September/October 2001

Shipwrecked on Temptation Island

by Kari West

Your secret is safe. Most of us have been seduced by wild imaginings. Tantalized by thoughts of an endless vacation. Beguiled by daydreams woven from veils and vows that flow like sails of clipper ships on long voyages to peaceful shores where true love waits, babies never cry and bread stays fresh. Wooed by fantasies of a paradise lost, we have lusted with our eyes.

Temptation is common to all of us. We are tempted not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Tempted to escape responsibility by ditching our promises. Tempted to clear the deck of any accountability and create the world we imagine. Tempted to set ourselves adrift in a sea of relativity where relationships without commitment beckon from charming ports of call. After all, that's how we navigate through reality TV, isn't it?

In January, Fox Television launched its latest pop culture phenomenon: Temptation Island. The episodes focused on four unmarried but seriously committed couples and 26 singles. To test the waters of temptation, they traveled to a Caribbean paradise where they were separated for 14 days and enticed to break up their relationships by having five required dates with at least three different tempters.

With the final episode pulling in 17.3 million viewers, the network is scouting locations for the next libido-filled adventure of mind games and body shots. New participants are being recruited. "It's a show that's going to make a substantial amount of money," said Gail Berman, Fox Entertainment President. "Our affiliates absolutely loved the show, and they're waiting for Temptation 2."1

Temptation is nothing new. Ever since that coy snake slithered into Eden and dangled the juicy possibility of being like God, our hearts, minds and mouths have watered for forbidden fruit. We are enslaved by our desire for something more. More money and security. More sex. More power and prestige. More fun. How quickly we pander our hearts, minds and souls for someone or something more.

The Lure of More

Not one of us is exempt from this lure of more -- making more, buying more or wanting more. Titillating sensual experiences are especially alluring when we are discontent with what we have, emotionally vulnerable, under pressure or unsure of what we believe.

In her memoir, Singing Lessons, singer and songwriter Judy Collins writes, "The flower child generation discovered sex as though it were a new shore. We were like Columbus, armed with birth control pills and new morals, finding a continent. We burned our ships and meant to stay. Sex, it was preached by the already converted, could solve everything."2 Her words are still applicable today.

· For Vern, a diamond-shaped blue pill promised the possibility of renewed sexual prowess and self-esteem. But Viagra also unraveled his long-term marriage when his wife, Vivian, discovered her 70-year-old husband was on the prowl and had left her with a sexually-transmitted disease.

· Last month Brad and Sherri were caught in an undertow of dot-com layoffs. Now with severance pay and medical coverage running out, pressure is intensifying in their already complicated lives of caring for two young children with disabilities and Sherri's mother who has Alzheimer's. Feeling trapped and alone, they fantasize about casting off the financial and emotional responsibilities that anchor them to each other and starting over with someone else.

· Lisa now regrets not taking her engagement ring more seriously. After dorm mates dared her to find love on the Internet, she found herself in an online dalliance and was inundated with pornographic e-mail. She can't erase the images from her mind.

Temptation intrigues us. As Vern, Brad, Sherri and Lisa discovered, the thought of cutting yourself adrift -- without compass or mooring -- to run with the breeze and navigate by hormones can sweep you off your feet. Instant gratification with forbidden pleasure is always more appealing than steering a pre-determined course and holding a position against headwinds of relativism, pop culture and peer groups.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers explains temptation as "a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us." He views temptation not as a sin by itself, but as something we face by virtue of being human. Chambers says temptation suggests "a shortcut to the realization of his highest goal," directing him not toward what he understands to be evil but toward what he understands to be good.3

No wonder temptation's siren song is so beguiling. Who wants to miss what might be better? In this momentary confusion over good and evil, right and wrong, reality and illusion, Satan hooks us. Our viewpoint shifts. We lose sight of eternity and are swayed to believe that we deserve so much more -- and we deserve it now! Only the fear of grave consequences can restrain us from sailing full speed ahead to our imagined paradise. All it takes to get there is a sense of entitlement, unaccountability and the willingness to suspend belief that our everyday choices really do matter.

The Vanity of Entitlement

Modern culture "hands us a license to eat whatever we feel like eating, sleep with whoever is willing, rebel against whatever frustrates us, lash back at whoever has hurt us, and cross whatever legal and ethical lines are beyond detection," writes Dr. Os Guiness in Steering Through Chaos -- Vice and Virtue in an Age of Moral Confusion.4

Contemporary magazine articles delude us into believing that we are capable of doing and being anything we imagine. Movies and television not only impose their values upon us but mislead us by creating a world that does not exist -- a Disneyland dreamscape where every wish is fulfilled. Soon we are using our own expectations to mentally paint an idyllic abode free of disappointment, suffering and loss instead of living in the reality of what we know is true. That same snake in the grass that wooed Adam and Eve now seduces us by undermining our contentment. No longer is our desire for God alone but to be like God and create our own world.

Is it any wonder that we want more from this world than it can ever provide? Our deepest longing for belonging and acceptance cannot be met by another human being -- not our lifelong spouse, a long-term affair or a one-night stand. Our fickle culture cannot provide the validation and attachment we need. Our use of sex to alleviate boredom and anaesthetize pain cannot bring the fulfillment and relief we seek. As Dr. Guiness explains, "Lust-driven seduction without personal engagement ends only in the void of empty-armedness and an even deeper longing."5

King Solomon -- a handsome, rich man who had everything -- admits how the relationships he formed, the work he did, the gardens he created, and the music and arts he enjoyed did not live up to his expectations or bring lasting satisfaction. He warns us that only a relationship with God can fulfill the desires of our heart, mind, body and soul. Solomon advises us not to live with a sense of entitlement for vain glory and selfish pleasure but with a sense of eternity -- in gratitude for what we have and always had (Ecclesiastes 6); in acceptance that life is what it is (5:19; 9:11-12; 10:8-9); and in reverence of God's sovereignty (6:10; 11:4-6; 12:13).

The Virtue of Accountability

The first step into temptation takes place in our mind, that secret place where no one sees. We can withdraw in thought or attitude while appearing committed to a relationship. With this island getaway mentality, marriage can become our cover of respectability.

Society's desire for more autonomy and less accountability is seen in the periodicals we read. In the last 50 years, we moved away from the broader-based Life and Look to the narrower-focused Self and More.

Few families sit down for dinner and leisurely conversation. Enamored with technology, we gravitate toward solitary pursuits. In the privacy of our homes, we can surf the Internet any hour of the day or night. We can visit Internet chat rooms and cultivate online relationships that quickly go over the line. Taking the helm of our life -- alone and without accountability -- one can easily rationalize that cybersex is okay because: It's not wrong unless I get caught. What's the harm if nobody gets hurt? How can it be bad when it feels so good? Besides, it's only virtual lust and not the real thing.

Also, the principles and values we once lived by are changing. In our search for the next distraction, entertainment and sensual pleasure, we have pulled up anchor and overlooked the danger of running aground. No longer is God our ultimate point of reference. We are! The wave of the future is unsettling and its impact on our public and private lives, unknown. For example:

Ellen Fein, co-author of The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right recently completed her second book, The Rules For Marriage: Time-Tested Secrets for Making Your Marriage Work. But after 16 years of marriage, she is divorcing her pharmacist-husband, while her publisher, AOL Time Warner, scrambles to update the manuscript, with hundreds of advance copies already in circulation. 6

Another couple, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones signed not only a pre-nuptial but an extra-nuptial agreement that the tabloids dubbed a "pay-if-I-play" arrangement. Should the 56-year-old star of Basic Instinct and Traffic be caught cheating, he agreed to pay the 31-year-old star of The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment $5 million in addition to the $1 million she collects for each year she stays married to him.7

Perhaps Malcolm Muggeridge's observation is correct: "The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment."

The Value of Our Everyday Choices

Who wants to deny themselves for the mere sake of commitment? With temptation tickling our fantasies and flattering our ego, there's something adventurous about floating with feelings and drifting with instincts. We are liberated from responsibility. Cut loose to do what we want, when and how we want. Freed from promises. Released from guilt by the mantra, everybody does it.

Sailing along forbidden coasts is always fraught with come hither danger and riveting adventure. That is what impressed Tom, a participant on Temptation Island. "We were given no rules," he said, when interviewed about his date with Shannon. He expected to get out of the escapade "simply the experience itself, a chance to meet people who were as adventurous as I am and the possibility of some new relationships." As to whether he felt guilty being with another guy's girlfriend, he answered: "I'd be lying if I didn't say the thought crossed my mind at times. But the couples were there for that experience and to feel guilty is to do the experience a disservice."8

Like Tom, some of us view marriage as a What's in it for me? experience rather than a No matter what happens commitment. Our steamer trunk is packed in case we don't get what we want or it doesn't work out. Lewis Smedes, former professor of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary says many of us stick around not out of loyalty, but because we're covering our bets, we just got used to each other, the present relationship is better than the alternative, we need the goodwill of family or community or we are trapped. Others stay "because they care enough about each other to stay, belong to each other, simply accept the conditions of life they were born into when they made the commitment" or because they made a promise.9

According to Smedes, genuine commitment means surrendering our freedom to plan exit routes as we allow another person to stake a claim on us and we stretch beyond our individual self to stand beside them; caring enough to put our spouse's needs ahead of our own desires; and trusting they will keep their promises as we entrust ourselves to them.

In Learning to Live the Love We Promise, he writes, "We need to trust someone to care for us during the low ebbs, when life's energy bottoms out, and we are too weak, too tired, to take care of ourselves...fall down and can't get up...cry out for help...make bad mistakes...are afraid."10

Let's face it, commitment is more than a sound-bite spoken at an altar. It means living what you vow in your 20s for the rest of your life, whether seas get rough, you get sick or the worst happens. But since temptation is inescapable, sticking to a commitment can be difficult. Exhausting. Unrewarding. Boring. But isn't that when life's real adventure begins -- after the vows are spoken, the flowers wilt, the music fades and the moonlight flickering through palm fronds gives way to the glare of tedious everydayness?

Wherever you are in your marriage, don't allow it to be pirated by a sense of entitlement, unaccountability or marketplace values. Faithfully living out your ordinary life really does matter. You see, our everyday choices reflect who we really care about and what we really value. As Dr. Guiness says, "The truth is that none of us is ever more Godlike than when we simply make and simply keep commitments to each other."11

To enable us to remain committed during life's rip tides and high swells, first, we need an acute awareness of any shift in our thinking about what is right and wrong; then, a willingness to care enough to do what is right when temptation beckons.

Next, we need to remember it is never too late to remove those rose-colored glasses that blind us to the truth that submerged reefs and rocky shoals are all around us. We can start by paying attention to work-related liaisons that attract our attention, deleting questionable e-mail before we open it and refusing to browse pornographic websites that feed our prurient interests.

We can seek wise counsel before isolation builds or flight syndrome kicks in. We can quit snickering at convenient excuses, such as "God made marriage but he didn't make man for marriage." And we can stop keeping secrets from our spouse and ask Christ to live within us, so that we can live with integrity.

By living what we promise every day with every choice, we inflate a seaworthy life raft that can keep us afloat when we are tossed overboard into the turbulent waters of marital temptation. Its christened name is Commitment. 

1 Source of statistic and quote: www.temptationislandsucks.com/tisnews.

2 Judy Collins, Singing Lessons -- A Memoir of Love, Loss, Hope and Healing, (c)1998, Pocket Books-Simon and Schuster, New York; p. 238-39.

3 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, (c)1963 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd., p. September 17 and 18.

4 Dr. Os Guiness, Steering Through Chaos -- Vice and Virtue in an Age of Moral Confusion, (c)2000 by The Trinity Forum, published by NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO 80935; p. 18.

5 e. g., Guiness, p. 241.

6 Cesar G. Soriano, "'Rules' author files for divorce," March 26, 2001, USA Today, p. D-1 of Lifeline.

7 "I Do (But If I Don't, Here's a Few Million)," Citizen Magazine, published by Focus on the Family, April 2001, p. 12.

8 Quotes taken from transcript of interview with Tom, a Temptation Island participant; (I was unable to print from source: my notes are handwritten in pencil).

9 Lewis Smedes, Learning to Live the Love We Promise, (c)1998, 2001, Shaw Books-WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Colorado Springs, CO. 80920, p. 15-17, 27.

10x Ibid., p.99.

11 Ibid, p. 225.

Should you be tempted to abandon your commitment and shipwreck your marriage, think seriously about your investment in that relationship. Look long and hard at the platform from which you created a home, birthed babies and launched a career. List the present and future consequences. Then, ask "What do I have to gain in light of what I might lose?" As Rich Roth, the president of a Silicon Valley high-tech firm, puts it, "What keeps me from having an affair is my fear that it would change everything. I would never feel the same about myself again, and I'd hurt my wife. The penalty is not worth it." If you have already capsized on the adulterous side of Temptation Island, here's help: · First, acknowledge that you are a user and that your substance is people. Become accountable by giving up control to a mentor, group or counselor and learn how to articulate your needs. Discover the difference between making someone the subject of your attention and making him/her the object of your sexual desires. · Remember that relationships conceived with the seeds of deception do not produce abiding love with integrity. Integrate what you say you believe with how you live. · Go beyond "God has forgiven me; I've moved on." Feel the pain of the one you betrayed and take care of the damage. Ask the betrayed spouse to tell you how you have impacted their life and allow him/her to keep talking for however long it takes. Realize that your spouse may continue to doubt your credibility.

A wise mariner knows the importance of tying a knot that holds in a storm. If you "tied the knot" with your spouse using a slip knot, then you can justify adulterous behavior with any of these excuses. My spouse doesn't meet my needs. My childhood was dysfunctional. I simply have a wandering eye. I just fell in love with her/him. My emotions got in the way. He/she only wanted to talk. I had an affair to get even. I only went out for lunch. My mate drove me to it. I couldn't help myself. Because I wanted to. Everybody does it. King David did it. I'm unhappy. It was God's will. I married too young. I found my soul mate. I wasn't thinking clearly. The devil made me do it. I'm married but not dead. My spouse gained weight. He/she paid attention to me. My mother cheated on my dad. Nobody can tell me what to do. That woman/man came on to me.

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