Hungry Like the Wolf

“Strut on a line, it’s discord and rhyme, I howl and I whine I’m after you
Mouth is alive all running inside and I’m hungry
Like the wolf”
– Duran Duran, “Hungry Like the Wolf”

Does anyone call men “wolves” anymore?

If not, they should, at least sometimes; some men. Wolves prowl and prey, devour, then move on. And who can deny that’s the behavior of way too many guys?

I remember several times, during my backslidden years, standing in a bar talking with friends and, when I’d ask how they were doing, they’d reply, “On the prowl.” It wasn’t a confession, it was a boast. Manly men hunted, conquered, ravaged, then split. Or so we assumed, and time prohibits listing the number of sources, from boyhood on, that taught and reinforced that lie.

But in addition to societal messages, there’s also something innately predatory inside countless males, an urge to sexually seduce and enjoy multiple partners. I don’t fully get it, but it’s undeniably there, whether it plays out in overt promiscuity, adultery, or coupling with multiple fantasy or pornographic images. It’s a wolf’s hunger, driven by impulse, not easily satisfied, and re-awakened all too easily and way too soon. It would make a good horror story and, in fact, often does.

But Maybe We’re Meant to be (Somewhat) That Way?

Burn me at the stake if you will, but I think this is a characteristic we share, loosely and in an unintended way, with God. Originally created in His image, then fallen when sin was committed and its nature introduced into our very fiber, we retain urges He meant us to have, but ones that have also become distortions of their original shape and function.

We were meant to take authority as God surely does, but in our fallen state we get it all wrong, sometimes using it like tyrants; sometimes shying away from it like wimps. We were meant to manage the earth, but in our fallen state some of us have come to worship it; others to abuse it. God ordained drives retain a hint of their original beauty, plus the stench of their sinful disfigurement.

And yes, I think our sexual drive is one of those which was meant to be, but not like this. Because if man’s desires and behaviors should properly represent His creator, it makes sense, on the one hand, for man to be somewhat obsessed with sexual uniting. Because God is – can I say this without being misunderstood? – obsessed with the object of His love. God so loved the world that He went further to conquer and win it than anyone could have guessed or imagined. Look at the way He relentlessly drew Israel throughout the Old Testament, bearing rejection after rejection, apostasy after apostasy, all the while sending prophets through which He said, in essence, “I still love you. Come back.”

Call it devotion, unquenchable love, or even obsession, and I think you’d be right.

Loving Like Him, Longing Like Him

Look at what He and His Son suffered at the crucifixion, and can anyone really doubt God the Father suffered catastrophically while watching His Son’s agony? And all to win us to Him. Then look at His relentless drawing of you to Himself before you knew Him, then His mind-blowing refusal to give up on you when really, had you or I treated any human as we’ve all too often treated Him, the relationship would surely be done.

He’s just nuts about who He wants. He pursues, woos, strives, blesses and draws us, time after time, ever hungrier than a wolf. So I think man’s insatiable urge to merge is, at least in part, in synch with, and bearing the image of, his Maker.

But it’s an urge intended to be felt only for the man’s one beloved, to whom he’s to be as faithful as God is to His. That’s where fallen nature comes in, marring this wonderful obsession by spreading it to multiple, or inappropriate, partners and images. Sexual lust is like a fun-house mirror’s reflection of what is, a weird picture in which you see glimpses of the original, but grotesque perversions of it as well.

So cheers to married couples with high sexual appetites that are mutually expressed and enjoyed. But appetites pulling us towards anything outside the marital covenant need to be seen for what they are: currents that turn into riptides much sooner than the swimmer realizes. I won’t apologize for my hunger today, nor for the erotic responses that come from being human and male. But I hope I’ve learned to respect how easily the urge to merge lawfully can also morph into a ravenous, destructive binge. God meant for me to bond, but with one woman, within one covenant, and there’s no curtain number three.

Let wolves be wolves; they can’t help it. But let men never settle for the “boys will be boys” cop out. Because there’s what we can be, and what we should be, and in this area of life our decision between the two, and that alone, determines what we will be.