Blurred Lines - Let's talk about SEX!

At my heart, I'm a pretty black-and-white kinda person. There are rights and wrongs and goods and bads and grey is just not a color I usually see often. I've always backed this mental point of view up with the Bible when it talks about God spitting the lukewarm out of his mouth.

But the older I get, the more I see that while God isn't a fan of lukewarm Christians who think they can straddle the fence and have the best of both worlds, not all issues in the world are super clear. There are lines that have been blurred by culture and society that we have to figure out how to deal with in our fiction. How do we write fiction that remains relevant to our current culture yet still pleases Jesus?

And let me just say there. That is one line that, for me, is NOT blurred. Regardless of your content or audience, if you are a follower of Christ, your first goal should ALWAYS be to honor Christ in all you do, writing included.

Over my next few posts on Thursdays, I'll talk about some of these blurred lines and give some suggestions on how to handle and deal with the blurred lines of today.

With the release of a certain should-be-X-rated-movie to theaters next week (which I will NOT be seeing, by the way), I thought a good place to start would be to have a little chat about sex and books.

This is a tough subject, one that some think should be a no-brainer for Christians and fiction, but in reality, has a LOT of varying opinions on the matter.

~Should characters have sex in our books?
~What about non-married characters? Christians aren't perfect, right? Can't we show reality?
~Just WHEN should we shut the door to give our characters privacy, and furthermore, should we?
~How much sexual tension is too much? How much is too little?
~How do we do with real topics such as rape, sex trafficking, molesting, and abortion?

My broad answer to all these questions is... IT DEPENDS!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. That helps a WHOLE TON.

But seriously. Each of us come from, presumably, a Christian world-view when we are writing, but that world-view has been shaded different arrays of colors by our parents, our spouses, the churches we've attended, the schools we've gone to, etc.

While it is a clear line to me that sex should not be "open door" in a book by a Christian, for others, that line is not so clear. I read Francine River's A Bridge to Haven and was super surprised to have a "sex scene" portrayed, door wide open. She handled it so respectfully and showed the beauty of what the intimate act between a husband and wife could be, as opposed to the horror the heroine had experienced in her past. It made me take a hard look at the line and see that while it is a clear line for MY fiction that I write--I'll never write an open-door sex scene in my books--I can see how an author can handle it with tact and glorify God through it. I could see how someone who was broken and thought sex was a "job" or was used to being used and abused, could have their eyes opened and see the beauty that God meant it to be. I don't think a closed door would have had the same effect for that hurting person.

Yet I know that book will not be for everyone. There will also be others who find it disturbing for its more graphic details, one Amazon reviewer noting, " The story of this book was good until she got explicit in bedroom scenes" and another noted how even reviewing the book made her feel dirty.

The thing is, those are super valid opinions only. I respect those people so much because at one point in my life, I was exactly like them. They have had their own set of life experiences that made the book hard for them to read, and their opinion should NOT be ripped on or thrown aside as short-sited.

The thing is.... all types of books are needed, even in the CBA. There are a variety of preferences among readers, some who feel that a romance without sexual tension falls flat and creates an unrealistic view of sex and relationships, and others who feel that adding sexual tension creates unneeded desires.

My suggestion as you write....

Go to Jesus. Readers will ALWAYS have various opinions but the one whose opinion matters the most is God. Ask God to show you where HIS line is for you. This may or may not be where you thought it would be. But at the end of the day, my goal is always to please Jesus, and if I can't stand before him proudly with my book, then I've crossed over a line.

Just remember, sex is not a bad thing. God created it, and it was, and SHOULD, be good. It is the world and culture that perverts it to something disgusting. Regardless of where you see your line in the sand on this issue... I urge you not to go there. We have been called to live in this world but not be OF the world. To be a LIGHT in the world not to fade and blend into the darkness.

Oh, and one last note.

Please, don't use the explicit Song of Solomon as an excuse to put sex in your book. Pretty please. It just... you're not the Bible. That was not fiction. There is no comparison. If you're gonna go there, we'd also need to say, "Go ahead, give your hero a gazillion wives and mistresses, Solomon had them!" If you have another good reason? Go ahead and share it. Just not this one!

Discussion: So where is your line? You'll not get any judgement here, just a frank discussion about a really important issue in our culture and fiction.

*************************************************

Krista is a follower of Jesus, a wife, a mother, and author of Sandwich, With a Side of Romanceand A Side of Faith. She blogs about finding JOY in the journey of LIFE at http://www.kristaphillips.com. She is represented by Sarah Freese of Wordserve Literary.

(picture above courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net)

The Travelling Writer

By the time you read this post, I’ll be in Scandinavia.

I realize you’re all going to hate me for telling you this, and I’m sorry. Truly. (Although… not all that much.)

The fact is, the hubster and I are about to embark on three weeks of travel through Europe. Sans children.

We’ll be visiting England, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It’ll be the first big trip we’ve done since our precious little rugrats came along and rearranged our lives, sanity and wallets. And although we may have been known to cast pining glances toward each other and murmur “2 weeks and 3 days till Europe” at particularly trying parenting moments, the fact is, I will most certainly be a blubbering mess on that plane.

Opportunities like this one don’t come around all that often. If you’re blessed with the ability to travel, as a writer, how can you make the most of it?  

1. Observe voraciously

Take note of the details in your new surroundings. Have a curious mind, alert to the differences you observe in the way people live. People-watch. Note the architecture, the street signs, the way produce is displayed in a grocery store, the flora, the local tastes in food, the cars people drive, the rhythm of daily life. Look past the monuments and buildings and take an interest in things other people don’t see. Take lots of photos, and not just of the tourist attractions. Step away from the crowd and take a picture of the old woman sitting in the gutter, the way the light falls through the trees, the rows of bread in a bakery, the piece of newspaper blowing down the street.

Photo by imagerymajestic, freedigitalphotos.net

2. Keep a journal

It’s incredible how much you’ll forget. You think it will stay with you forever, but time has a way of obscuring even the sharpest impressions. So write it down. On my first overseas trip as a 19-year-old, I wrote longhand in a notebook. I wrote while sitting in sun-soaked alfresco cafes in Italy, on a scenic train in Switzerland, on the bus while driving through France, in my hotel room at night. Don’t just record the things you did and saw. A journal should capture sights, sounds, tastes, and most importantly, how you felt. Anyone can learn facts about a place by looking it up online. But if you ever want to write about a setting you’ve visited, the things that will bring your writing to life will be the sensory richness and the quirky, colorful details that come only from personal experience.  

3. Try new things

There should be no such thing as a narrow-minded writer. Aim to broaden your perspectives and step out of your comfort zone. Try a new food. Get out your phrasebook and order a meal in a language you’ve never spoken before. Strike up a conversation with a local, even if they can barely speak English and you have to communicate with gestures and broken phrases. Hire a bike, throw away your tourist map and explore the back streets. Give yourself an adventure.

4. Be a traveller, not a tourist

I’ll never forget the woman I met years ago on a day-tour in China. When she realized the public bathroom came equipped only with “squatty potties”, she began complaining loudly to everyone on our tour and all the locals within earshot. “This is completely disgraceful! How do they ever hope to attract Western tourists with standards like these! They’d better hope to lift their act before the Beijing Olympics!”

I felt embarrassed to be associated with her. That style of toilet is not what we’re used to in our culture, but if we only wanted to experience our culture – why on earth would we travel? And who says that our way of doing things is inherently better or more superior than someone else’s?

Writers are not tourists, expecting everything to be the same as it is “back home”, with the addition of some picturesque photo opportunities. Writers engage with culture, and therefore, they learn and grow.

For those who think they’ll never travel

Think this list is not applicable to you?

Go back. Read it again. This time, apply it to the place where you live.

You, the writer, should be a voracious observer of daily life. A journaller of rich sensory detail. Willing to take risks and try new things. Able to engage in cultures unfamiliar to you, to look at things from new perspectives, and to live fully absorbed and present, no matter where you may be.

Why not try it? Take the back roads. Talk to a stranger. Find the unexpected in the everyday.

To someone else, your home is a travel destination. Try looking at it through their eyes and see what you discover.

Live as a traveller in your own familiar, surprising world.

Image by chinpipat, freedigitalphotos.net

So how about you, dear readers? What's your favorite place on the globe so far? How about your dream travel destination? 

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia when she’s not gallivanting around the globe (which, unfortunately, is most of the time.)

She would love to respond to your comments, but she’s currently in Norway cruising the fjords and eating sour cream waffles with Brunost and cloudberry cream. 

She’s having a great time though, so she hopes you’ll forgive her.

Oh, and she misses her kids. A lot. 

TWEETABLES

Take the back roads. Talk to a stranger. Find the unexpected in the everyday. Click to tweet

Writers: observe life anew. Live as a traveller in your own familiar, surprising world. Click to tweet

Tips for the travelling writer, and how to write more richly without ever leaving home. Click to tweet