It's quite Victorian, really, but to some extent, healthy.
When I came to an appropriate age, and knowing already books were my thing and that I was painfully shy, my mom gave me a book and a journal. I could always come to her for questions, but if I was too embarrassed, I could write them down and leave the journal for her and she would leave a written reply.
I'm very thankful for how tactfully my mom handled it, but back then I experienced a disconnect.
I don't remember what we were talking about, but I remember I was in early-mid elementary school and I mentioned sex with a list of other disgusting sins. When my mom looked at me, startled I'm sure, and said that sex was something beautiful that God designed for a husband and wife (I think that's pretty close to what she actually said), it blew my single-digit world.
None of this had come from home. I'm sure you can guess where I got that impression.
At that age, it was just an impression. Sex wasn't really on my radar, naturally. It didn't apply to me. I didn't sit and ponder the philosophical and physical differences of having either a female brain or female parts.
Fast forward a couple years to middle and high school (just curious, do people still say fast forward?)
Sex still wasn't on my radar and between my own shyness and the impression inherited from childhood, there wasn't much danger.
Enter, Purity Week.
Purity came around twice a school year. Our schedules were modified so that we had chapel every day and every message was pretty much the same. The guys would go to the gym to hear one speaker and the girls would go to the sanctuary to hear another.
So, 10 Things I Learned From Purity Week
1. Do not have sex.
2. Do not EVER have sex.Only slutty whores like/have sex.
3.Sex for enjoyment is sinful.
4. You will be damaged beyond repair if before marriage you have sex.
5. You will lose all your worth if you have sex. You might be able to earn it back, but you'll still be holy damaged goods.
6. Do not engage in romance. It is the enemy's tool to get you to have sex.
7. Sex will pull you away from God.
8. You are responsible for how men view you.
9. God will take away His plan, for possibly permanently you if you have sex.
10. Never be alone with a male. You will be centripetally compelled to have sex and then you will be ruined.
And then, somewhere surreptitiously slipped in,
There is always the possibility that my sensitive, shy nature could have wrongfully inferred this, except it was the same message, every day, every year. We heard housewives cry because sex prevented them from going into the mission field. Another always said she had just recently been left at the altar (3 different years she spoke I think, so I'm not sure I believe this one). It's funny, but it was always women telling us (whether they had gotten pregnant or not) how sex had ruined their lives and always men telling us sex would degrade us.
Some Applications?
We were taught to avoid touching the opposite sex in a way that would have made the Gnostics proud.
We could not hold hands and if we were caught in any inappropriate activity outside school we could be expelled. We were monitored to make sure we didn't sit too close together. Dancing in any way shape or form was forbidden (Footloose anyone?), and any music that wasn't "Christian", even instrumental music, was banned.
Think twice before wearing a skirt with a hemline above your knee because you are responsible for causing your brother to stumble (this is specifically what someone said).
Don't hold hands because the guy God has destined you to marry might see you holding hands and decide he doesn't want you (also a specific injunction).
Over-correcting doesn't sum it up.
Could I direct a Purity Week any better?
Probably not; honestly I'd just make a whole new set of mistakes for someone to blog about.
But here are some things I would rather have heard:
1. It's not about not touching until you get married, like that's the finish line. I heard a pastor tell a couple to put a quarter in a jar each time they had sex the first year they were married. After that year,they were to take one quarter out each time they had sex. He told them it would take years to empty the jar, if they ever did.
#Bullshit
I've heard people say sex is a journey that starts when you get married, and in my limited experience, it's so far true. It kinda seemed like marriage/married sex was something you arrive at. Nope. Again, my experience is limited, but from talking to healthy people about this, and from limited experience, you are starting at the beginning of something that will take longer to explore than most relationships last.
This blog is already long enough and not meant to be a how-to on sex, so unless someone asks, I'm going to just leave it there and recommend Dr. Leman's book Sheet Music.
2. Some practical, healthy reasons why sex before marriage should be avoided. Yes, the Bible says we shouldn't, but are there reasons why that biology and psychology can explain, vocabulary and formulas the apostles didn't yet have to work with? For example, when a woman is sexually aroused (not talking about merely holding hands or recreational kissing), a hormone is released in her brain (I am NOT a scientist-dr-like-person, so this is a gist, not a scientific break down, cut me some slack in my description). That hormone is the same one released during breast-feeding to emotionally bond a child with it's mother. That's a pretty intense bond! I would take a little bit longer to think about the guy, especially because guys don't have this hormone. They are wired differently for sex. If the guy knows this about women and is still pushing to have sex when the relationship isn't serious, you know a little more about the jerk you're dating.
3. How sex impacts daily life, especially for men and women. Most guys don't know they can't ignore their wife all day and then ask for sex. Most women don't understand men don't know this fact and belittle their men for their ignorance and God-given appetite. Most women don't understand how deeply that rejection can hurt their husbands, who passive aggressively will find ways to reject their wives, including being at work all day and ignoring their wife and the cycle continues. Look at the guy you're with. Now back at me. Now back at your man (Sorry, couldn't help it). Is this guy someone you feel is safe to learn these things with? This goes back to #1 with sex being a journey. I first read Sheet Music before I got married, made notes and unlined things. I'm reading it again after I'm married and making all new notes and underlinings! Sex affects things and things affect sex that I had never even thought of and wouldn't have believed before marriage! I am so blessed with how giving and considerate my husband is as a lover and that conviction--so far-- has grown since our wedding night, not diminished.
