I think we can best understand why God intends sex only within marriage by examining how God designed individuals to best function, and how God designed society to best function. Physically, our bodies are simply not designed to have multiple sex partners.  Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, emphasized during his time in office, “When you have sex with someone, you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the past ten years, and everyone they and their partners have had sex with for the last ten years.” And that is why medical clinic waiting rooms are overflowing with very nervous patients awaiting the results of STI screenings and HIV blood tests.  And why so many people wound up on my embalming table in the prime of their lives. (Yes, I was a mortician for four years before becoming “the sex lady.”)  We simply can’t deny the fact that multiple sexual partners can wreak havoc on our health.

We also can’t deny that going from sex partner to sex partner wreaks havoc on our mental and emotional health.  It’s incredibly painful to go through a bitter breakup after having already given yourself to another person sexually.  It’s like the ultimate rejection.  “Yes, you gave me your all . . . but that wasn’t good enough.  Next person in line, please!”  Ouch.  Not what God intended. And when we subject our hearts to this kind of pain over and over, it’s like a worn out strip of Velcro on an old pair of tennis shoes. Over time, something that is intended to provide security and safety and protection loses its bonding ability and serves only to leave us vulnerable to exposure and even humiliation.

Think about it.  One of the greatest abilities of human beings is our ability to bond tightly with other humans.  Take that away and we become empty shells, searching for the next sexual high, with no heart for anyone to hold on to.  This is reason enough to protect the sanctity of sex only within a marriage relationship. Yet there is another reason worth mentioning.  Spiritually speaking, lovemaking between a committed husband and wife is intended to be the ultimate height of the human experience—not just sexually through an awesome orgasm, but also through the enormous spiritual euphoria experienced together.

Excerpted from  The Passion Principles: Celebrating Sexual Freedom in Marriage  by Shannon Ethridge. Copyright 2013.  All Rights Reserved. Published by W Publishing Group, and imprint of Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN. Used by Permission. Not to be copied without Publisher’s prior written approval.