It hit me the last time we were watching a movie.  It was an old movie that we have seen 100 times but this time it stuck out to me that this man and women ( the main characters) were engaging in a marital like relationship but they weren’t married. The scenes don’t need to be graphic. Whether it’s a man and a woman embracing each other and then the scene fades to black only to start again the next morning with them waking up together or a man and a woman kissing and going behind a closed door together…the inference is enough to understand what is to be taking place.  I thought about this and sadly it is the reality for most of the movies and TV shows we watch. Most of the men and women are portraying the sharing of what God ordained only for marriage while they are in fact only dating or perhaps just met or however the story line goes. We watch these shows and movies that portray this as the norm. Yes it is the norm in our culture. People are in bed with a number of other people whether in a relationship or not.  But just because this is the norm of the world, does not mean that we as Christian’s should be in bed with these types of portrayals of what ought not to be on the shows and movies playing on our TV screens.  It’s easy for my husband and me, as parents, to see how not having regular TV is a good thing. We aren’t exposing our children unwillingly to the commercials or programs that normalize homosexuality, transgender, transsexual etc…in an effort to desensitize them to it.  However it’s not so easy for us to see that by watching these types of films, shows and even commercials, that are inferring to the act of a man and woman engaging in sexual intercourse, that we are desensitizing ourselves to it.

We are desensitized to what marriage should be and instead see sexual promiscuity as the norm.

This will only further wreak havoc on our marriages as men and women give way to sexual temptations because we are not guarding what should be a sacred thing between a man and his wife.  I would not have had the boldness to write such a post as this but I came across an article on Challies about a month ago and I was so thankful that he was bold enough to write on this topic.  Having this realization to how normal it is in the movies we watch and that we usually think nothing further of it;  I was glad to see that I am not alone in this thought process.  The article I first found was a follow up post which led me to this article the topic here. I am so thankful for his willingness to not shy away from such a topic as it sheds light on an often overlooked area of our lives.  While my focus and thought process was more on the eye opening side of how willingly we watch these portrayals of intimacy outside of marriage and the need to guard our hearts against such a lackadaisical attitude towards fornication;  he focused on how watching such things is not loving one another.  Even though these may just be portrayals of such an intimate act…there is still much physical and emotional interaction that goes on to accomplish such a scene. Check out his article on the topic and let me know your own thoughts!