Sex Is About a Face, Not Just a Body
Intimacy and raw sensuality aren't the same
There is a “bikini barista” coffee hut down the street from my church. I pass it daily on my way into the office. It is next to a main road, easily visible by all, yet always has cars (pick-up trucks, to be precise) in the drive-thru. Sometimes I wonder what would compel a girl to work such a job. But I am more curious about the men who pull into the establishment, guilelessly announcing to everyone else on Edison street: Yes, I am the kind of man who would do such a thing.
Maybe I am naive, but I have always struggled to understand why anyone would attend such a place. Even apart from my distinctly Christian convictions—if men were wanting to see women wearing less clothes than normal, why not find a more private way to do it? Why park your diesel engine next to one of the city’s main thoroughfares for all of your co-workers and neighbors and relatives to see?
I didn’t understand…until I read the reviews.1 If you read them, then it makes more sense. Here’s a sample:
“The gals working the drive through were super sweet.”
“small talk is always good to start the morning.”
“The girls are friendly and engage in conversation.”
“From the moment I walked in, she greeted me with a warm smile and made me feel welcome.”
“Very friendly staff and an all around GREAT experience!!!”
Nothing terribly surprising here, as far as reviews go. But what was surprising was how few of the reviews said anything about the overtly sexual nature of the coffee shop. Almost all of them were about the customer service, the conversation, feeling like the baristas genuinely cared. The only complaint was how long one had to wait in line. Because? Because the baristas spent so long talking to the customer ahead of them.
A hunger for connection, for the simplest kind of conversation and attention seems to be driving this business even more than the NSFW attire.
And yet, it is doubtful that people would be paying ten dollars for a coffee2 if the baristas were friendly and chatty but fully clothed. The point is that they are kind, attentive, and welcoming while also wearing lingerie.
Certainly, every man in that drive-thru has access to a world of pornography on his phone. Further, he could see the same amount of skin just by going to his local gym or swimming pool. What is he gaining in this interaction? Why risk looking like a pervert to everyone else on the street?
It is this…
Sex Is About Intimacy
‘Being intimate’ is a common euphemism for sex. It carries shades of the Biblical phrase of a husband “knowing” his wife (cf. Gen 4:1). And it touches into one of the most profound aspects of sex itself: it is about connection with a person. You can create intimacy in a relationship in many different ways, but it all revolves around this idea that you let someone in: you share your time, ambitions, fears, quirks, memories, flaws, jokes. A guard drops and this person gets to experience you in a way that others don’t.
Sex is just the physical expression of that holistic intimacy, of letting someone come into proximity with your body that is the most private. Having sex isn’t a handshake; it is something that you reserve for the most intimate of all relationships. Thus, it presumes exclusivity, commitment, and love. Or, to use the words of Scripture: covenant. Tim Keller explains:
Sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire self to another human being. Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, ‘I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you.’ You must not use sex to say anything less. So, according to the Bible, a covenant is necessary for sex.3
But what happens when you try to shear the sexual act out of that setting of relationship, commitment, and exclusivity? When sex is no longer about intimacy, but raw, sensate pleasure? Sex is diminished. It is downgraded. It is worse. Sex devoid of relationship is just masturbation. Or, to use C.S. Lewis’ evocative image: it is like chewing food, but then spitting it out.4 You get a taste, but lack all the nourishment.
In time, the perspective “It’s Just Sex” bends sex into what it means to you as the individual: sex is how I express myself, practice liberation, vent my urges, so I don’t need commitment. There are lots of stock replies to this I could give as a pastor. But I think one of the simplest and most intuitive is this: sex that is only about you is never as good as sex that is about another. Stack it up and compare, test for yourself. I think the results are obvious: we all intuitively know that sex is meant to be an expression of commitment and love. This is one of the reasons why the Bible restricts the sexual act to the covenant of marriage—it is simply the best possible way to enjoy sex. Removed from commitment, from intimacy, from relationship, sex loses its meaning.
Pull the gem out of the necklace, and you lose it.
What Men Want
There are few forces today that have worked so militantly against this fully-orbed view of sex than pornography. In the world of porn, men and women are baptized into the It’s Just Sex worldview. But even still, I am convinced that the reason most men seek out pornography isn’t actually about seeing a certain kind of body or sexual act. In time, they may become so bent by the gratuity of what they see that they crave the perverse for perversity’s sake. But, from all of my experience in pastoral ministry and counseling with many men, this is never what first draws them. They are looking for the face, the eyes of a woman who looks back at them and says: I desire you, I want to give myself to you in a way I don’t give myself to anyone else.
They are craving intimacy.
This is what the men who are overpaying for crappy coffee are looking for: a pretty girl who will look them in the eyes and laugh and ask them how they are doing, even if they stop laughing the second the truck pulls away. It’s a pantomime experience of intimacy. Because the girls are scantily clad, they already are communicating to these men: I’m offering something to you that I normally wouldn’t offer to anyone else. Even though, of course, they are quite literally offering it to everyone else in the drive-thru. It is a fantasy that lonely men, starved for true intimacy, will let themselves believe.
Men: porn and lust will never be able to give you what you are actually looking for. It is a farce that always leaves you diminished afterwards because it does not contain the object you actually desire. You long to be known and loved. That is to be found penultimately in knowing and loving a wife, and ultimately in knowing and loving your Lord. Take your longings and invest them in enriching your intimacy with your wife, in seeking to more fully actualize the love and knowledge that you have for your God.
Again, something I cannot wrap my head around. Apparently, for some men, they need to announce their patronage digitally as well for the whole world to see.
All of the drinks are exorbitantly priced ($8-10 a pop) and are given raunchy names: “Dirty Girl,” “One Night,” “Irish Tease.” Strangely—their menu also has a “kids drinks” section, supposedly for…what? The dads who want to bring home something for the family? Here kiddos, don’t pay attention to the fishnet stocking legs on the cup, enjoy your hot cocoa! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe it is just to soothe troubled consciences as they pull up: Don’t feel guilty for doing this, look, we offer kids drinks. This is normal. This isn’t wrong.
Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, “Sex and Marriage”
"The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, “Sexual Morality”
Great piece, Marc.
Marc, what I appreciate is that you don't just write true things - you write them beautifully and compellingly. I'm reading Jared Wilson's The Storied Life right now, which is on the art of Christian writing, and he talks about the difference between good writing (which clearly communicates an idea) and great writing (which communicates an idea and moves the soul as it does so). I think you're a great writer. Keep going.