Modern Romance Problems: Moving and Changing Sexual Mores

We all have dreams of what we think our life could be like. One of my modern romance dreams was to have a high school sweetheart or a childhood friend that I married. How wonderful to marry a person that you’ve known for most of your life! You would be forever surrounded by people who had known you since you were young.

That didn’t end up being my story and that story is becoming less and less common. Why? People move all over the place, more than ever before in history. It’s yet another factor that makes modern romance so much harder than it was in yesteryear.

In addition to being more mobile, our modern society is also more permissive than ever when it comes to sexuality. Anything goes, and you’re not supposed to judge anyone else’s lifestyle choices. The combination of changing sexual mores and mobile people can make things pretty messy for singles and those in the dating scene, especially those that are Christian.

Modern Romance Problems: People Are Moving Around

Let’s be honest, people in history didn’t have much reason to move. For most of human history, people’s work has been, simply put, to stay alive. They’ve grown their own food and other things that they needed to live. Maybe they worked a craft. They’ve sold that craft based on the relationships they had in their town.

However, our own time period is more connected than ever. There are centers of business and industry that you might have to move to in order to do your job. Jobs are no longer tied to the land. They’re tied to companies and companies move for profits and low costs. People move all the time and it’s no longer unusual.

That’s reflected in romance. In the book Modern Romance, Aziz Ansari worked with a team of researchers to learn what makes romantic relationships easier and harder in the modern era. They looked back at old census data and found that in the past, most people married someone who lived in in the same town as they did, and often even in the same area of the same town. Back then, you knew your neighbors. They were also your dating pool.

Now, that’s not the case. As we’ve said, people move. Additionally, people don’t know their neighbors. They’re more tied to their work, hobbies, or other organizations they’re a part of.

Modern Romance Problems: Food is the New Sex

In her intriguing essay “Food is the New Sex”, within her book Adam and Eve after the Pill, Mary Eberstadt, points out that attitudes about sex and food have changed dramatically in the last 50-60 years and, in many ways, have swapped places. In the 50’s, most people had similar attitudes about sex. Cheating on people was a bad thing. Sex before marriage was not the best. It happened, but it wasn’t a subject for polite society nor was it encouraged. Pornography was only for perverts who braved adult stores.

Things have changed dramatically in the last 50 or so years. Now all those things are pretty acceptable in our world. On the contrary, people now care more about what they eat then what they put in other orifices. In the 50’s, no one thought much about food and where it came from. Now, people are obsessed with eating only organic, pure, and natural foods. At the same time, they accept all sorts of sexual smut as being totally okay for their brains and bodies. Sexual mores have really changed

What This Doesn’t Mean for Modern Romance

Whether we’re talking about changes in mobility or changes in sexual ethics in our world, we can’t just put our heads in the sand and pretend to live the same way people did 50 or 60 years ago. That simply won’t work.

However, we can use the timeless principles of Scripture and apply them to our current world. God created us to be holistic beings. Where we live and what we do with our bodies will affect us.

A Mobile Society Means We Have to Find New Ways of Connecting

This mobile society thing has two downfalls: 1) You have more options (something we’ll talk about next week). In years past, people have only had the marriage options of those in their town or community. That meant your expectations were probably a little lower than today (whether that’s good or bad is debatable). 2) People no longer have networks they can use to find potential mates. They also have less accountability in their lives.

When you lived in a place for your whole life, the people in that town knew you. They might be able to use other community connections they had to find people to introduce you to. In an essay about modern romance, Lauren Winner talks about this loss. She posits that online dating can actually be a substitute for this service that was usually performed by family and friends.

There is nothing inherently wrong or unchristian about online dating. If that is how people are meeting one another today, it’s totally fine to use that method. However, as mentioned last week, we have to make sure that our online dating lives (or our social media lives or any other type of life we have) is congruent with our Christian life. We need to treat people with respect and remember that they are people too.

A Mobile Society Means We Have to Find New Ways of Accountability

While online dating is totally acceptable, modern mobility should also drive us to real relationships in those places where we can find them, mainly in church. We need this for accountability’s sake. God said in Genesis 2 that it’s not good for people to be alone. We were meant to be in community with others, not over screens, but face to face. Family is also important. While you can move across the country from your family and stay connected (I’m attempting to do that very thing), there is value in being closer.

When you lived in one place your whole life and dated in that same place, people would know if you started doing things you shouldn’t. People talk, and while that can be a bad thing, it can also help keep you accountable. It reminds you that you life is connected with everyone else’s. What you do affects your community (remember the principle of sexual economics).

In our modern world where we have fewer and fewer long-term connections and often don’t know the people who live around us, it’s easier to think that what you do with a significant other is just your business and doesn’t change anyone else’s life. It makes accountability harder and often means that people have no accountability at all.

Sexual Mores Change, God’s Standards Don’t

It’s true, in many ways it was easier to be sexually pure 50 or 60 years ago. Christian standards of sexuality and worldly standards weren’t that different. However, being true to God’s standards (and doing that for the right reasons) has never been easy. Just look at the Bible. There are plenty of examples of how people, even those said to be pleasing to God or after his own heart, failed at meetings God’s standards for sexuality.

If we look at the book of Acts, we see that following God’s plan for life rather than the rhythm of the world is always going to be difficult. It’s often going to get us in trouble. We are called to live in the world, but not of it. We are to be salt, light, and a city on a hill. When the world walks away from God’s standards, we’re to stay put.

However, it’s hard to be salt, light, and a city on a hill all on your own. We need other people around us to keep us accountable and encourage us as we seek to live according to God’s standards. In the past, family, lifelong friends, and society helped with this. In our mobile and permissive society, you now need to be intentional about making sure that you have people who know you, want to support you as you seek to be like Jesus, and can speak into your life.

The Church Is Your Family

Though you may move to the other side of the country, there will be people who are a part of the body of Christ there. Though you may not have known them your whole life, they are your brothers and sisters and they can and should be a part of your life, helping to keep you grounded in a mobile and permissive world.

Photo by Jose Chomali on Unsplash