Bonus: Sexuality Beyond Sex

Greetings, Dataology community. Candice here. I've been eager to jump on for a while and connect with you all. Our intention for Dataology was that it would remain an online resource and that we'd be able to hop on from time to time to give you updates or some bonus content. So that's what I want to do today.

I've got some updates for you and I'm going to get into a fairly meaty subject today, we're going to talk about sexuality beyond sex. So the update first, something that I've wanted to do for a while is to put together a dating conference, an evening where we can go further on the topics that are covered here, and an opportunity to get the single community together in the same room to mingle. I've been in the works with a local church on the peninsula in the Bay area.

The target date is the end of summer, early fall. So the details will come to follow. I plan to give you a couple of bonus episodes with some fresh content. And as I release them, I will also be releasing the information on the conference as it gets closer to that time frame.

So the main topic for today is on sexuality and sex, sexuality beyond sex. It's a tongue twister. How this came to mind was that a couple of months ago, several churches in the Silicon Valley did a co-occurring series on identity and sexuality, covered a lot of information. And today, I'm not going to try to tackle all of it. But this particular issue was something that left me wanting for more, and I've been thinking about it a lot, and I had some ideas that I wanted to share with you all.

What I did appreciate about this series was that churches acknowledged the value of singleness and apologized for the role churches have had in misrepresenting marriage as being the pinnacle of our spiritual formation. So thank you so much to church leaders for sharing that message. That is something that we've talked about here in Dateology, trying to deconstruct the concept that marriage is this huge Hollywood-esque experience that culminates all of our spiritual growth.

And unfortunately, that's just not true. And it's not helpful. It's not helpful in the dating process. And it is certainly not helpful on the other side of marriage. So thank you for churches for trying to tackle those really big concepts. But the concepts of sexuality beyond sex really fell short to me.

I so appreciate this idea. And if you get anything from today's conversation, I hope that you just think about what could sexuality beyond sex, what could that even look like?

I have a theory that I'm going to share with you all, but I think it's an interesting process for our mind to be thinking about because clearly God gave us all of our appetites and I don't think that he gave us sexuality just to torture us, especially for following a biblical ethic around sex and trying to abstain before marriage. What is God's role then for singles? Do singles just not get to experience or express their sexuality?

That doesn't sound right. Sexuality certainly seems like a part of our holistic being, mind, body, spirit, emotion. And so I've just really thought there has to be a role for it.

But the concept that was brought into churches just to me fell really flat. So I had a friend, who texted me and said that an example that her church used of what sexuality beyond sex looks like. So basically the concept of like it's for connection. Yep, that makes sense. But the example was of a teacher and a parent collaborating for the good of a child. What? Like womp womp, that cannot be it. Clearly we collaborate all the time with work and on all sorts of things.

And that doesn't feel like a transcending experience the same way that sex can feel like. If sex's intention is for deep intimacy and oneness of another being, then what can that look like outside of intercourse?

So here's the idea that I have. You know, please listen with a grain of salt. I am so humble in this conversation. It is just a thought that came to mind and you can totally leave comments and message me and tell me what you think. But sex, sexuality beyond sex, the fulfillment of it has to be equal to or better than sex. It just has to. It wouldn't match the need if it was less than. And so what if sexual fulfillment beyond sex has to do with something like a transcendent experience with God?

How this came to my mind was it was thinking about something I've heard Francis Chan share several times when he's preaching.

And it's these moments that he's had with God that are so deep, so rich, that other milestone experiences in his life have paled in comparison. I remember one time him talking about the birth of his daughter and how wonderful that was, but that he had been in a deep, intimate prayer session with God that morning, and that prayer session was even more fulfilling than the birth of his daughter. And I don't think he was trying to disparage the beautiful experience of his daughter being born.

He was trying to highlight what kind of prayer life we can have with God. And obviously, when we pray, there's going to be different degrees. And most of the time that we pray, it's not going to feel like some deep, moving experience. But I do believe that we have this opportunity as human beings to have transcendent moments.

Moments google it think lots of people throughout history think of the mystics talk about these moments of unity with god or kind of having experiences where they see beyond this present moment i've certainly had experiences like that that come to mind just really profound moments in worship or in inner healing prayer sessions where the experience just felt. Like hard to put into words, so incredible. And like God was so palpable in that moment.

So I think if sexuality has a role for us beyond sex, it's going to look something like that.

That's what I'm offering for you today. In it, I think it can be a really empowering concept that we don't just have to be unfulfilled until we have sex on the other side of marriage.

Marriage something that i can tell you as a therapist is that a lot especially christians when they get married sex can be a really tricky thing because you go from years and years and years of trying to abstain and be holy and when now you're given you know the keys to the gate and you can do you're gonna have sexual intimacy with your partner and sometimes for people it's actually really hard and really disappointing that is the reality of the situation but if we

can be empowered to think about what is God's design for our sexuality if it is truly found in oneness. And yeah, what does that look like in heaven? I don't know if we're going to be having sexual intimacy in heaven, but certainly we might be having this form of sexual intimacy if it has to do with a divine oneness with God. Again, if this is hokey for you, it's not things I usually talk about, but it has been really on my mind ever since this series.

Yeah, I just don't like the idea of like my friend messaging me and feeling like there was no real example for what sexuality beyond sex can even look like. It's a very disempowering thing if the examples are just everyday moments that obviously pale into a comparison of what something like an orgasm can can be. So that is my food for thought.

Again, I will be recording a few of these bonus episodes. I'll probably get back into my more therapeutic lane. But I hope you found some value in this conversation today. If you want to see what I'm up to, the best place to do that at this moment is on LinkedIn. That's where I've been posting any of my events. Thoughts that I have are projects that I'm working on. I would love to connect with anyone who's listening over there.

To date, Datology has around 60,000 downloads, which is pretty amazing to me considering considering the origins of datology and that Matt and I came up with this idea years ago. And it's cool that it's reached some people. Obviously, there are podcasts out there that are much more popular than this, but I still appreciate everyone who's listening. And it's just been such a humbling experience to have.

And another thing, if you all are interested in hearing more content from me, I did a guest. I was a guest on a podcast recently called The Movement Soul Collective. I'll put that link in the show notes. It was a really interesting conversation. It went over some of my origins as a therapist, some of the creation of dateology, and it covered a lot of topics that are really near and dear to my heart. So if you want to check that out and hear more of my story and more from me,

it'd be a great place to go. Also, my website right now has a videos page. So I've done some speaking engagements recently that have been recorded and put on YouTube. And so the links for that are found on that page.

And Matt right now is doing his own thing. He's got some projects going on. So I'm flying solo and we are wishing Matt well in his endeavors. But like I said, dateology has just been on my heart. I loved this experience. I've really appreciated everyone that's reached out over time, still people finding this resource for the first time.

And I really hope that it brings to you what our intention always was, was wisdom and freedom in the dating process. And so thank you again for following along. I will be back here in a few short weeks with some more fresh content for you all. So thanks for hanging in there with me on this interesting topic today.

And I look forward to chatting with you. Music.