The following article by Lauren Lankford originally appeared on the RELEVANT Magazine website last Thursday. Lauren Lankford is founder and editor of Good Women Project. She also writes on sex, relationships, dealing with pain and following Jesus on her personal blog. You can follow her on Twitter here.
Friendships and sex have been around since the beginning of time, but it’s our generation that puts them into the same phrase—and the same bedroom. From high school hallways to movie theater screens, “friends with benefits” is sold to us as a new combination as simple, acceptable and wonderful as mac-and-cheese.
No one wakes up and decides sex is just sex, or making out is just making out. No one wakes up and announces over coffee, “Today, I’m going to fall head over heels in love with someone I’d never marry.” I didn’t.
I remember being a freshman in high school, believing heart and soul that I would wait for marriage to have sex. I’d never kissed a boy, and I didn’t plan on it until I was engaged. Fast-forward four or five years, and I’ve made out for fun, for comfort, for love and for revenge. Fast-forward another two or three years, and I’m sleeping with someone I’m not even dating.
Why does it happen? Because we are broken people. And because God created sex and physical affection as a phenomenal part of what is meant to heal us: intimate, committed love with another human being. But when we don’t know how our body and heart work, we tend to do long-term damage to ourselves instead of long-term good. Read more >>
