Love, not Sex; By Onuh Justus Izuchukwu

“I love you. Good bye...” "I love you, too." I responded.

I ended the call and walked out of my room, leaving my cup of tea unfinished.  Walking towards Kate, I was quietly absorbing my mother's words, “I love you.” Mom would always tell me, "I love you." Does she love me the way some girls on the campus want me to love them? Does she know I am her son? Does love really mean having sex? Or is something wrong somewhere? These were some bothering questions that confronted my innocent mind and made me wonder why she had to use those affectionate words, common among the campus guys and babes. However, I finally understood what she really meant. 

I steeped ahead, following Kate up to some distances. But, she didn’t look back. “Hello Kate,” I called from behind her. She turned around, giving an adorable look that she was very near.

A minute after I had entered Kate’s room, I knew something was wrong. She got up from her bed, walked around his room in confusion, went to the door, and then, locked it. Not suspecting anything, I searched around the room but there was neither chair nor table. Even after I did not talk to her, she kept staring at the ceiling as though she was counting the block shapes made from the knitting of the ceiling roof. I sat next to her on the same bed she was sitting and instantly looked at her, with eyes that had kept the light of the coloring room on which we had just been fixed. Then, abruptly, in a low tone, turning round to ask her an unexpected question,

“What do you want to do?”

Silence was her answer as she stood folding her arms tightly across her chest. I grabbed her and jerked her up against the ground and each time I did it, I felt an electric current zip through my system. My eyes mingled with hers, and I wiggled my eyebrows at her mischievously.

 “Haven't I told you often enough that I know everything in your mind?”

She rolled her eyes, cupped her face, and then, threw her arms over her chest again as though she wanted to hug herself.

“Oh, the pretense of men! I don't know,” she said.

“You'll answer my question or else...”  I threatened.

My threat turned her knees to jelly, but she refused to let me see her fear. She turned her head to absently glance toward the door. She was staring as though her heart and lungs had stopped functioning. She was halfway into her second room before she noticed she was standing by the bookshelves. She had many books but none was related to the course she was studying. “Seven Ways to Make a Guy Crazy, Sex at Dawn,” were lying side by side, an indication that one might have ransacked for a book in search for the object of the mistaken love. She stopped as though she wanted to collect a book, weakened for an instant, almost responding to the firm authority in my voice and said,

“What did you tell me in the lecture hall?”

I stood slowly; my heart pounding in my chest, and the weight, so heavy like the breast of a lactating mother. There was a minute silence wherein I probed into my mind like a surgeon with his scalpel. And yet, I did not remember what I told her during lectures.

She put her hands on her hips and took a few deep breaths, shook his head slowly and went back to sit on her bed.

 "Hey! What's up?" I asked.

 "Nothing. Just that you told me that you love me.” Then she looked down at the ground, a little sideways, and I noticed a small black frown on her brows.

"Would you mind running to me?" I said.

Before I could catch her, she was already running back towards me, and she jumped into my arms. Even when I was returning her kiss, I felt uneasy, as if none of it was real. I felt that I had stumbled into this dream by chance, and here I was now, promising to marry this woman at the age of eighteen.

“That’s so beautiful! All the rehearsing I had done leading up till now flew out the window when you asked me infuriating questions. I thought it was love you meant in the class but your question made me think about other things,” she said.

Think more profoundly, weigh the matter well in your minds, and you will perceive that “I love you” has nothing to do with sex and is not accompanied by sex. Don't confuse sex with love like a lot of people do these days.

As I spoke, tears began to stream down her face – and I knew she hated it, because it made her lipstick fade. I grew up in a Christian home; my parents were faithful in their service to God. But I never heard my parents tell me that “I love you” is the same thing as sex. In their own way, they showed me what “love” was, but it seems opposite of what I see here in the University.

“Almost every man that had told me, ‘I love you’ meant sex. How then do you control your sexual urge if love is not sex?” She asked looking faintly annoyed. She shook her head and looked at her watch. I did not seem to notice her annoyance. She tossed at me, trying to shift from the weight of my dark eyes boring into her face. I thought that her expression was closed down but I knew I wouldn't divulge the question.

“How can one control his sexual urge in a world that everything is all about sex? Advertisement, dressing codes and even languages now trigger sex,” she said.

“Your sex drive can be controlled by directing your thoughts to more acceptable things. If women could have penile erection, I would have advised, humorously and rhythmically, ‘let your erection not detect your life’s direction’. These books you have in your shelf do not help the matter. Wrong is wrong no matter who is doing it. You can tell someone ‘I love you’ without meaning sex.” I responded.

Kate laughed aloud, but her face had a wild, despairing expression, and her hands clasped the bed more firmly. I thought I had made it clear but, by the time I stopped, she was breathing heavily and she could barely control the need to throw herself into my arms. Eventually the spasms of my forehead became mere twitches, and slowly my body relaxed fully and became still. When I finally crept out of her room at the fear of her reaction, we sat at the corridor to discuss.

“I do not understand your holy, pious words. What do you mean? What do you wish to say?" She asked.

Sex is part of God's design, but it is designed for married couples. Love is an expression of the heart. Love is pure and sacrificial; a gift that's freely offered without conditions or concern for oneself.

Sex is not particularly an easy subject to talk about, especially from a Christian point of view, yet the act of it is so widely embraced in our culture. It's not an easy subject to discuss, especially when someone starts to advise you on what you will or will not get from it. “To have sex, make love, to sleep with” is supposed to be an expression of love, shared by a husband and a wife. If you can accept the cold hard truth, better.

“What is God's purpose for sex then?”  She asked

Procreation, as in Genesis 1:26-30 and to become one flesh as in Genesis 2:18-25. In short, God intended sex to be an intimate expression of love between husband and wife, an expression that bonds them together in unity. Make no mistake, God reserves sexual intimacy for marriage.

“But people say that if you love a guy, you would show it by having sex.”

Anyone who tries to pressurize you into having sex by saying, 'if you truly care you would not say no', or 'if you loved me you would show it by having sex', is not really looking out for you. If you feel that you should have sex because you are afraid of losing that person, then maybe you should jettison that person. “Love” is a word that is not sufficient in itself; we use this word too much and to express any emotion: from sex to friendship, or even to “Loving the taste of pizza.” The problem with a word that means so many things is that soon it means nothing at all. It becomes an almost useless expression, such as, “I love you,” so that we ask, “How do you love me, as a friend, as a lover, or as a husband or wife?

She must have been trying to change the subject and still seemed highly amused, although she had stopped laughing and was listening intently.

“Do you accept the explanation?' I asked seriously.

I figured that then I threw her an apologetic look back, even though I was not exactly sure what she was thinking about…