Is sexuality our modern God?

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Genesis 1:26-31   

S-E-X. Sex. Yes, you heard me; I said that magic word. Whenever, wherever one says the word "sex" or expresses it in one way or another, miracles start to happen. Strong feelings will arise as well as view numbers whether it being a music video or movie in question. I actually know only two things in the world that cause tremendous passion, tremendous heat and they're sex and religion. And here I am taking a huge risk and talking about both of them combined! Why should it be a risk? Because they both tend to be taboos more or less but it of course depends on which part of the world you live in and what's your culture context. I dare to say that in Western world, in our Christian culture sex has become less and less a taboo. Of course churches have different views on it, some stricter and some more tolerant. I think that the Catholic church and Laestadian church have maybe the most cautious and judging views on expressing one's sexuality while I find my own Lutheran church having some of the most tolerant and laid-back ones. After all, I think that all Christian churches agree on one thing: At its finest and most beautiful state sex is an expression of true, deep love and belongs to marriage.
Well, I dare to disagree a little bit. I personally find there's nothing bad or sinful about having sex when you're engaged. Some may disagree in this modern sexually free world but I wouldn't have sex without a ring on my finger! OR, if you'd have sexual intentions on me prior engagement I'd at least expect you to propose. It's part of my Christian moral and dignity that I'm not into one night's stands and to me sex means commitment. If you aren't ready to engage with me, I'm not the one for you. I don't find my principle on having sex strict at all, I find it realistic and appropriate. I want to keep my self-respect. Let me share you one more scripture which isn't related to sexuality at all but it explains my views on Christianity and worship and it helps you understand why my points on sexuality are how they are:

"In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness. Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise - why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool - why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not to let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes. Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city. Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins. Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you - for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this I tested by wisdom and I said, "I am determined to be wise" - but this was beyond me. Whatever exists is far off and most profound - who can discover it? So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly." Ecclesiastes 7:15-25       

After this post there shouldn't be any misunderstandings left anymore about who I am as a Christian. This following passage from Ecclesiastes 7 explains my Christian lifestyle and it's my current favourite and I find this passage THE TRUTH. I interpret this passage like it's OK to gather for yourself some material goodies and it's OK to be rich as long as you won't become greedy and keep it all to yourself; Do enjoy your wealth but don't forget about the ones who are less fortunate. Also don't become too generous so you won't turn into martyrdom. This is actually my biggest life lesson as a Christian! So yes, I do allow pretty much pleasure for myself but I find it's crucial for your (mental) health. If you live more for others than yourself you'll suffer and get sick. Always listen to your heart first and what feels good for you :). Once you've reached bliss it's right time to share it for others too but if you haven't keep searching until you're ready. Part of my pleasure is that I shop but not until I drop! I also allow myself to eat sweets and ice cream at times but not so often that I'd get fat. In the very beginning of my Christianity 4 years ago I hardly allowed any pleasure for myself but now I've learned my lesson. You shouldn't take Christianity too seriously but also not too lightly as Ecclesiastes 7 says. Pleasure is part of life as well as pain but to learn to appreciate pleasure you have to feel the pain first. Now, back to another pleasure:

She:
"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth - for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! Take me away with you - let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers." Song of Songs 1:1-4 
He:
"How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin; not one of them is alone. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. Your neck is like the tower of David, built with courses of stone; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense. You are altogether beautiful, my darling: there is no flaw in you." Song of Songs 4:1-7

The purpose of my post is to draw an end for the prejudice that Christianity would judge sex as something evil. Look how erotic were these passages of Song of Songs! Even the Genesis is fully sexual! I also already pointed out that sex isn't a taboo anymore in Christian countries. All you have to do is to look around you when you're hanging out and right when you want to listen to music or watch TV sex is right there. Sexuality is everywhere, it's in us; we can't run, we can't hide. All we should do is that we should embrace it and accept that that's how God meant it to be.
But since Antiquity, the Bible's "birth time", there have been also reprehensible expressions of sexuality coming up like prostitution and I believe that my readers agree with me. I also don't accept porn and stripper's occupation and poledancing as a hobby is somewhere on the limits of my disapproval because I relate it to stripper's occupation. To avoid any misunderstandings, I approve any other dance and I'm trying to learn to dance myself. There's also nothing reprehensible about model's job and doing lingerie and swimsuit/bikini photo shoots as long as you keep your clothes on and won't go to PlayBoy style! Nude modelling equals to porn. Incest, rape, molestation etc... A lot of bad expressions of sexuality have come out since our society has become overly sexed-up.
Also, there are for sure people in the world who think that everything should be allowed in love and sex. I do think myself that there's got to be laws and authorities and ethics and moral in order to keep this world in order and in order to secure our happiness. I find that my views are realistic on everything that I've written in my blog so far and even though I support tolerance very highly I don't think it can be good for us to tolerate and accept everything with 100 %. Then we wouldn't be talking about tolerance anymore, we would be talking about weakness and insecurity.

People's body image has been overly exaggerated in the media: If men aren't muscley and women aren't lean with big breasts and long hair we aren't sexy. If you aren't sexy or beautiful you are nothing. You can't be loved, you can't be wanted, you can't be successful in your endeavors and career goals. If you aren't sexy you end up being a lonely loser. That's what media is trying so hard to make us believe. But can this narrow-minded image of sexiness be the only answer? Aren't we sexy if we don't fulfill media's standards of ideal beauty? What if sexiness is a state of mind instead of state of body? The next things that I'm going to say will probably come as surprises for many people that know me: There truly are days and times when I feel myself sexy in my figure and in my opinion we Christian women have rights to feel so because I don't find that the Bible would judge sexuality and sexiness as hard as many people seem to believe. I feel myself sexy especially when I do yoga as in yoga you embrace your body the way it is and when you exceed yourself in yoga poses your self-esteem gets better. I should be glad that I don't suffer from obesity or an eating disorder. I'm just good and sexy enough in my own healthy average body shape that's often described being slim.

To close my subject I'll handle my title more closely: What do I exactly mean when I'm asking 'Is sexuality our modern God'? To me it feels like today's people worship sexuality instead of God. We worship media's sexy images on TV and magazines wanting so bad to be like them, they have become our highest secular examples. We use so much time and effort to get that media's body shape. Those people in the media are idols as they say: idol equals to an image of God. Yeah, the Bible says that all people are images of God but now when I'm talking about these media's idols I'm comparing them to the Bible's golden bull, false god. God created sex so rationally thinking sex can't equal to God. But if we think about creation and the way biosystem and nature work, isn't that sexual energy? God created sex and sex creates life, obviously. So when we have sex do we become gods, do we become creators? When God created human as His image did He mean sexuality is the image? That's one possibility and theologies constantly argue about this.

Oh and the most important thing: I'm pleased to inform you that my debut book The Rainbow of Tones will be published on October 2012 or if it delays you could expect it to be available on November. As you may already know it's a poem book that will also contain pop, rock and gospel lyrics. The subjects in my poems vary from sorrow to loneliness, self- and body image, fantasies and imagination, love, spirituality and multiculturalism and tolerance. My pop and rock lyrics deal with some similar subjects but in my pop lyrics I also comment on such social issues as poverty, racism, global warming, women's status worldwide and the conflict of 3 Book Religions.  

What's your comment on this subject? Is sexuality our modern God? Feel free to comment below :).