Sex and Stupid Expectations

In my last post "If you ask Andy", I mentioned an anti-purity blog that had me very riled up.  The blogger was raised as a conservative Christian but then became an Atheist as an adult.  Therefore, she gives her anti-purity perspective very confidently- as though she fully understands "purity" from the inside, since she came from a conservative Christian background. 

If you remember from my last post, my problem with this woman's blog was her statement that premarital sex with multiple partners does no "actual harm" to a future marriage relationship.  "If you ask Andy" was kind of a "get ready for the beat down" warning to those casual Atheists/Agnostic/Secular Christians/etc who try to say sex is "just physical".  However, as I continue to ruminate on this woman's (poorly written) words; I realize there is another aspect of her blog post that actually bothers me more.  

Truly, the worst thing she talks about is how she valued purity before she became an Atheist.

She got the whole purpose of it entirely backwards. It doesn't surprise me that she became an Atheist and dropped purity, because she clearly never understood the basic fundamentals of Christianity.

So, I'm not going to beat on those who want to pretend premarital sex is really "just physical" and has no consequences (which is like a smoker pretending cigarettes don't cause cancer). Today, I want to refute a distorted view of purity that is not uncommon among ignorant, legalistic Christians. 

Yeah, I'm going after the self-righteous virgins.

Before we continue, here is the blog post in question:

 Sexpectations: Purity, Courtship, and Dating

To summarize, this blogger, Libby Anne, writes that the entire value of purity lies in expectations.  If you expect that your future spouse is going to be a virgin, then virginity will matter to you.  It is her opinion that this expectation is taught.  Therefore, if you aren't taught that purity is important and to be expected in a spouse, than it simply doesn't matter.

For something things, this is true, that expectations = worth. Take a dollar bill, it is only worth what you expect to get with it, right?  50 years ago, it was worth a lot more than it is today. 1950's kids were raised to "know the value of a dollar", because it was actually worth something.  In 1950, you could buy five loaves of bread for a dollar.  Today, you can't even get one loaf of bread with a dollar. Kids grow up today with an entirely different concept of the worth of a dollar bill.  I think the last time a dollar was exciting to me was when I got them from the tooth fairy. With inflation, it is hardly worth anything at all. In fact, the worth of a dollar bill today is only 10% of its value in 1950. Even though the dollar bill itself, as a physical object, has not changed, the value has changed based on what you can expect for it in return. 

Is that how we judge the worth of our bodies? Is the worth of our bodies determined by what we expect to get with it?  Are we only worth the pleasure others expect to get from us? 

So, Libby Anne grew up expecting to get someone's "virginity" in exchange for hers.  When she fell in love with a man who wasn't raised to value purity and was not himself a virgin, Libby Anne's expectations were left woefully un-met.  Not only was she disappointed that her husband didn't "wait" for her, she was resentful that he didn't value her virginity:

"When I first started dating the man who is now my husband, I was horrified by the fact that he had dated other women before me, and been physically intimate with them. I felt angry, angry at him and angry at those other girls. I knew one of them – she lived in my dorm – and I have to say I almost hated her. I felt that she had taken something from me, something precious, simply by dating my husband. He had given away a piece of his heart, I believed, and now the heart he would give me was incomplete. We could never have the best, all because he had dated before...

Weirdly, my now husband told me that he wished I had dated before. He even wished that I wasn’t a virgin. This completely threw me. Wasn’t he supposed to be thrilled that he was my first? Wasn’t my intact heart (and hymen) supposed to be some sort of present for him, some sort of gift? But he was serious. He really truly wished I had had previous boyfriends, and in fact he told me that not only would he not have cared if I had had sex before, but in fact he actually wished I’d had. 

I was so confused. I had saved myself for him – wasn’t that supposed to mean something? The reality is that it would have meant something if he had been a fundamentalist or evangelical boy raised to expect sexual purity and emotional purity. But he wasn’t, so it didn’t."

As I said in my last blog post, I entirely disagree that the value of purity lies only in the expectation of it. Premarital sex with multiple partners before marriage has a vast array of scientifically proven physical, psychological, and sociological consequences (as well as spiritual- but I can't say that is "scientifically" proven). In "If you ask Andy", I mentioned just a handful of the research that proves premarital sex with multiple partners does indeed cause "actual harm" to future marriages.  Also, the reaction that this blogger's husband had toward her virginity is shameful.  To value his wife so little that he wished she had played Russian roulette with disease, pregnancy, increased risk of depression, increased risk of divorce, etc etc? Shameful. 

BUT

It is just as shameful that this woman expected her husband to be a virgin as if this was something she deserved because she waited.  Secondly, how dare she think that saving sex for marriage made her more valuable! To insinuate that her husband was worth less, that he was incomplete/damaged because he wasn't a virgin? Shameful.

Alright now, this is for the few of you who are going to save sex for marriage. Pay close attention to what I am about to tell you. I have three very important points for you regarding (1) the value of virginity, (2) what you deserve for your virginity, and (3) expecting your spouse to be a virgin.

1)

Saving yourself for marriage has nothing to do with being someone's "first".  

Let me repeat.

SAVING YOURSELF FOR MARRIAGE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BEING SOMEONE'S "FIRST".

Saving yourself for marriage has EVERYTHING to do with the love of your life being YOUR one and only.

"It's not just about knowing the standards you expect somebody else will meet for you; it's knowing the standards that you should live up to because your future spouse deserves them of you"

-Jason Evert
from How to Date your Soulmate without Losing Your Soul

Look, if you value purity than obviously you value your own body and that is as it should be, your body was made as a temple for your soul and for God. But the act of saving yourself for marriage is a giving, loving action that you do FOR your future spouse (and of course to honor God and how HE designed love to be). You don't save yourself for yourself.  You don't do it to increase your value and be worth "more" some how.  

Get this straight:

ALL of your worth comes from being made in the image and likeness of God. 

You can do nothing to add or subtract from that worth.

It is GOD who determines your value and He made it clear that YOU and every other human being is worth dying for.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Therefore ALL people have the same worth, regardless of whether or not they have had sex with someone else. The physical status of your "virginity" has nothing to do with your value.  Saving yourself for marriage shows that you recognize the inherent value of human beings- both in yourself and others.  Saving yourself for marriage shows how YOU value the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of your future spouse.  It is about THEM, not you. 

You save yourself for marriage so that one day you can say to the love of your life:

• I didn't want to jeopardize your health or put your life in danger. 
• I couldn't imagine taking the risk of creating a child with anyone else because I wanted my legacy on this earth to be made with only you.
• I didn't co-habitat with anyone because I wanted to share all those little intimacies of life with only you.
• I didn't abuse the sexual bonding processes in my brain so that I could be perfectly one with you. 
• I saved every little orgasm for you because I wanted my greatest pleasure and joy on this earth to be shared with only you. (Remember, sex is the very highest physical pleasure you can experience in a healthy life. Only heroin produces more physical pleasure than sex.)
• I didn't want to put our life together at risk (because statistics are statistics for a reason and ALL research agrees that on average virgin's have more stable marriages with a much lower rate of infidelity and divorce).
• I wanted you to be the only person with whom I shared the most intimate act two people can experience so that it truly is "intimate", sacred, consecrated to you alone.
• I waited for you because you are worth waiting for.

It isn't about you, it is about the love of your life.

2)

Regardless of how you live your life, nobody OWES you ANYTHING.

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Isaiah 64:6

There is no one righteous not even one.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 and Romans 3:10

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:8

We "deserve" nothing.

For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.

Roman 3:22-25

Got it? Because we all are sinners we "deserve" nothing. If there was true justice, God would have wiped out mankind a long time ago and left it that way. Every good and perfect thing that we are blessed with comes from God as a gift of His grace (James 1:17).  Your righteousness comes from faith in God and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to atone for our sins- not by your actions.  You don't obtain righteousness through your good acts and obedience- you do good things and obey God's commandments because HE deserves that from you for saving your sorry soul. Just because you waited for marriage doesn't mean God "owes" you a virgin, got it? You are no less a sinner than the spouse who gave up his/her virginity before marriage.  Was it sin to have sex before marriage? DUH but that doesn't "disqualify" them from life as God intended.  And YOU are not perfectly pure, understand? No one is. I guarantee you have struggled with sexual sin even if just within your heart and mind. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. May the one with no sin cast the first stone (John 8:7).

3)

Here is the problem with "expecting" your future spouse to be a virgin:

Only 3% of people in the United States save themselves for marriage successfully.  

That means 97% of people DON'T.

The odds suck, guys.  It is very, very important that we, as Christians, are grounded in reality.  Only 20% of us young, conservative Christians are even trying to wait.  Hey guess what?  

The temptation to sin is hard to resist.

No!? Really?! 


Paul said it best:  

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Romans 7:19

Even those of us who LOVE how God designed love to be; even those of us who BELIEVE that it is true and right; even we make mistakes, we are taken advantage of, or we go through periods of doubt and rebellion. We mess up.  Only 3% make it guys.  You think you're too good for the other 97%? You think God would only plan for you to be with a virgin? You're out of your mind.

People want sex and very few people value themselves or eachother enough to bother keeping it as the sacred, bonding ritual that God intended it to be.  Few people bother with the self-control. They turn it into just another recreational activity people do with each other.  Even though they are gambling with their brain's ability to bond and to be truly intimate, with disease, with emotions, with the very wellspring of life (I don't know if you noticed but babies come from sex, and children of all things on this planet aught to be considered sacred, don't you think?). They disregard all of that and just do it for the endorphins, or they justify sharing this sacred bonding intimacy with various people along the lines of polyamory.

But the point is, almost everybody is doing it, and you're truly a fool to expect your future spouse to be a virgin. Even most conservative Christians are giving their bodies away to various people long before they walk down the aisle. Only 3% are making it to their wedding night, people! 

I was at a Rebecca St. James concert when I was about 14 or 15 (she's a very famous Christian singer for those who don't know).  I remember standing there in the audience while she sang:

Darling, did you know that I
I dream about you
Waiting for the look in your eyes
When we meet for the first time

And darling, did you know that I
I pray about you
Praying that you will hold on
Keep your loving eyes only for me

'Cause I am waiting for
Praying for you, darling
Wait for me too
Wait for me as I wait for you

Darling, did you know
I dream about life together
Knowing it will be forever
I'll be yours and you'll be mine

I stood there shaking my head and thinking, "Ain't nobody waiting for me." Even though I truly did have that dream since I was 11 years old. I dreamed about the one. I waited for that look in his eyes. I prayed for him. I waited for him, however as a moderately intelligent person and I knew the chances were slim that anyone would be waiting for me. I had no expectations. It is better to be prepared for reality.

Is it best to wait? YES.  Are there very, very serious and sometimes life-altering and even deadly consequences for those who do not wait?  YES.  Are you hurting yourself, the people you sin with, and your future spouse? YES. Does it mean you can "never have the best" if you don't wait? NO.  Dude, do you even understand the Gospel? 

God's favorite love story is not two perfectly pure virgins marrying each other and living happier ever after.  

Don't get me wrong. Two people saving themselves for marriage and being virgins together on their wedding night is perfect.  That is how God designed it to be; it honors God and it gives you the very best foundation for a long happy sex life and marriage (statistically proven).  It is this magical, lovely thing; and I don't want to take away the significance from that. Saving yourself for marriage is an incredible feat of self-control, devotion, adoration, commitment, and love. I urge everyone to wait for marriage. However, two virgins pairing up isn't God's favorite love story.  What? Well, what is His favorite love story? Have you read the Bible? Don't worry, I'll tell you...