Sexuality, textuality, and contextuality

Exegesis ordinarily involves such elements as determining the import of the original words, both generally and within a particular sentence, the sociohistorical setting of the author and audience, the genre of the document, the flow of the argument or narrative strategy, its literary allusions, and so on.

One of the problems with the debate over a text like Mt 5:28 is that precious little of discussion has anything to do with exegesis in the usual sense.

Take a word like “lust.” The debate isn’t settled by consulting a lexicon. Indeed, you’ll notice that none of the commenters on this thread has referenced a Greek lexicon.

Instead, the modern reader is apt to simply and instantly access his own experience and masculine (or feminine) psychology. That, for him, supplies the meaning. His experience is the lexicon. He then signs the name of Christ beneath his self-projection.

The problem is that a text like Mt 5:28 deals with the subject of sexual temptation, and temptation is a psychological phenomenon. Yet the text doesn’t *describe* the psychology of temptation.

So it’s easy to turn the text into a blank slate on which we simply inscribe our own experience. Our own affections and passions.

For example, our emotional and psychological reaction to the opposite sex can range along a continuum of intensity—from sex appeal or sexual attraction to sexual longing or carnal desire to sexual arousal or sexual fantasizing.

At what point does a natural, sexual impulse cross the line into sin? The text itself doesn’t necessarily draw these emotional or psychological distinctions.

Even at the stronger end of the spectrum, there are further distinctions. Honestly now, what teenage boy hasn’t fantasized about his favorite movie star?

But sexual fantasizes are not equally explicit. He may merely daydream about dating his favorite movie star. Picking her up in his sports care. His sports care is part of the fantasy, too. Taking her to the prom—like a prince and princess. Savoring the envious reaction of the other students—who are suddenly outclassed at his triumphal entrance.

Not every romantic fantasy is sexual. And where, again, do we draw the line? If a boy imagines dancing with her, is that immoral? What about a goodnight kiss?

This reminds me of the old fundamentalist ban on movie-going or ballroom dancing. Is it immoral to watch a classic Hollywood musical like Top Hat, An American in Paris, or The King and I?

What about pair skating or ice dancing? Is that immoral? Either to do or to watch?

When we get on the subject of sex, the tendency of the reader is to throw exegesis out the window and automatically assume that we know exactly what the text is referring to, when—in fact—our interpretation is a classic case of mirror-reading.

Too many of the commenters sound as if they’re Amish. Is that their ideal?

We need to make a conscious and conscientious effort to stand back a few paces, putting some distance between what the text really says or leaves unsaid, and what we are filling in with our own, ample imagination. This tinted lens of what we’ve felt or seen or done can overpower the text, and color it with refractive shades and hues that impinge and rebound on the text, rather than allowing ourselves to see or hear what is actually stated or implied in the wording or setting or literary allusions.