Why Doesn’t “Free Love” Work?

Recently, I watched an episode of Seinfeld. It’s the one where Jerry and Elaine attempt to have a no-commitment sexual relationship. Jerry tells his friend George about the plan who says it can’t be done. Jerry and Elaine attempt to have their no-strings-attached sexual relationship anyway, with the predictable result: It doesn’t work.

Before I became a committed Christian, I met a woman in a bar during a trip to the United States. We had a few drinks, shared a few laughs and later kept in touch by telephone. Whenever I visited her area, I’d call her up and we’d get together. Kissing and cuddling eventually led to a sexual episode. Her attitude towards me immediately changed. She went from respecting me and being very nice to treating me like a disease. Her response, I admit, was uncommon but it helps to prove that once relationships become sexual, they profoundly change – and there’s no going back to the “innocent” stage of the relationship.

Sex is a mysterious, powerful force. Through sex, we share our most intimate “secret.” When we have a sexual relationship with someone we are not really committed to, the burning question, spoken or unspoken, always is, “What does this mean?” Sex creates a permanent bond, a “knowing” of the other person, which only belongs in marriage. A sexual relationship implies and demands a lifelong commitment (real love). When that isn’t there, we feel that something is wrong which leads to mistrust, guilt, anger, resentment and heartache. 

In my younger and more foolish years, I got involved with an older, experienced woman. Sex was completely new to me and it was very exciting. After a few months, she “broke up” with me, but we still got together for casual sex. You’d think that a very young, healthy man might be happy with such a deal, but I got jealous because she was seeing other guys and I felt that I was being used. 

After I became a committed Christian, I dated women without having sex with them. I still keep in touch with a few of them and we have positive feelings towards one another. One of the women I dated, I later married. I didn’t touch her until our wedding night. The intimacy we shared eventually led to her pregnancy and the birth of our son. Every day, I bask in the warm glow of their love. I can’t count the number of times my wife and my little boy have told me, “I love you.”

Human sex is much different than animal sex, because we are created in God’s image and “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Human sex and love (lifelong commitment) were meant to go together. To seek sex apart from this is to commit the sin of lust, which ultimately leads to spiritual death (hell). In it’s highest form, human sex is a symbol of God’s spiritual marriage to his holy Church and of the New Covenant, sealed with the sacrificial blood of Jesus. That’s why “free love” (fornication) is such a sacrilege.