One day while I was at my in-laws’, I saw a book on the shelf that looked interesting. It was called Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex Is Affecting Our Children. Published in 2008, it seeks to bring the then-recent scientific discoveries to bear on the question of sexuality. After reading Nancy Pearcey’s Love Thy Body I looked to this book to verify the science on a few things. Then I ended up finally reading it.
Their concern in this little book (about 150 pages) is for what they call the third risk of pre-marital sex. There is more going on than the risk of pregnancy and disease. They address the way the body is designed (which they don’t come out and say) for bonding and attachment through sexual activity. Promiscuity and serial monogamy therefore damage this natural process, inhibiting our later ability to form monogamous, permanent relationships.
Thanks to brain scans, we are discovering more about how the brain functions and develops. We are able to see which parts of our brains are active and the release of various brain chemicals during sexual activity. Both men and women have “attachment hormones” vassopressin and oxytocin respectively. In addition to dopamine, which is connected to the pleasure/reward which encourages us to repeat sexual activity, these chemicals help us to bond emotionally with the person we are with when they are released.
These bonding chemicals are also released by snuggling, holding hands, hugging for a long time. In women, oxytocin is released during birth and nursing to help them attach with their children. The chemicals in our brains can be understood as designed by God to foster marriage and child-rearing in the context of monogamy.
These chemicals can work against us, masking and extending bad relationships if there is promiscuity. This biochemical reality means that sex is not “just sex”, but is designed as a bonding agent. The dualism of our society, splitting body and person such as Pearcey discusses at length in her book, is a lie. When you play at sex, it makes it more difficult for you to make proper, healthy attachments. The illustration they use is trying to use the same tape over and over again.
Young adults and teens are particularly susceptible to promiscuity due to the dopamine and the incomplete development of the frontal lobe. Kids and young adults don’t always make the best choices and the body’s longing for sex creates problems. In some ways this is an aspect of the fall, where now our bodies can also work against our best interest. They need guidance and direction, including the scientific understanding of what is going on.
I wish I’d known this when I was a teenager. I’m not sure how much of a difference it may have made but perhaps I would have made some different decisions. Such information should be a part of sex education.
They were not fatalistic. Pre-marital sex doesn’t doom one to a life with no lasting connections. The brain, which changed with such activity, can change again when we abstain for a period of time. I spent nearly a decade without a romantic relationship that may have been helpful in this way. While they didn’t mention it, the gospel is also an important element in restoring sexual sanity.
Where they didn’t take this was the maintenance of monogamous relationships. “Falling out of love” may be a function of failing to hold hands, kiss and have regular sexual activity. The attachment hormones are not released as they should and a couple begins to feel less connected, less “in love.”
The book is also filled with reflections taken from counseling ministries. Teens and adults share how promiscuity affected them and their relationships. They are not content to rely on the hard sciences, but supplement them with the soft sciences.
This book would be a very helpful resource for parents, teachers, youth workers, and pastors. It is not very lengthy. There is some repetition to help in the learning process, but not so much you get overly annoyed.
There was little to no indication in the text of the book about the worldview or faith of the authors, Joe McIlhaney and Freda McKissic. It was clear they came for a conservative viewpoint morally and ethically. They were arguing for abstinence on the basis of their research. So it many ways this didn’t read like a book written by Christians. But in the acknowledgements in the back there was reference to a person at Moody Publishers who shepherded the book process. The book is published by an innocuous division of Moody. This shouldn’t detract from the truthfulness of what they say, but I wish they had been more upfront about that connection. They didn’t have to inject their faith into the book at every turn, but they should have laid their cards on the table.
Cavman Considers 