Celibacy

I recently read "The Wait" by DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good, which talks about their experience with remaining celibate until they got married and the value they discovered in doing so. If you would have asked me to even consider reading that book (let alone follow its advice) several months ago, I would've told you that my d**k would have had to fall off before I'd consider giving up pre-marital sex.

The only reason it was even on my radar is because DeVon had an interview with Oprah regarding his book a while back. I sent the link to Jewelz telling her how crazy they sounded. She tried to defend it, and I continued to point out why they were out of their minds, which ended up in another argument.

 

 

At odds.

Several weeks after becoming Christian, I decided to revisit this book. The exact reason escapes me, but I figured maybe it would help me develop my relationship with God by listening to what they had to say. At that point, I still wasn't willing to give up sex completely. I figured it was acceptable with someone I loved enough to consider as my future wife.

DeVon and Meagan raised a lot of good points about the value of waiting until marriage. The ultimate reason why I decided to commit to celibacy prior to marriage rested in what sex did to me mentally. I realized the act and the ensuing bliss always clouded my mind and judgment. It became an addiction regardless of who it was with.

When I was just sleeping around with random girls, I became addicted to casual sex for its own sake. The thing that really screwed with my mind afterwards was always the possibility of contracting STDs or getting some random girl pregnant. What if I got HIV or AIDS? What if she didn't want to get an abortion? What is she did something really screwed up like choose to keep the baby to force me to be with her because she was actually a psycho and I didn't know it ahead of time? Was a night of bliss worth worrying and checking for weeks to make sure each girl had her period? No way. But for some reason, I kept doing it. And I couldn't stop myself.

 

...I couldn't stop myself...

 

When I was in a relationship, sex helped us become closer, but it also became a convenient way to disregard all of the problems in the relationship. It was like throwing a blanket over your bed to hide dirty clothes. The blanket can make it look nice on top, but it doesn't get rid of all of the dirty clothes lying underneath the covers. At some point, all of the dirty laundry is going to come out, and you're gonna have to clean it up. The longer you leave it there, the stinkier it gets.

That's what sex became in my previous relationships. Make up sex, break up sex, mad sex, happy sex, bored sex, etc etc… it all became a panacea to allow for a continuing lack of communication between my partner and I. In each relationship, it gave the illusion that everything was okay because we "felt" good, or it gave the illusion that the relationship was stronger than it really was because we "felt" closer. Often both. We would continue to not discuss important topics: religious preferences and how that would affect our future kids, our ideas about marriage and what that meant about how hard we would fight for each other, our careers and what role we would play to support each other, etc. We ignored the future because we were so blinded by the bliss of the moment.

Sex also gave me an excuse not to continue to grow in the relationship. My view of relationships was to get sex. Marriage was also about love and companionship and what not, but mostly for a long term supply of sex. Mind you, I wanted mutual pleasure. However, when you've already achieved the ultimate goal of the relationship, why put in any more effort for anything else? Why talk so much about issues or spend so much time getting to know each other? Why build my relationship with her parents, siblings, and friends? We were already having sex, and I needed to put in just enough effort to not lose it.

 

 

 

 

Obviously, that's a very perverted way of looking at relationships, but when sex is the ultimate goal in your mind, that's the mentality with which you approach every issue. Now because I understand what it does to my mind, I've decided to hold off on sleeping with anyone until I get married. It will allow me to really dig deep into our relationship, find out more about who I'm dating, and determine whether we really are a good fit for one another. I refuse to be blinded with a bit of bliss and potentially marry when we're not ready, or worse, marry the wrong person.

We'll have plenty of sex when we get married. However, I was lucky enough to discover something that feels even better than sex: unconditional love. I've had just a taste of it with my last relationship with Jewelz, and it's unbelievably better than anything else I have ever experienced. I'll discuss it more in another section, but I find that sex often becomes a huge impediment to developing that deep of a bond, especially when you haven't fully committed to each other under God.

 

~3/16/2017