Of Mockery and Authenticity

Dear Kate,

This morning I received an invite to join a free parenting conference, in which there will be many workshops, many have to do with---you guessed it, sex: How to talk to our kids about sex, sexuality, and gender, setting boundaries, "porn-proofing" them, even how to "discipline" them in a "sexualized world."  And the rest of the topics will all have to do with what sex is really about: relationship.

It is a religious conference, no doubt, but just as doubtlessly Sex is god also in the secular world.  You don't need to go to church to know the places Sex can take you: to a heaven on earth where everything seems possible, and to the Valley of the Shadow of Death where there is not a soul to collect the ashes of your inevitable defeat.  Sex gives the promise of an Atomic Bomb: it blows things up real good, in both senses of the image.

I heard two voices this past weekend, one said he was mocked when trying to share his Christian faith, another that she wants to live authentically.

Well, if you want to be mocked like you have never been mocked before, guess what, go ahead and talk to your kids about sex.  Little kids you might still be able to funnel things through their ears, but adult kids who have enough sex funneled through all their orifices will not wait to repay you the compliment and take you down on Ground Zero.  You are asking to play with bomb.

The problem is you are trying to play with someone else's bomb, instruct them in how to handle their biggest hazard with care, without opening your own act of bomb juggling to judgement.  You are asking someone else to get real about life without living authentically yourself.

The topic of sex is really about relationship, relating in the most dangerous way: intimately.  It is intricately bound up with the human quest for freedom, justice, and--the word again--being authentically human.  It has to do with a vision of flourishing that was rumored to be true, in the church and on the street, in the books of old and Netflix of new, songs echoing in the air since Day One and promise to resound in eternity.  And nothing, NOTHING on earth will EVER get us closer to that rumored Promise than relating intimately to another being.  Hence even if the soon-to-be-broken promise of every new relationship can promise nothing but to break us apart all over again, we still find it an offer impossible to refuse.  To say No to plunging into the chaos of another beautiful explosion is to...well, live like my boring, sexless parents.

We stand accused.  Though our kids misdiagnosed us: we are not sexless; we are sexually frustrated, relationally unsatisfied.  Unlike theirs, our hormones are on a more normalized level that we could coolly divert our frustration to something else, lesser bombs maybe, juggling still though, like a clown trying to please and placate the god in us, idolatry of all kinds that we won't come up with any conference to address, will be most offended if someone else is to host workshops to learn how to address us about addressing them.  I'll let you deal with your own shits; don't you ever try to tell me how to deal with mine, our kids will have the final, honest words.  Go f--- yourself is another ways they might put it, no pun intended.

How do we change, even challenge a culture that has already so successfully colonized us?  How authentic are we when we say we want to be authentic?  Are we really sincere when we say we want to pursue truth, beauty, and goodness?  And what is being "authentic" any way?  Who are we to speak to others about their sexuality, their most vulnerable stripping away of defense and pretense, if we are not truthful about ourselves?

A vision of human flourishing is what we are seeking; sex is but a part of it.  To isolate the topic is like trying to remove a speck out of an eye, usually someone else's.  If it is really so powerful and scary as we make it out to be, sex must have more to do than where the circumscription of our fear and prudery ends.  What do our kids see in us when they see us from where they are?  Have you ever asked your child this question?  Or have you been assuming that your life is compelling, interesting, flourishing enough to commend itself?  Mockery is contempt, not a good thing.  But a life can be a disgrace without being mocked.

Yours, Alex