Christian Fiction and... Sex

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

Song 4:1-7

All that the Christian writer does should be done to glorify God. So that means avoiding any mention of sex, right? Right??!

Well… no. I hate to break it to the modern Conservative American Christian, but sex plays a rather large role in Scripture. If God were to go to any modern Christian publishing house I doubt he could get the book published! Why, it mentions breasts!!

And includes rape scenes, lots of mentions of sex between a man and his wife, a man and his concubine, why, there’s even a whole book about it!

Categories

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

Proverbs 5:15-20

One thing that almost never gets done when a Christian starts talking about sex in fiction is any mention of what kind of sex. No, I’m not talking sexual positions, I’m talking morality. I’m talking God designed sex vs abominations and perversions. I’m talking marital sex vs fornication and pornography and adultery and Sodomy.

When God talks about sex in Scripture, He does so in two rather dramatically different categories. He contrasts the strange woman, and the married wife; the prostitute and the virgin. Chastity vs Adultery, purity vs fornication.

Specificity

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.

Proverbs 30:18-19

Another issue, besides the category of category of sex, is the degree of specificity. Or, if you prefer, graphicness vs euphemism. Or even act vs results.

So, for example, if your friend Mr Brown tells you that he left Dallas at two in the afternoon, and arrived in North Houston at 6 in the afternoon, and that the traffic was heavy… he has told you that he drove. He didn’t use the word ‘drive’. He didn’t describe his hand on the steering wheel, the noise of the engine, his stops for Coke along the way… but he told you he drove.

Similarly, in Scripture and in life, there are lots of way to say ‘we had sex’ without saying well, ‘we had sex’. If you say, “My wife gave birth to my youngest son on Friday.” then you are saying, without saying, that you and your wife had sex nine months ago. If you say, “I sent in a paternity test for Andrew, and it turned out that he wasn’t mine.” then you are saying that your wife had sex with someone else. About nine months before Andrew was born.

There are a dozen ways of talking about sex that don’t use the word. That don’t mention any unmentionable body parts or biological activities. Some are mere euphemisms, some are consequences, but the sex is there, the results are there, the protagonists are there.

Knew his Wife, and other Euphemisms

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

Genesis 4:1,17,25

And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.

I Samuel 1:19

So Adam ‘knew his wife’ and ‘she conceived’. Hmmm, wonder how that happened. And Elkanah knew his wife, and the LORD remembered her. Hmmm, what was that all about?

Having Children

A Song of degrees for Solomon.

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it:

except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127

Fruitful

A Song of degrees.

Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.

For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house:

thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.

The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion:

and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

Psalm 128

Barren

Thou shalt be blessed above all people:

there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

Deuteronomy 7:14

The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give.

There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough:

The grave;

and the barren womb;

the earth that is not filled with water;

and the fire that saith not, It is enough.

Proverbs 30:15-16

Adultery

But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding:

he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

Proverbs 6:32

Prostitution

They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills,

under oaks and poplars and elms,

because the shadow thereof is good:

therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom,

and your spouses shall commit adultery.

Hosea 4:13

Sodomy

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections:

for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another;

men with men working that which is unseemly,

and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Romans 1:26-27

Fornication

As touching the Gentiles which believe,

we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing,

save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled,

and from fornication.

Acts 21:25

Virgin

Wherefore his servants said unto him,

Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin:

and let her stand before the king,

and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom,

that my lord the king may get heat.

I Kings 1:2

Imagine, if you can, a modern historical fiction writer using the word ‘virgin’ in his book. “Sir George Pettybrook took Susan Mollycoddle, a beautiful virgin, to be his wife.” No? Hard to imagine? Hard to imagine a modern Christian publisher letting that past the editing process?

No, virginity is under attack on all sides. On the secular side, it is under attack because it represents sexual purity. On the Christian side, because it is about sex.

Bride Price

And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver,

and give them unto the father of the damsel,

because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:

and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

Deuteronomy 22:19

Spilled his Seed

And Onan knew that the seed should not be his;

and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife,

that he spilled it on the ground,

lest that he should give seed to his brother.

Genesis 38:9

Enough Already?

And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;

And he went after the man of Israel into the tent,

and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly.

So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.

Numbers 25:6-8

If anyone has read this far, I imagine they are saying, ‘enough already!’. That surely we all understand (or, all of us grown ups understand. Or, all of us grown ups that are used to reading euphemisms and poetic language and all) that there is lots of indirect mentions of sex in the Scriptures! So what?

Well, I wasn’t done. I still have several left, such as ‘uncover her nakedness’ and ‘go into her’. Bridegrooms and chambers. But we’ll stop here and I will ask you, now look at your fiction. And other people’s fiction. I have noticed that there is a substantial dearth of indirect mentions of sex. The characters aren’t married, they don’t have children, or they aren’t having children right now. The virginity or lack thereof of the women in their life is not mentioned. There is no bride price, no one stays back from battle to cheer up their wife…

No, seriously. In both Christian and non-Christian fiction there is a serious dearth of mentions of sex… in the way that Scripture mentions sex. The Christian author may be tempted to put in a graphic sexual scene, between two unmarried characters (or who are married elsewhere), with descriptions of the various feelings, body parts, and actions… but they will completely ignore ‘the rest of the story’.

So when the Christian asks himself how he should deal with sex in his stories, one answer might well be… deal with all of it. I think we need to ask ourselves if we don’t do the gospel a disservice when we ignore the gospel story. You know, with a pregnant virgin and an upset husband.

When the Christian asks himself if he should have ‘graphic’ sex, well, Scripture gives both answers. In euphemism the wife of the Song of Solomon is described in a lot of detail. But always in euphemism. Most of us understand the concept behind ‘twins’, but we aren’t totally clear on the whole ‘gazelle’ thing.

But if the answer would be to just ignore the whole subject… Scripture doesn’t do that either. If we were to list the men, and women, who are known to have sex in Scripture, the list would be pretty long. So merely saying, “I will leave sex out of my stories” is not the Biblical answer either.

Conclusion

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,

but rather reprove them.

For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

Ephesians 5:11-12

The question as to how much sex should a Christian put in his writing is not a simple one, because the question leaves out so many of the issues that need to be in the question. Should a Christian make it clear that the Godly married couple have an active and fruitful sex life? In Euphemism, definitely.

Should the Christian author be willing to have characters who commit adultery and fornication? In condemnation, certainly.

Sex in marriage is a good thing, and should be shown to be a good thing by the Christian author. Sex outside of marriage is a bad thing, and needs to be shown to be bad by the Christian author. But it does need to be shown. In euphemisms.

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Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.

If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!

If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.

Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid

The Bobtails and the Cousins

The Bobtails go to France

and

No Ordinary School

As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.

Arthur also has a substack, and a website. On the substack you can listen to some of his published books. Free.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von

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