Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing

by Jay Stringer

A major dimension of our relational and sexual lives, then, is the awareness of how severed we are from one another and the way we go about reconnecting.[3] Therefore, sexuality is much more comprehensive than what we choose to do with our genitals or wedding rings.

Sexuality will flourish in your life to the degree to which you develop your identity and build meaningful relationships with those around you.

We are born so dependent on relationships that our heartbeats and body temperatures are regulated in reference to our caregivers.

But we are also born able to increasingly self-soothe. Researchers found that when parents were taught to encourage their infants to self-soothe (putting them down awake and waiting a few minutes to respond to their distress), their infants slept longer and woke up less.[4]

He woke up in distress and cried out with a desire to be reconnected with those who love him. He knew at a primal level what his needs were, and once he was reconnected with love, he was able to calm himself and choose rest.

It is vital for us to address our sexual brokenness from a standpoint of the dignity of self and the dignity of our longing for connection. No person, no matter how troubled or vile, can ever escape the reality of being made to grow in maturity and simultaneously receive care, gentleness, and rest in the context of relationships. This is just as true for an infant as it is for a man when he leaves a hotel room after buying sex or watching pornography.

The one thing, however, that is not good? Adam’s being alone.

Sexuality allows us to turn away from the constant demands of life and turn toward relationships in order to feel less severed, less amputated, and less disconnected in our fragmented world.

But sexuality is never complete if it remains inwardly focused. Sexuality turns outward, too, cultivating the world around us with the unique identities God has bestowed within us.

We wander about in search of home but settle for a narcissistic identity reflected back to us from the amount of sex, power, and money we are able to obtain. Sexual brokenness is not a life sentence; it is an invitation to heal our wounds and learn who we want to become.

The honesty of Scripture is shocking. Scripture writers honored Abraham but were equally honest about his shortcomings.[7]

When given the choice between honesty and honor, I find that most of my clients are naturally bent, to some degree, to be dishonest about what they have experienced in their families.

They may do so out of virtue, but more often than not, they do so because they fear what would happen to them if they disclosed the truth about their families or communities.

The family functions so much better if I just live a lie.”

When did you learn to keep honesty and honor separated? Who taught you that it would be better to honor someone than to tell the truth with kindness and strength?

Who taught you that it would be better to tell someone a brazen lie than to bring truth with deep respect for the other? What would happen to a family Thanksgiving dinner if you spoke with both honesty and honor? A genuine mark of maturity is the ability to hold two simultaneous truths together at the same time.

The writers of Scripture recognized that honesty and honor should never be separated. In other words, honor and honesty are intended to be married, so far as to say there was a private ceremony that brought them into a covenant together. Until you understand that honor and honesty ar...

What I have found in my story and with hundreds of men and women is that our desire to honor others is often a smoke screen that keeps us from entering heartache. It is a brilliant and tragic maneuver we have all learned to make. We swerve to protect others so that ...

Their pirate behavior is not random; it reveals the wounds of the past and highlights the present problems that need to be transformed. We look to the past not to find excuses for reprehensible behavior but because narrative holds the key to unlocking destructive patterns and implementing all future change.

I have found a number of thematic predecessors that mark the lives of my clients long before their sexual behavior leads them into lives of crisis.

This will require us to survey landscapes that many of us hold as sacred, if not off limits: family and community.

honor

what did you experience that you feel a need to be dishonest about?

rigid and/or disengaged.

The parent demands compliance, but he or she is compliant to no one.

control.

Children in these homes learn that rules are not like barriers around the Grand Canyon to keep people from dying; they are more like scarlet letters given to

shame

others into compliance. To survive, you comply or depart, often ...

the recovery process of the black sheep is far easier than the golden child’s journey out of a life of self-righteousness and

hiding.

a consistent tactic her family used to keep themselves in a position of power and authority over her.

The need a child feels to be “good” rather than honest creates a relational template that has ruined many marriages.

The implication was that sons who were powered over tended to grow up to be men who desired power over others.

In men and women alike, family systems of rigidity set children up to be adults who wanted to either reverse or repeat the power dynamics of their youth.

Anger escalates in rigid family systems.

If you speak, you will be exiled and orphaned. If you don’t speak, you reinforce how powerless you feel. When you are powerless, you should be on high alert for anger.

This is the razor edge of recovery: Your unwanted sexual behavior must change, but it also needs to be honored as a symbol of all the unprocessed anger of living in a dysfunctional system.

Another hallmark of homes of children who grow up to struggle with unwanted sexual behavior is disengagement. Disengagement occurs when parents choose to withdraw from their children’s lives.

roam through life never fully knowing they are loved and delighted in. These children learn that life is not found within a family but outside one. In adulthood, this belief remains operative.

Children who have known disengagement may have some experiences of connection with their parents, but only if they are making good grades, taking their vitamins, and offering some type of needed support to parents. Their compliance and denial of emotional needs allow the family system to continue without the need for change. The moment these children have opinions or reveal unpleasant emotions, conflict ensues and the perks of their previous roles evaporate. To survive, disengaged children may grow up to become successful professionals who detach from their families, as their parents before them did.

This does not mean your parents were desiring you to be abused, but it does mean they made an intentional, maybe even necessary, decision to direct their focus to someone or something else.

A parent’s passivity is not neutral; the neglect sets the stage for harm.

Lust blooms in the soil of disengagement. Disengagement plants the seeds of lust because the child, who is made to experience tenderness and delight, recognizes that familial love is not something that can be depended on.

They are faced with the choice to live with hunger inside the home or search outside it to ensure connection and sustenance.

The madness that most people find, however, is that the solutions we pursue apart from God and community leave us more alone than we were at the beginning.

My family functioned better when I didn’t ask for anything or give them anything to worry about.

Unwanted sexual behavior is one of the most common avenues we pursue to reverse or reinforce the negative experiences we endured in childhood. Our goal is to study and grieve the conditions that led to our sexual brokeness, thereby reducing their power over our present.

At this point in your journey, lust exposes your demand to be filled. But if you listen to your lust, it will reveal a holy desire for belonging. Anger now exposes your demand for control. But if you study your anger, you will find that it produces a remarkable radar for injustice. The journey out of unwanted sexual behavior begins by recognizing that your struggles may be the most honest dimension of your life. Your sexual struggles reveal your wounds, but they also reveal the trafficked longings of your heart.

CHILDREN WHO GREW UP in rigid or disengaged homes often end up feeling abandoned. They realize that the delight and respect they desire will not come to pass. To survive, they must develop resiliency and find surrogate sources of comfort, or they will die.