Who said, “SEX” – When All’s Quiet, People are Probably Listening

It was only pointed out to me afresh recently that the subject of “sex” always brings quiet conscientious attention in a crowded church auditorium. To think such apparently spiritual people might be thinking of such apparently carnal things...

But we’re all the same really. None of us are too far from sex. It’s a distinct item of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual interest. For innate reasons, sex sells, both in the healthy and unhealthy realms.

And this principle holds for a great many other topics none of us can escape from.

What about rejection. We’ve all been rejected, and the sting of rejection we know, lasts. One thing we can’t escape is the temptation to reject those who’ve rejected us, or even reject those who attempt to love us (if we’ve become so accustomed to rejection and are scared of loving back for fear of rejection). At the very least, we find it difficult to interact with those who we’ve associated with rejection.

Let’s try another one we can’t escape from... quieted children.

All parents know that when things go quiet with the kids they’re generally up to something... often this is not good. Kids, like us, learn early to keep quiet if their actions might be frowned upon. But all through this situation, the child’s attention is piqued, stirred to what stimuli might be going on around them; their radar or antennae are out.

The lesson in all of these is this. When things are being discussed that are of distinct i.e. not transitory, interest, the room goes quiet--the antennae is out to catch every last drop of precious information.

Or in the cyberspace world those most affected by the particular things of discussion are least likely to speak up; their focus is on acute self-reflection--a very introverted action. And this is required to extract the meaningfulness out of what’s experienced. It’s absolutely rational and natural.

No wonder the room goes quiet when sex is mentioned. At least part of the interest shown in every single person is from the very personal centre of the private world; whether it’s performance-related, inadequacy, lack of satisfaction, desire, enhancement and an entire realm of other things which are possibly behind the gaining of interest.

When things go quiet what we’re saying is probably (though not always) being magnified in the minds and hearts of those listening.

We must ensure we don’t waste the opportunity to bring everything out for the people interested, and this is done in developing a hyper-acute sense of behavioural feedback awareness, if that’s possible. For, it is almost impossible via cyberspace.

In a church auditorium, however, we have a captive audience with regard to the above.

Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

s

Acknowledgement: to Ps. Mark Edwards for his insightful thought-starter at: http://australianpastors.blogspot.com/2009/05/lets-talk-about-sex.html