Our culture teaches us that the strength of our masculinity is directly connected to our sexual activity. It celebrates sexual conquest, mocking monogamy in marriage and chastity in singleness. We are told “real” men have sex multiple times a week, have had many sexual partners, use porn personally and to “spice up” their sex lives, etc. The culture is trying to tell us that these chains are a sign of strength. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sexual sin does not make us more of a man; it emasculates us! You need to know that your sexual sin makes you complicit in injustice, oppressing those who are weaker, those we are called, as men, to cover and protect. It profoundly impacts our view of others.

As a single man, it affects your ability to selflessly engage others. Rather than considering how to serve others and lay down your life, lust programs you to view others as a commodity, as objects that exist for your pleasure. Even if your sin is limited to fantasy and masturbation, you are training yourself in broken, selfish sexuality. Your experience of self-centered sex shapes your expectations for the marriage bed, radically undermining God’s design that spouses are to serve each other sexually, focused on the other’s pleasure, not their own. Should God provide a spouse, you will expect sex to be primarily about your pleasure.

For married men, it robs you of the ability to love your wife and children. You brought selfish expectations of sex into marriage and have taken matters into your own hands when it failed to satisfy. Because sexual sin is such a source of “life” for you, those you are called to love and cherish, shepherd and protect, become an annoyance. They are reduced to obstacles, keeping you from the pleasure you crave.

In the end, sexual sin sucks life and vitality from us. This is part of what is in view when 1 Corinthians 6:18 describes sexual sin as against our own bodies. Perhaps more than any other form of sin, it leaves us utterly drained spiritually. Far from demonstrating our power, sexual sin is a profound revelation of our weakness as we are enslaved to our behaviors and desires. As my colleague, Dan, says, “A real man can stare down his erection.” In other words, he is not a slave to his desires. A real man is stronger than his lust.

Further, in tragic irony, our pursuit of sexual sin ultimately robs us of our ability to experience sexual satisfaction. Ephesians 4:19 describes the reality this way: “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (NIV). The Greek word pleonexia literally means a “desire to have more.” It refers to utter insatiability. When we abandon ourselves to indulge in sexual pleasure outside of God’s design, the result is slavery. Like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick, the harder we strive to experience sexual satisfaction, the more it eludes us—even as our reckless pursuit of sexual contentment takes us into ever-deeper perversions. Indulging “every kind of impurity” means that what once satisfied us does so no longer, and we need to go deeper into the mess to find the same thrill.

Jesus’ mission is to “set captives free” (Isaiah 61:1-3). He doesn’t want us to be emasculated, but to be men who are “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). The hope of the gospel is freedom from the things that enslave us, as his power works in us through his Spirit.

Do you believe that sexual sin is emasculating? How does the man you are in your fantasy life compare to the reality of your experience of slavery?

This excerpt was taken from Harvest USA’s workbook for men, Sexual Sanity for Men, Recreating Your Mind in a Crazy Culture, published by New Growth Press. This workbook is excellent for small groups and one-on-one mentoring.

You can also visit the Harvest USA bookstore to browse our other resources, which we hope you will find helpful.

Updated 5.8.2017