Part II - The Article

(The article is in italics.)

Mom & Dad - read at your own risk.
You folks who know me - take all of this with a grain of salt.

"Virginity pledges. Chastity balls. Courtship. Side hugs. Guarding your heart. Evangelical discourse on sex is more conservative than I've ever seen it. Parents and pastors and youth group leaders told us not to do it before we got married. Why? Because the Bible says so. Yet that simple message didn't go very far in shaping our sexual decision-making."

Yeah - 'cause that works. Even if you put a woman in a burka, guys are still going to fantasize about what she looks like naked. Zero of this worked for me. I grew up hearing about how I shouldn't have sex because the Bible said so, but that wasn't a good enough reason for me. The first opportunity I had I jumped at. I knew (intellectually) what I was doing was morally wrong according to every scripture I'd ever read, ever sermon I'd ever heard, every Sunday School lesson I ever sat through and every church camp I ever attended. "Because God says So" wasn't a good enough reason for me, and once I had experienced it, I couldn't care less, because I loved every second of it, and Billy Graham, Chuck Swindoll, Bob George, Tim Stevenson, Dawson McAlister, DC Talk, Any Grant or Stryper was going to be able to talk me out of it.

"So they kicked it up a notch and staked a battle over virginity, with pledges of abstinence and accountability structures to maintain the power of the imperative to not do what many of us felt like doing. Some of us failed, but we could become 'born again virgins.' Virginity mattered.

Born Again Virgin = made it OK to have sex. It's a church-sanctioned mulligan, and it removes at least consequence for having sex. Why abstain when you know you can go back to church, confess, cry, repent and know that everybody (including God) is going to forgive you, thereby removing the aspect of God-given conviction in the face of knowing and intentionally sinning against God?

"But sex can be had in other ways, and many of us got creative."

We were already creative, man. People have been coming up with some pretty inventive ways to get the experience and/or sensation of getting laid since the stone age. I found every way around the no-intercourse rule I could.

Then they told us that oral sex was still sex. It could spread disease, and it would make you feel bad.

Hah - I never felt guilty at all, man. Not once. And yes - I considered oral sex of any kind "not doing it". Only intercourse "counted" to God, and to the church. Any time I was told how bad it was I disregarded it entirely. I love(d) oral sex just as much as intercourse, too, and if I could get away with that guilt-free so much the better. By the way, this is a great selling point when trying to round the bases and stay guilt-free. I've met one woman that was able to stand her ground, man. One. Unfortunately, my experience has been that church-going girls are just as sexually active as the non-churchgoers; they're just more likely to feel guilty about it later.

'Sex will be so much better if you wait until your wedding night,' they urged. If we could hold out, they said, it would be worth it. The sheer glory of consummation would knock our socks off.

This, unfortunately, is a complete lie. I've had (and continue to have) great sex within the confines of marriage, and (in the past, before my second marriage) I've had some spectacular sex outside of marriage, too. Sexually speaking, there's a lot to be enjoyed either way, if you choose to allow yourself to enjoy it. There's a lot about sex they don't tell you in church, man, especially how much fun it is, and how much you'll enjoy it, even if you're having sex with somebody you're not married to. I know I've enjoyed it every time, with every person, often times so much so that I find myself unable to forget, even when I want to, because a part of me doesn't want to forget, and will never want to forget it. 'Cause I loved it, and part of me always will, like an alcoholic loves every drop in the bottle. I remember every face, every body, every curve, every touch, every taste, every smell, every sensation about these experiences. I can still get high remembering them.

Something else they don't tell you is that sex isn't always like porn, or, in the absence of porn, the fantasies you have in your head. These are the basis for the expectation that the folks (especially guys) have. They (we) have a preconceived notion of what sex is going to look like, sound like, feel like, smell like, and taste like. And let's face it - if it's the first time you've ever had sex with somebody (even moreso if one or both of you is relatively inexperienced) odds are it's going to be at least a little disappointing to at least one of you. Sexual experience generally means better sex, man - experience means something, but they don't tell you that in church.

"It might sound like I devalue abstinence. I don't. The problem is that not all abstainers end up happy or go on to the great sex lives they were promised. Nor do all indulgers become miserable or marital train wrecks."

Pretty much, yeah. My first wife and I didn't have intercourse before we got married, yet we got divorced five years later. I know one couple that were pure as the wind-driven snow and they didn't make it. I know couples that were screwing like rabbits before they got hitched and they're doing fine, and have been for years. If you want my opinion, the act of sex has very little to do with how long your marriage will last. I think the most important tenets of marriage (commitment, communication, spiritual compatibility, etc) operate independently of the sexual aspect of marriage, though sex is usually a good barometer of how the relationship is doing.

Anyway, that's how I feel about the article. I've had to go back and re-edit this several times already. I could (and want to) say a lot more, man. I've opted for restraint here, but it's difficult for me on several different levels.

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