If I had a dime for every time a young woman questions her sexuality, I could easily pay for my children’s future college tuition.  And that would be sending them to a private school, not a community college.  You may wonder what is causing this unhealthy trend among teens and young women.  When you live in a sex-saturated culture like we do, with sexual images inundating us on TV, in movies and magazines, it is no wonder that sex becomes a constant theme to analyze, ponder and generally obsess over.

The other day, while milling through the masses at the airport, I considered buying a magazine to read on the plane rather than the boring novel I had borrowed from the library.  Every magazine geared toward women was either filled with images of seductive, scantily-clad women or boasted articles describing sexual fantasies and avenues to sexual gratification.  The cheesy mystery on loan from the library suddenly seemed as deep and nuanced as a Jane Austen novel.

Unless you are willing to completely remove yourself from society and live in a remote Bornean jungle or a cultic commune, you need to learn how to handle the sexual images that bombard your life and to understand the origins of the thoughts and feelings you experience.  Defining your sexuality by the random thoughts, dreams and feelings you may have, that are fleeting if left alone, is always a mistake.

Many lesbian-identified women I know, and those who formerly identified as lesbian, experienced several years of same-sex attractions beginning around the ages of 10-12 before they experienced their first lesbian relationship.  The teen nowadays who wonders about her sexuality does not usually have a history of same-sex attractions.  She is simply the victim of a culture that sexualizes women from a very young age.  Just look at dolls like Bratz and Ty Girlz that are geared for elementary-school aged girls, yet the dolls are dressed in skimpy dance-club clothes and caked with make-up.  This early sexualization of girls is almost guaranteed to lead to sexual thoughts of various kinds.

Young girls are wondering if they are lesbians for no reason other than they find their pretty friends attractive.  One twenty-something newlywed asked me if I thought she was a lesbian because she found a reclining woman on a billboard attractive and couldn’t stop thinking about her.  Noticing someone’s physical attractiveness is not unusual and does not qualify you as a homosexual.  Several years ago on a Seinfeld episode, Elaine asked Jerry and George if they knew a fellow gym member who she described as handsome.  Obviously uncomfortable with the question, they averted their eyes while mumbling negative responses.  Elaine said, “Just admitting that a man is attractive does not make you a homosexual.”  George replied, “It doesn’t help.”

The fear that George expressed about possibly being a homosexual if he found another man attractive typifies what has occurred in our society over the past decade.  The mentality of fear or even of curiosity allows those meaningless, fleeting thoughts and feelings to grow and even fester.  Suddenly, something that was as innocuous as a gnat becomes as threatening as a virus-bearing mosquito.  The problem is that we perceive simple thoughts or dreams as defining our sexuality.  If you think about stealing a magazine at a convenience store, does that make you a thief or a kleptomaniac?  If you think about telling your mom you didn’t wash the dishes because you were studying when you were really texting your friend, does that make you a liar?

Thoughts are dangerous only when we dwell on them.  If we “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” moving beyond the sexual thought and on to more constructive thoughts, the power of the sexual thought is annihilated.  Let us try an experiment.  If I say, “Whatever you do, do not think about the giant, pink elephant in the room,” what happens in your mind?  You start thinking about a giant, pink elephant, right?  You can’t help it; neither can I.  Telling anyone not to think about the pink elephant in the room will prompt them to think about nothing but the pink elephant.  The same thing is going to happen when you are assailed with sexual images and seductive influences.

I can’t say all, but many girls feel the need to question their sexuality in our modern-day culture.  It is just what society has taught us to do in an attempt to normalize behaviors like homosexuality.  Student groups aimed at promoting homosexuality among youth encourage “questioning” students to join their group and hear about the celebration of homosexuality.  Attending a group that pushes you to further question your sexuality will surely influence the way you choose to define your sexuality.

Way back in 1982, the movie Personal Best shook many of my friends who had never before in their lives thought about lesbianism.  A track star has a lesbian relationship with one of her chief competitors, while maintaining a relationship with her boyfriend.  Lesbian celebrity Chastity Bono sites Personal Best as a movie that allowed her to embrace her same-sex attractions.  It left many of my friends afraid of becoming lesbians if they had close girlfriends who were attractive.  Never underestimate the impact of cultural influences on our lives.

By the way, you aren’t thinking about the giant, pink elephant in the room anymore are you?  Your mind moved on to other things and you weren’t worried that your fleeting pink elephant thoughts would somehow define you.

Throughout our lives, we will have thoughts, dreams and feelings that disturb us.  The best course of action is follow the example the apostle Paul gave us in Philippians,  “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (4:8),  and let the unwelcome thoughts fade away.

It makes sense that music is about harmonies and rhythms.  That is what makes music different from poems and novels.  But that is not all music is about.  I remember loving a song about suicide.  It was not a gloomy song.  It had a gentle, ironically chipper melody.  In the weeks leading up to my Christian conversion, I listened to that song every day.  I was not suicidal.  I did not hate my life.  I liked the sound of the song.  But listening to it made me think about what circumstances would lead someone to take his own life.  I wondered what circumstances would lead me to consider taking my own life.  I did not consider actually killing myself, but I thought of how I would commit such an act if I ever decided upon that course of action.  I had a lot of thoughts about suicide. When I became a Christian, that song went in the trash.  There was no good reason for me to continue listening to a song that made me think of useless, violent acts against myself.

But back to Katy Perry and her song about lesbian kisses.  According to the lyrics, she lost her discretion with a drink in her hand.  Her drink made her brave.  She saw a girl that made her curious about what it would be like to kiss a girl, and she decided to find out.  Apparently, she liked it.

It is perplexing to me that she spends the entire song defending her actions with lines like, “Don’t mean I’m in love tonight,” “I kissed a girl just to try it,” “Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent.”  If it is no big deal, why worry about it?  But worry is what Katy does.  She tells everyone who will listen that it does not mean anything that she liked kissing a girl.  It sounds as if she is trying to convince herself that it is “no big deal.”  That is what happens when you do something you know you shouldn’t do.  You try to fight off the guilt by making excuses for yourself.  The guilt, however, does not go away, “It’s not what / Good girls do / Not how they should behave / My head gets so confused / Hard to obey.”

What she does not worry about, as she bemoans her confusion, is what the other girl thought of being kissed by a stranger.  Katy sings, “Just wanna try you on / I’m curious for you / Caught my attention.”  Imagine you are the object of Katy’s curiosity.  Suddenly, an unknown girl approaches from across the room and kisses you.  She then continues her song, “No, I don’t even know your name / it doesn’t matter / You’re my experimental game.”  Katy is worried about herself, but she sure isn’t worried about you.  You are just the pawn in her game.  That sums up the narcissistic, self-centeredness that typifies sexual experimentation.  It’s all about me.  The other person is just an object I am using to satisfy my own curiosity.

The purpose of physical intimacy is not to figure out what feels wrong and right, as Katy seems to think.  It’s not about discovering what works for you.  The purpose of physical intimacy is to bond husband and wife together in a life-long union that will strengthen their marriage and create a stable home-life for the children they may have.  When you use physical intimacy for any purpose other than that, it is bound to lead to undesired effects, such as confusion in your sexuality and emotional turmoil.

Am I saying that kissing a girl made Katy Perry a lesbian or bisexual?  Not necessarily.  The lyrics don’t elaborate on what happened after the drink-induced kiss.  Listening to “I Kissed a Girl” probably will not make you a lesbian or bisexual, either. It could, however, fuel a sexual identity struggle that may or may not already exist. It could make you curious about kissing a girl, and bring you face-to-face with a temptation you wouldn’t have dealt with otherwise.

Our combined experiences and the cultural influence we receive through music, television and movies all can have a collective influence on the direction our lives end up taking.  To think that the music we listen to will not affect us is to discount the power that art has to stimulate our emotions and our minds.  That is what artists strive to accomplish every time they produce a piece of art.

Rather than entertain thoughts about sexual experimentation and planting kisses on unsuspecting strangers, it would serve you better to spend your care-free years hanging out with your friends and just being young.  That way, you won’t have to explain to your fiancé about the years you spent kissing girls and experimenting with your sexuality.

Men, just like women, want to feel special on their wedding night.  They do not want you to give them what lots of other people already have, but what has been reserved especially for them. Then when you’re an adult, you won’t hear songs from your younger years that remind you of the poor decisions you made.  Instead, you will hear familiar songs that remind you of your old friends and how much fun you had together.

This same idea of fluidity is being applied to gender. Many are considering that perhaps the binary (two-part) concept of male and female is too rigid. After all, there are so many people who grow up never feeling like they fit into either of the stereotypical gender roles presented to them by society. Some believe that this is evidence that there are other sexes besides male and female, and society should recognize and promote them.

But is this concept of fluid gender and sexuality for real? The thoughts, emotions and urges we experience are certainly real, but are we coming to the right conclusions about them? One thing that we can all agree on is that gender and sexuality are a beautiful and very important part of who we are.

Whenever an idea gets revolutionized in our culture, I think there’s always something good behind it; some wrong that needs to be made right. However, people have a bad habit of swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction, and ending up with a mistake that’s as bad as or worse than what they were trying to change in the first place.

I think there’s something to this “fluidity” thing. We should all carefully consider what’s true and beneficial-and what’s going too far. Here are some of my thoughts.

TRUE: Human sexuality is prone to a wide range of experiences.
FALSE: All sexual experiences are equal and should be accepted.

It’s absolutely a fact that humans have a wide range of sexual experiences-by “experiences” I mean attractions, urges, and physical responses. Our sexuality is incredibly subjective, and tons of sex research has shown it can be affected by numerous things.

I once read about a study where college-aged participants were shown a picture of a regular object-like a shoe or a ladder-then shown a pornographic image. After several sessions of this “conditioning,” several of the subjects reported experiencing a sexual response when only looking at the regular object. Their brains had associated the sexual picture with the non-sexual one.

It’s not uncommon for people to associate things with sexual pleasure that don’t belong there. Some people who are sexually abused-even raped-actually experience arousal during the abuse. It’s not because they liked it, and it doesn’t make the abuse right. Our physical bodies simply respond to physical stimuli; our organs aren’t aware of the situation. Still, an experience like that can be very confusing, especially if the victim is an adolescent.

A few people experience what is called a “fetish,” which is an overwhelming sexual attraction or response to an inanimate thing, like a piece of clothing or a household object. Are they born that way? Many psychologists believe this phenomenon can be traced back to a traumatic experience in childhood, or simply a coincidental association they made while discovering their sexuality in puberty. The thing about sexuality is that it builds on whatever you associate it with the more you indulge yourself. As these folks continue to dwell on their fantasy (whatever it may be), they become more attached to it. Soon, they cannot experience sexual attraction or gratification without it. This can severely cripple their ability to have a normal sex life and meaningful relationships, even though the impulses originally occurred quite naturally. Is it best for these folks to follow their urges and be identified by them?

And just think, if people’s sexuality can be affected in such extreme ways, then certainly it’s not far-fetched to think that our sexual desires could become attached to non-sexual needs and relationships, like those with friends of the same sex.

The point is, our sexuality is subjective for a reason. If you follow God’s design and save yourself for marriage, then your sexual relationship with your spouse will help you grow more attached and intimate with them in a special way that only enhances your commitment and closeness with each other. But, we know the world is fallen and imperfect; our sexuality is going to be adversely affected. We’re pulled this way and that by our attractions and curiosities.

This is why God has given us so many rules concerning our sexuality: He wants to protect it and make sure we experience it the way He intended! While the example of fetishes is kind of on the extreme end of things, it’s a picture of what happens to those who fail to discipline and protect their sexuality. People who gratify whatever impulse or desire they have won’t experience the intimacy that sex was truly created for. They may talk like they’re in control, but they are really slaves to the passions they have indulged.

TRUE: Gender stereotypes in our culture are too rigid.
FALSE: Not fitting in with a gender stereotype means you aren’t that gender.

Some people say sex and gender are different. Sex is whether you are biologically male or female; but gender, they say, is how you feel inside. Your gender might match your sex, it might not. Your gender might be male, female, a little of both, or something completely different. Is that how it is for some people?

Do you feel out of place in the world of ‘typical’ masculinity or femininity? Have a hard time thinking of yourself as a ‘real’ man or woman? Join the club! That may seem like a contradictory statement, but it’s true! Most people struggle with feeling like they don’t measure up to the standards of what a real man or woman is. Many of us face feelings of doubt that we can ever measure up.

Growing up in a small town, there were a lot of old-fashioned beliefs and stereotypes I had to face. It seemed like every boy was expected to try out for little-league baseball, and then for football when middle and high school came around. I tried all of these things, and failed miserably. I just wasn’t athletic. That prompted a lot of my peers-and even some grown-ups-to label me as a sissy.

In high school I discovered a talent for acting onstage. I loved drama, and I was really good at it. But, it just wasn’t seen as a masculine thing to do. During this time in my life, it seemed to be more confirmation that I wasn’t like the other guys-I was something else.

But as I’ve grown and matured a bit, I’ve realized that our culture’s gender stereotypes are too rigid. Masculinity isn’t about sports, fighting and womanizing. You may be athletic, maybe not. If you’re talented in dance, singing or acting, don’t you realize that you’ve got the same spirit of daring and adventure that God placed in the heart of quarterbacks and bodybuilders? If you’re a girl who doesn’t like dresses or ‘girly’ things, do you think that means you aren’t still beautiful and mysterious? Well, you are!

Yes, our culture makes a mistake in favoring these limited ideas of what men and women are, but it’s only a greater error to re-identify as something we are not just because we don’t feel comfortable within that stereotype. That doesn’t provide a solution for the stereotype; it actually makes it stronger.

A lot of people say it’s dangerous to pursue counseling to help bring your sexual identity in line with your faith and the life you want, because they say we’re “born that way.” But, in the next breath they will say it’s safe and okay for some kids to take hormone-altering drugs and even go under the knife to change the way they were born, just because they’re confused.

Which do you think is more likely: that God accidentally puts the souls of men in female bodies (and vice versa), or that our understanding of our gender is just one of the many paths human beings can get lost on?

Maybe you feel like you fit in more with people of the opposite sex than the same. Perhaps you’ve considered that you are someone of the opposite sex, or that you should have been. You might be unsure exactly where you fit in.

You don’t need a new body, and you don’t need to invent a new gender for yourself because God really doesn’t make mistakes. There is great diversity within the male and female genders, but the truth is that you don’t need to go outside them to find you.