067 - Sexual Health For Singles w/ Ben Bennett

Welcome to the Pure Desire podcast where we partner with you to bring hope and freedom on your journey to purity. Hey there. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor. And we're so thankful you're taking time out of your day to hang out with us. I'm here with my co host, as always, Nick Stumbo and Fuego, because this.

Podcast is on fire, man.

Wow. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's becoming like tradition for me to comment on your intro. I got nothing. So today we have back with us, Mr. Ben Bennett. Ben is a returning guest. He leads a ministry Initiative with Josh McDowell Ministries. He's the author of our college age resource, Living Free and he is an awesome all around guy. Welcome back, Ben.

What up? Thanks for having me.

Yeah, we're glad to have you, man. Today's episode with Ben will be focused on what healthy sexuality looks like for single men and women. Whether you're unmarried, you're divorced, you're widowed, just this is a tough thing and this is a tough reality for a lot of people out there. So, Ben, you are an unmarried man. You have a fresh perspective on this and we hope to learn a lot from you today. So, Ben, you ready to jump in?

Yeah, let's do it.

Alright, so let's start with this. When we use the term healthy sexuality, it's easy to think that that requires maybe being sexually active. So when we say healthy sexuality, what do we, what does that mean for a single person?

Absolutely. Well, to start off, I think I just want to preface with saying I think we as Christians have done a disservice to the topic of sexuality by primarily speaking of sexuality as it relates to marriage, rather than how it relates almost equally to singleness. Because sexuality relates just as much to singles as it does to those who are married. We've fallen for this mentality and lie that I'm totally missing out on sexuality unless I'm married. And this boils sexuality down to primarily being about physical sexual behavior rather than all of its complex dimensions. And I think this is such a problem because it actually does a disservice to our view of God and what it means to be created in his image because we're created as sexual beings. So to answer your question, single or not, I define healthy sexuality as the state of well being that comes from living according to God's design for sexuality in all areas. The state of well being that comes from living according to God's design for sexuality in all areas. So if you're a married man or woman, you're Sexually healthy if you're living according to God's design for sexuality in all areas as a single. You're sexually healthy if you're living according to God's design for sexuality in all areas. Which is not just about physical sexual behavior. Because our sexuality. And I think this is something we got to get. Our sexuality is dimension of our personhood as humans. We're physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational beings. And I want to break down those dimensions a bit more throughout the other questions today that we talk about. But to start the discussion, I think it's important to understand why God created physical sexual behavior as we see Scripture. So I just want to give a couple references. In Genesis 1:28, Adam and Eve, the first married couple, were told to go forth and multiply. Which is not about math, it's about procreation. But we also see in Genesis 2:24 that Adam and Eve are referred to being in this marriage covenant. And they're told to become one flesh and to be united. So we see that sex is also about intimacy and being bonded together. And lastly, Proverbs 5, 18 and 19 talks about delighting in your wife and being satisfied by her breasts. And that says to me that physical sexual behavior is also about recreation and fun with your spouse. But in addition to this physical sexual behavior, our sexuality can also be expressed physically through affectionate touch, holding someone's hand, a hug, cuddling. But again, that's just the physical dimension, the physical behavior. And there's much more to our sexuality than the behavior. Because our sexuality encompasses our gender and what flows from that. Our gender roles, gender identity, biological gender. It also encompasses our attractions to other people, our intimacy, our relational needs, our understanding of God as he's neither male nor female. Yet as males reflect aspects of his character that females don't. And females reflect aspects of God's character that men don't. So really, when we're interacting with other people, that's ultimately about our sexuality. Because they're created as male, female, and have. And everybody has this longing for friendship, this longing for intimacy. So as singles, I'd say we're healthy sexually. If we're living out the spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical dimensions of God's design for sexuality in our singleness. So I just want to go on the record to say that this is why I'm no longer waiting until marriage to be sexual. I can enjoy my sexuality now. As a disclaimer, I'm not saying I'm going to go act on some of those sexual behaviors that are designed specifically for marriage. Now, but I don't have to wait to live out my sexuality until marriage as a single.

I think that's such a great starting point, Ben, that we're all recognizing and agreeing that God has a good plan for our sexuality and that the goodness of that plan isn't contingent on my marital state. Because I think that you're right. That's what we do in the church is like, well, if you're married, then you can experience the goodness of God's plan for your sexuality. Well, the married person is experiencing one dynamic of it. But that's not to say that if you're single, then, well, now you can't experience anything healthy. So just to look at how a married person might be unhealthy sexually, because they're saying, well, yeah, I'm. I'm confining my sex to just with my spouse. But maybe in their thoughts and in a lot of their private behaviors, they're very unhealthy in their sexuality. Whereas a single person who is not having physical sexual intimacy with a spouse might actually be incredibly healthy sexually because they have a deep respect for how God made them, for their masculinity or their femininity. They appreciate God's plan. They look forward to with faith and trust that at the right time, there could be a spouse in their life. But they're appreciating how God made them, rather than what I think sometimes is the message that, well, if you're single, just pretend you're not sexual, that you don't have any of that desire in your life. Because, like, well, like you said, that's not how God made us. God made us all sexual beings. And so it must be possible to find appreciation for God's creation of us and even worship whether we're single or married. And yes, the expression for a married person is obviously very different because of their physical intimacy with a spouse.

And.

But that as a single person, we can still lean into the goodness of God's plan and discover what he has for us in that season of our life.

And I feel like what you guys are saying too, and this is really important, that if we define sexuality the way that we often do, where it's just the physical act between a married couple, then what you're doing is you're almost setting up the standard that God is somehow a killjoy for single people. And he's not. To quote, you know, one of my good friends and a mentor of mine, Dave Barry, has always told me, God's never a killjoy. He's Always a givejoy. And so if you're single and you're not able to express your sexuality in that marital and physical intimacy, it doesn't mean that God is withholding a blessing from you. There's so much more, as you know, Ben, you're talking about. There's so much more to intimacy and being in relationship with God and with others that God is blessing you with. And I think, man, especially in our culture, it's all about sex. And so I think that in the church we inadvertently kind of preach that gospel that God is somehow a killjoy. And then that gets reinforced with the culture that that's around us. So really getting to that point where we understand that God is not a killjoy. He always wants to give us the best and the most that he can.

Yeah, absolutely. And as you mentioned, you know, a significant part of our sexuality is physical sex between a husband and a wife. Romance, eroticism, sexual intimacy, but that's just one part of it. And even in that, in that sex in marriage as God designed, that can also miss the mark of intimacy. As one of my friends, Dr. Mark Lazer, has told me, healthy sex in marriage is an expression of intimacy, not an escape from it. Healthy sex in marriage is an expression of intimacy, not an escape from it. So just because even a married person may be having sex just with their spouse physically and protecting themselves from porn, masturbation, sexual thoughts, unless that's an expression of intimacy and already having a good relationship and talking about what's really going on and building one another up, we may not be a healthy interaction or a healthy behavior.

Yeah, so let's lean into that word a little bit, Ben, because I think culturally we see the word intimacy and sex are used interchangeably, but as you're alluding to, those are not the same thing. And so, particularly from the angle of a single person, what does it look like for a single person to experience intimacy with another person that is non sexual?

Yeah, well, I'd probably say that to some degree, all intimacy is an expression of our sexuality. It doesn't have to be a intimacy in sex, but it can be an expression of our sexuality. Because as mentioned earlier, interacting with other people is about our sexuality because they're created as male and female and gender is part of that sexuality. And we're relational beings made in God's image with relational needs and having this longing for connection and intimacy or otherwise. Intimacy, otherwise defined as closeness with others emotionally. So as a married or single sexuality is about these relational and emotional dimensions of our personhood. Whether that expression is coming out through interactions with a spouse, a friend, a co worker. But for singles specifically, this intimacy can be seen through having friends who know everything about you and love you. They know your deepest secrets. It could be seen through people in your life who you share hobbies with, or who mentor you, or who live with you or work with you. Or it could be a boyfriend or a girlfriend. These are people you hang out with. You ask for help when you're struggling with something, or maybe it's just someone that you have fun with. All of these things are ways of experiencing intimacy. And I think we need to change the way we look at sexuality. Because if I'm interacting with somebody of the opposite sex in a completely healthy biblical way, that's engaging my sexuality because she's female, I'm male. Or even somebody of. Even a brother in Christ, if he's male, I'm male. We're both creating in God's image that has to do with my sexuality. But as a single guy, a few years ago, what was really cool to start thinking more about this was I made this list of all these relational and emotional and intimacy needs that I thought marriage would meet in my life. Being loved, being affirmed, listened to, pursued. Somebody to have fun with consistently. Then I thought about all the people God had provided in my life that were meeting those needs at that very moment. It was incredible. I was living out the relational and emotional components of my sexuality right then and there as a single. And what a place we have as the body of Christ to express our sexuality and have our intimacy needs met, no matter what we've gone through. Because in the body of Christ, we have spiritual fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. A family that we can never lose, and that is always there for us or should be always there for us. So what if we stopped fighting and denying our sexual longings as singles or even as married people and instead looked at what is behind them? Am I lonely? Am I sad? Am I wanting to escape stress or pain because I feel worthless? Really, all these things are about being known, being loved and accepted. All these things are the solution to those desires. So sexual sin is ultimately about meeting legitimate needs in illegitimate ways. So we can ask ourselves, if I'm. If I'm tempted to act out against God's design for sexuality or sex, what is the legitimate need behind that? What's the deeper desire? And then I can actually allow Jesus and the body of Christ to meet that deepest longing of my heart.

Yeah, that is such a great point. I think, really around this Word. There's such confusion in our culture because as you were starting to hit at Ben, we often don't know how to have those kind of relationships with people of the same gender. And so in our day and age, if we feel really bonded to someone of the same gender, we immediately think it's sexual. And we'll hear a lot of people saying, well, am I gay or am I a homosexual? Because I feel connected. But what we really need to learn is that a healthy relationship where there's intimacy that is non sexual can be a part of friendship. That that bonding that happens when I'm fully known by someone and fully loved, but not in a sexually, just in an emotional friendship way, that's good friendship. And if we can relearn or rediscover as human beings what it's like to have that sort of friendship with people of the same gender, I think it only creates a stronger platform to then have marriages with some of the opposite gender. Because now we're comfortable in our own skin. We know that we're accepted for who we are by others of our same gender. And now we're able to enter into a relationship fully with someone who's not like us, that's of a different gender, and to discover intimacy that can be both emotional and physical then in a sexual nature. So I just wanted to put that word of encouragement because I know many of our listeners probably have a part of their story where they're wrestling with same sex attraction or wonder if that's something they've got to deal with when maybe what they're wrestling with is how to find intimacy that is non sexual. And if we look into that, we might find some real fruitful discovery for our journey along the way.

Absolutely.

So we know that regardless of being married or single, that sexual addiction, sexual struggles is a thing. It's not a married thing. It's not a single thing. It's a people thing. And so as a single guy, Ben, what does it look like for a single person to pursue sexual health? Because I think it's really easy to look at a married couple and say, well, is the husband or wife looking at porn or having affairs or acting out sexually with someone else? That is easy to say, okay, that's unhealth. And what it looks like to pursue sexual health is maybe a little bit more streamlined. So for someone who's single, unmarried, whether they're, you know, divorced, widowed, just deciding to be single, what does it look like to pursue sexual health?

Yeah, I would say to pursue sexual health by focusing on what you are doing as much as what you're not doing. I think so often we can just focus on what we're not doing, or we can focus on getting free from porn use, masturbation, sexual thoughts or sexual behavior outside of marriage. But we need to also focus on how we are expressing our sexuality in a healthy way as a single, relationally, emotionally, spiritually. So to focus on developing these friendships, living out of our gender roles, experiencing intimacy with friends in a healthy way and knowing them and sharing what's going on in our life and having people we go to when we're lonely and who we go to to talk through the difficulties in life. Also, I would say to grow in our understanding of sexuality in all its dimensions as a single and married. Research why God created sexual behavior to be experienced only in marriage and the spiritual and emotional dimensions of that sexual behavior because it's much more than just a physical thing. Why is that worth waiting for and or only experiencing in the right context? Pursue help and support to live out God's design in all of those dimensions, Whether that's getting into a pure desire group, going through living free, going through the eight pillars of freedom for women with some friends, there's many things that we can do to continue to experience sexual health.

One of the great ideas I've picked up, and I think this is from our good friend of the podcast, Rodney Wright, one of our speaking team members just talking to young men, some of his advice, that rather than letting our sexual struggle always be what separates us from God and we feel guilty about or condemn ourselves, look at how our sexual struggle, particularly when we're single, can take us towards God. That when we're feeling lust or desire or temptation, what Rodney says, attaching that to God to say, thank you, Lord, you made me this way, you gave me these desires and I pray that I would fulfill them only in a way that honors you. And I'm looking forward to that day when in your timing and in your way, you bring me the right spouse. And I'm doing my best to patiently wait for that day. Not to say we're going to be able to say that whole prayer every time there's temptation, but just that idea that I can connect my sexual struggles or even my sexual brokenness to God's creation and use it as an opportunity for worship and prayer to know that God's a part of it. God's in on that with you and not avoiding you or feeling like, oh, don't bring that up before God. And now I condemn Myself and feel separated. Instead, make it something that's a part of your relationship with God, because that keeps our sexuality and our spirituality connected. And that's such an important piece to invite God into our sexuality.

So a thing that really comes to mind for me, and I think that there are a lot of married men who. And women specifically, who have struggled with this area that would say they wish that they could work on this stuff when they were single. And I think that, you know, Nick, I've heard you say in group and sometimes in our Q and A, there are guys who are single saying, man, I wish I was married. And, you know, so I could be sexual. And then there are married men who are like, I wish I could be single so I could deal with this before I got married. So I think that, you know, as a single person, I may have been married for three years. So I still. I remember what it's like to be single. The idea that your health, and that's just not just sexually, but emotionally, spiritually, physically, is a gift that you give other people. So I think about, even right now, you know, I've got a story where I was starting to get healthy as I stepped into marriage, and I thank the Lord for that. But in all reality, if I would have spent time addressing the wounds that I had years before I got married, I would be a different husband. I would now be a different dad in a healthier place, where now I feel like I'm hitting some of those things head on and realizing not just in a sexual realm, but even emotional, you know, I've got triggers and different things that really set me off that I'm having to deal with now. And if you're single and you don't do it alone, but if you're not in a marital relationship where you figuring your stuff out is going to dump all over a spouse, do it as soon as you can. I mean, I think that the healthier you can get, the more that you will bless the people around you. And so any single people out there just pursue health in the sense of figuring out where your wounds are, where your biggest issues are, and finding the root of really why you struggle with sexual temptation and sexual immorality.

Well, and let's turn that into a question for Ben. You know, Trevor brings up this group dynamic where married guys wish they were single so they could figure it out, and single guys wish they were married so they could be having sex. From your perspective as a single guy that's been walking in health, what are advantages? And I'm thinking about in particular for other single people that are listening to this podcast. What are the advantages you would say you have as a single person that you would just want to remind other singles, hey, don't forget, here's some good things we have working for us. And keep your eyes on that. Just like you were saying earlier, maybe we're worried too much about what we can't do, and we need to look at what we can do. So what are those advantages or things you can do as a single person that you would maybe highlight for us?

Yeah, I would say to a great extent, I can experience the heart and intention of why God created sexual behavior now as a single, because ultimately it's about acceptance and unity and intimacy. Now, I can't experience exactly what that's like now as a single, but I can still live out of my sexuality and experience that intimacy that God wants for me. So I think now as a single, it's been such a gift because I've gotten to learn what sex is all about to some extent as a single guy. Never had it here. It's awesome, but I've gotten to learn more about it, learn what intimacy is about. Whereas I do think if I was married, going through recovery, I would still be struggling so much to try and figure out how to. How to experience sexual behavior in a healthy way. So I'm glad that I went through this now as a single guy, because now I can walk into marriage a lot healthier. And it's so worth it to fight for that right now, to spare your spouse, to spare your kids from bringing this into marriage.

You know, something on the practical end, too, is that when you get married and you start having sex, you know, the common misconception is that once you start having sex, your temptation to look at porn or to act out sexually outside of your marital relationship gets easier. And it doesn't. It gets more difficult because now you're experiencing what sex is like, and it's more. It's more hd, it's more vivid. You've had that experience now. And so that, again, would be a reason to, if you can, if you're single, to get healthy now because it will become more difficult to get out of it. And I think, Ben, you're kind of. You're hinting at that, that the hooks kind of get in a little bit deeper when you get married and you have access to sex. So to really take advantage of the time you have as a single person to really figure out what sexual health looks like. And then, you know, Ben, as you're sharing, man, I'm pumped for the woman who gets to marry you because she's gonna have a healthy dude that's stepping into marriage and has a good understanding of what sexuality looks like and is just going to be an awesome husband. So I'm pumped for you.

Are you going to give out his phone number now?

I mean, I can. Ladies, his number is 907. Process if you do. Yes. If you are a single female and you love Jesus and want to pursue health, we will attach Ben Bennett's.

They need an email first so we can like kind of take them through a little application, make sure it's yes, it's good for Ben.

Okay.

I would throw out I am dating right now. So.

Okay, sorry ladies.

Sorry.

That's the buzzkill. But on your note about, about married people having sex says the single guy. This is a weird statement, but I've. When I was leading Pure Desire groups of married guys, I had met so many married guys who stopped looking at porn and masturbating. But they kept showing up to groups saying, I'm sex is about me. I'm using my wife for, for my own gratification. Like this is a physical thing and I feel like I need it. So they had actually, their addiction had switched from porn and masturbation to when they got married to using their wife rather than experiencing that intimacy and what sex was supposed to be about.

So Ben, what are some of the common misconceptions you feel that exist when it comes to sexuality and being single? Talk a little bit more about that if you would.

Yeah, so I think one is that you're sexually healthy just because you're not looking at porn or acting out sexually. But that doesn't mean you're healthy sexually because it's not just about what you're abstaining from or not doing. It's about what you are doing. Are you growing in your understanding of God's beautiful design for sex and sexuality? Are you connecting relationally and experiencing this intimacy with others? Are you living out of your God given gender roles as a man or as a woman? Another is that another misconception is that only married people can live out their sexuality according to God's design because it's only about physical sexual behavior. But again, singles get to experience their sexuality, as I've mentioned, because it's much more than physical. It's relational, it's emotional, it's spiritual. And Jesus lived life to the full. Although he was never married, he never experienced physical sexual behavior. He never sinned sexually, but he was fully human, and therefore he was also a sexual being. And if physical sexual behavior is crucial to being a human or our sexuality, I'm not sure we could say that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Because Jesus never got married. He never experienced this physical sexual behavior. So it can't be crucial.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that I remember as a single guy where I would think that my sex or porn addiction doesn't affect anyone else was a misconception, and that's totally wrong. And here's been my experience is that when watching pornography, watching sexually explicit content and learning from external sources what sex, quote, unquote, should look like, set me up for failure and set me up for being disappointed. When I got married, I thought sex was going to be this, and it wasn't this, it was that and learning that it wasn't, you know, And I've had to learn in a difficult way that sex is more than just the physical act, and it's more than just about me and learning that. It's about something that should be a culmination of the emotional connection and intimacy that I have with my spouse. And really the sex and the porn addiction I had before I was married set me up for that failure. And not only does that affect me, that affects my wife, my relationship with her, our sexual intimacy is affected by that. And so that's really one of the biggest things, is that your choices that you make today as a single person will absolutely affect your spouse, your kids, will affect the family that you have, because you're setting up, even looking at, from the neurochemistry perspective, you're setting up these highways of thought, thought in your brain, that when something happens, I know I can go to porn, or I can go to masturbation, or I can go to sexually acting out. And those are unhealthy habits and obviously are not healthy or holy habits. But if you've set that up, then if something goes wrong in your marriage, you've already set up an escape plan where I can go to porn if things get difficult or we're not having enough sex as a couple. And so it absolutely affects you, your relationship, and really the legacy of your family.

Yeah. And marriage aside, if. If you never get married or don't want to get married, acting out sexually affects our relationship with God, our intimacy with God. We feel so distant when we go back to that. We struggle with shame. We can so often beat ourselves up, it can cause us to keep others at a distance. So it's so deeply as a single person, even now affects our greatest longings in life. To be known, to be loved, to be accepted as.

I think of a misconception that I know I had as a single guy and I hear from singles that I work with, is that anyone who's married has this great sex life. And won't it be great to be married and have a great sex life? And sex and marriage can be great, but can also be difficult. It can create a lot of strong emotions. It can create wounding. It can be a place of pain. There's a lot of learning to be done, A lot of misconceptions that you don't even realize you have until you get married. A lot of unmet expectations that one spouse or the other bring into it. And it is not always fun and easy. Now, I don't want to act like it's all bad. It certainly can be fun. And there's times it is easy, but it is just like any other aspect of marriage. It's work to develop the kind of intimacy physically that really is good in marriage. And so maybe just to help any single person listening, keep forming those expectations to say, yeah, there'll be part of your sex life as a married couple if and when you get married, that is great. But there will also be parts that are really challenging. And not to be surprised by that, like, something's wrong. And I. I think that's what I felt early in marriage, is that if we had difficulty, there was something wrong with us. What's wrong with me? Why doesn't my body respond like I thought it would? Or why doesn't hers? Or why am I not emotionally ready? Or you just have all these expectations, and when they're not met, that shame factor of man. What's wrong with us? And why isn't like, I thought so just to release yourself from that and go, no, you know, this is part of being committed to another human being is there will be a growth curve. There will be hard work. There'll be times we don't engage or connect very well. And that's okay. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with me. It means I'm a human being trying to understand another human being in this really complex world of sexuality. So. So for both singles and married people, just to shape our thinking about sex in that matter would be really helpful.

Absolutely.

All right, so, guys, this has been great so far. I really appreciate, Ben, your time and really your perspective, man. I think that we're going to finish up now with the Same way we do really, with most episodes, is giving you an opportunity to share. What final encouragement would you have to someone who is single? And maybe they're battling with this issue, maybe they're not, but want to better understand what it means to be healthy sexually as a single. What final encouragements would you give to them?

Yeah, I would say a couple of things. I would say that we as the church need to rethink what sex and sexuality is all about. By going to God's word and the fact that sexuality is much more than physical behavior, we can tend to view sexual behavior as the ultimate experience in life. When you're tired, when you're hurt, culture says you just need to get laid. Right? But behind that is a greater need. It's to be fully known and fully loved. And we can experience that greater need. Now. What if most of our desires for sexual behavior were really about intimacy and being loved? Well, then I'm happy being single right now because far too often my wrong motivations or cravings for sexual behavior have gotten in the way of God desiring to be. To meet my greater need of relational intimacy, which. Which he meets when I reach out to a friend rather than acting out by looking at porn like I used to. So what if in this process of. Of setting you free from unwanted sexual behavior, God actually gave you the exact thing that you need? Because healing by God is found through reaching out and having support from other peoples and having these from other people and having people in your life who. Who love you. What if the statement Jesus made in Matthew 16:25 was true? Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. And that by giving up this, the physical sexual behavior that's outside of God's design as singles that we think we need. What if we actually. If that actually allows us to get what we really need, to experience intimacy and love in a satisfying way from God and others? Well, I can tell you firsthand that Jesus was right, is right when he says that, because I've walked that path of porn addiction. I've now been sober for five years from porn masturbation. And I found greater satisfaction in intimacy by connecting with others when I'm tempted to act out sexually and asking for help. And I think that is why some have said that the opposite of addiction is connection.

Yeah, that's such great wisdom, Ben. I appreciate so much your willingness to be open with your story, even in a sense to be an example, because that can create kind of a target on your back where the enemy doesn't like that. The world doesn't necessarily like that. But I think you're trying to be a statement to singles to say we can experience all that God has for us while we're single and we're not just in some perpetual holding pattern. So thanks for be in that voice. And I think my final encouragement would just be to encourage us to keep confronting a lie that says, and we've alluded to it in this podcast, that to be human means I must have sex. And we think of it as a must. I know a favorite movie my wife and I have had watching together is the Proposal. And in that movie it comes out that the main character played by Sandra Bullock, hasn't had sex in 18 months. And the reaction of Ryan Reynolds for co stars, like, wow, like, like the shock of how are you even alive to have gone that long without sex? And I think that's how our world treats it, like you aren't a human being, and particularly you're not a man if you're not having sex. But that is not true that you can be a fully alive human being living out the design and the plan God has for your life without sex. And the more we can recognize that then sex has its right place in our life as being the outcome of my humanity, the outcome of my masculinity or my femininity, rather than the basis for it. And so we need to just challenge that cultural assumption as often as we can so that we can find the joy. As you've been talking about, Trevor, we can find the kind of joy God wants to give us and that sex brings the kind of joy it's meant to have in our lives. So that'd be my thought as we wrap up today.

Yeah, you know, I'm going to take a different bent from you guys. As someone who may be listening, who's a married person that has singles in their life. One thing that I would really, really walk away with is an understanding that we can potentially perpetuate this idea that you have to get married and you have to have sex in order to be someone who is living the fullest life as a believer in Christ. And that that's not true. And there are things that we can do and encouragements we can give to single people that can be so helpful and really without us knowing, it can be so detrimental. And so, you know, a couple things don't set yourself up that you are like the relational expert if you are married to your single friends, because that's not true. They could be more healthy than you are. I know single people who are very much healthier than I am, and then also use the opportunity you have to pour into that person and to have that intimate relationship. Like we're talking about the emotional intimacy of being a brother or sister in Christ to that person. Because if they're struggling with this issue or not, they everybody needs brothers and sisters and they need that emotional intimacy and so take advantage of that time and really pour into that. So if you're a person who's married and you have people who are single in your life, your role in their life is just as important and beneficial as any other relationship they have.

So good.

So this has been fantastic. Ben, you are a favorite of ours. We really appreciate everything and we just appreciate the conversation we've been having. And really the encouragement for anybody out there is that being healthy sexually is not just something that married men and women pursue. As you've learned in the episode, it's something that all of us are created as sexual beings, and it's something that we all have to pursue whether we're married or not. So sexual health for sure doesn't come as a result of being married or even being sexually active. It comes from pursuing God's design for our sexuality and allowing God to define who we are even in that area of our life. So, Ben, you are leading the way, my man, and we really appreciate your time and thanks for just hanging out with us.

Thanks so much, guys. We really appreciate you and thank you.

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