The answer to that question is a resounding no! Sex within a marriage is the only form of sex authorized by God—with a sanction—“your desire will be for your husband” (Genesis 3:16). Not even this sanction is broken when a man has sex with his wife. Therefore, what is all the commotion about in the case of the public official who had sex with his own wife, who was suffering from dementia?
From the point of human laws and the law of nature, the husband has done no wrong. But from the point of the Grace of God, who is in each and every human being, empowering, monitoring, controlling, replenishing, restoring and renewing each and every one of us, everything is wrong with a husband or wife having sex with a spouse with dementia.
The Bible declares that everything is legal (permissible), but not all are beneficial or constructive. Therefore, a couple may continue to do what they have always done in their marriage. And whatever they have been doing does not have to be discussed and agreed upon ahead of time. Marriage had made them one, before God and before the world.
Once two people say “I do”, and go ahead and establish patterns for everything in their lives, the parties involved must understand that they are giving each other the license to continue the patterns they have jointly set up for their joint existence. They can only hope that their spouse takes the commitment to love and protect serious enough, to continue to love and protect them in the event of any incapacitation. Marriage truly makes two people one, and there is nothing on earth that has the power to change it, except Grace.
Even unlimited number of laws could not adequately solve the problems of marriage. We neither understand marriage nor respect it. All the attempts made throughout human history to solve the problems of marriage had only exacerbated the problems. But all hope is not lost. So, come with me then to the wisdom of God—the wisdom that provides satisfying solutions to all the issues plaguing the humankind.
Like Elihu, the young Buzite told Job and his three wise friends:
“Hear my words, you wise men; listen to me, you men of learning. 3 For the ear tests words as the tongue tastes food. 4 Let us discern for ourselves what is right; let us learn together what is good.” (Job 34:2-4)
Mankind’s greatest problem is, believing than the human beings have the capacity to determine mankind’s destiny. For that very reason, mankind has exhausted its resources on the education of the mind, so that the mind could provide all the solutions mankind needs and desires. This exclusive devotion to the mind has taken mankind off course; and threatens to plunge humanity into eternal darkness.
The mind is all organic and, as such, could not exceed the limits of its constitution and accommodation. Grace, on the other hand, has limitless potential; and is abundantly available to each and every human person. Grace powers all of the human life functions, including that of our organic mind. God gave the world laws, to keep mankind from falling off the deep end, until He sent His Son Jesus Christ to show us how to tap into the ever-present, and abundantly available, Grace that is in us, and all around us.
Adam and Eve were married as soon as God brought Eve to Adam, but sex was not even remotely in their psyche. They roamed freely in the Garden of Eden, naked, and it never bothered them one bit. But as soon as Eve decided to elevate her mind over her spirit, mankind’s problems started. She followed the directions of her mind, while Adam sat and listened in to all her logic with the devil, thereby also becoming compromised by the education the devil was giving to Eve. As a result, once Eve fell, Adam quickly fell with her. They have unlocked the caged-up beast that is their mind, and could no longer push it back into the cage.
Their elevation of their minds over their spirits activated the evil the devil and his minions have been spewing into the world; and brought decay into the human life and the human body. The human person who God has designed to last forever has thus become biodegradable; and continues to degrade with each additional sin.
The activated evil awakened in Adam and Eve all sorts of negative emotions, including sexual desire, fear, guilt, anger, jealousy, remorse and shame. And about the sexual desire, God commanded the woman to channel her desire to her husband alone. This is the birth, by default, of human sexuality; and the sanctioning, by God, of marital sex.
The spiritual man has not lost his spirit; but had rather burdened his life with problems that will continue to plague him until he dies. That is how we all got here, but the moral plunging has not stopped; because the pleasures of the mind have gotten the better part of each and every one of us: We have succumbed hopelessly to the misdirection of our minds.
Therefore, as you can see, God has authorized sex within marriages; yet sex remains the beast that it has always been—sinister, untamable and insatiable. That is why we could not easily tell when to shut down that desire for good. We continue to stoke that desire because we have all come to see marriage as a cover for sex—including senseless sex. But senseless does not equate to illegality. Therefore, laws may not be broken even when an act of sex is senseless.
This is why God introduced us to the subject of consent—being able to choose right and reject wrong. To provide us with the precedence for making this determination, God declared that a human person under the age of twenty may not be held entirely responsible for their decisions and actions. But the human beings, in their irrationality, have been moving this limit up and down, depending on their convictions at different places and different times in human history.
The loss of the capacity for consent by a human person automatically turns the person into a child once again; giving rise to the popular saying: “Once an adult and twice a child”. And the when a human person becomes a “child” once again, the person becomes not only a child to their parents, but also a child to their children, if they have kids; and a child to their spouse, if they are married.
Marriage is all about love; and sparingly, about taming beastly desires that must be brought under control when it is no longer proper to encourage. This is the law of Grace! The spirit of marriage requires that any two people in a marriage must love and protect each other—especially protection from sexual impropriety. The law of Grace requires that each spouse should have confidence in his or her mate affording them this protection, to help them maintain their peace and wholesomeness.
Sexual invasion is the most intrusive of all physical aggravations. It rattles the soul as well as the spirit, and impedes holiness. This is why everyone has to abstain from sex, even marital sex, before they can come into the presence of God. Every child is innocent and holy. So also is an adult who has lost their capacity for consent, and has for a second time in their life become a child. Such an adult must be protected by everyone responsible for their care, like a child is protected.
Some of the issues being discussed in this case dishonor both the victim and the accuser—an accuser who believed he was within his rights when he perpetrated the act in question, because he was married to the victim. Anybody who thinks that because a person with dementia reacts favorably to sexual touch means that the person is savoring the experience, needs to think again.
If that kind of thinking is applied to children, we will all become perverts and moral bandits. Children submit to things out of fear; or to find favor in the eyes of an intimidating adult. An adult with dementia is even in a worse state since he or she no longer reacts to any stimulus of the mind.
Engaging in sexual relationship with an adult with dementia is tantamount to attempting to awaken in them a beast that has already been slayed, which must be left alone. Whatever the person does in that process, is not coming from the consenting adult they used to be; but from a spiritual shell that now lacks the organic mind that helps the human person decide on whether to consent to something or not. The spirit does not decide for the body; the mind decides for the body!
Marriage is holy and always between the two people involved; and their God. And privacy is of uttermost importance in a marriage, because sex, which is only authorized by God within marriage, is always a dirty beast—regardless.
That is why Grace is the only way to go in marriage, because Grace provides both parties in a marriage with all the answers. Any marriage that obeys the law of Grace enjoys the love of God, and God’s care and protection till the end. A marriage that obeys the law of Grace also constantly flies above the radar of public scrutiny, innuendo and public embarrassment.
Does this mean that the public official—a law-maker who has rendered good services to his community for many years, but, in poor judgment had sex with his wife with failing mental health—has broken a law that warrants that every aspect of his sexual life be publicly dissected? Not necessarily! But since we have taken it upon ourselves to adjudicate every human problem on our own, we will continue to create more mess, and less solution.
This is why all human communities must adopt the laws of Grace—the commands of the Almighty God. Our God is a God of second chance, even third. God requires that we repent of our wrongdoing and return to His Grace. Once we do, He restores us and renews us through His Grace so we can continue with the business of life, the way life is intended by God. God’s justice brings relief and long lasting solutions to the problems of humanity. We all should embrace it.