpowers our desire to resist them (Gal. 5:16-18).
As a result, you can find yourself giving into sexual behaviours that work against your emotional and mental health. You end up feeling like you keep on doing what you do not want to do and what you want to do, you cannot do (Rom. 7:21-25).
A person can spend their entire life gratifying their every sexual desire and still feel empty inside.
Such unwanted behaviours are not socially or religiously imposed. They wage war within a person and the casualty of war is their own health and well-being (1 Pet. 2:11). In this way, we are least free when we are under the authority of our sexual desires. We are most free when our sexual desires are under our authority (Gal. 5:13, Col. 3:9-10).
Unrestrained Sexual Indulgence is a Bad Idea
The church and the world have different values over how to express and enjoy sexual desires. But we can all agree that too much of any good thing can turn into an awful thing (Eph. 4:19).
Gluttony is a sin when it comes to food. It can affect your emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Our sexual desires are no different. Sexual gluttony can turn into addiction that takes over your life. It reduces other people to objects and dehumanises your own sense of self (Prov. 25:28).
Sexual desires are like a fire that burn best in a fireplace. We disagree with the world on the size of the fireplace but everyone believes in a place for the fire (Prov. 6:27-29).
Sexual Gratification Cannot Complete You
Of all I have said so far, this may be the most divisive: Sexuality is not salvation. Marriage is not heaven. Singleness is not hell.
Sexual desires are exactly that: they are desires. They are not needs or rights. We cannot live without water for the body and intimate friendships for the soul. But we can live without the gratification of sexual desires.
Water and intimacy are God-given needs without which the body will die and the soul will shrivel into nothingness. But sexual desires are not like water or intimacy. They are actually privileges that only some will enjoy in this life.
A person can spend their entire life gratifying their every sexual desire and still feel empty inside. Alternatively, a person can live their whole lives without the gratification of sexual desire and still live a wholesome life (1 Cor. 7:7).
The best evidence of this reality is Christ himself. He is unmarried, childless, and celibate. Yet his life is full of meaning, purpose, and sacrificial love (John 15:13).
To be united to God through Christ, in love, is to experience a deeper adoption, a greater marriage, and a more profound union, throughout all eternity, than with anyone on earth (Phil. 3:7-8, Eph. 5:32).
Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak, Slow to Become Angry
All this matters because Jesus is known for his peacemaking nature. God calls us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry (James 1:19). Unfortunately, sometimes even well-meaning Christians can speak about sexuality in a shrill voice that is slow to listen, quick to speak, and races to self-righteous anger (John 8:7).
The spiritual body of Christ can only speak humbly about human bodies when we see how the physical body of Christ was humbly offered as a sacrifice on our behalf (Phil 2:6-11).
May our meditation on the broken body of Christ help us speak humbly, graciously, and truthfully about offering our bodies to Christ as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1-2).
