In evangelical ideology, sin is bad because it separates you from God, not because you hurt another person

Image text: "Isaiah 61:1a. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." Image source.

Here's a good post from Sheila Wray Gregoire: Who Is the Real Victim When Men Lust? Every Man’s Battle Says It’s Men! It's about how the book "Every Man's Battle" (a best-selling book in Christian culture) seems to have the assumption that the reason it's bad when a man lusts is that it damages the man's purity. The authors of "Every Man's Battle" don't seem to have any awareness of how men's lust can be harmful to the women who are being objectified/harassed/assaulted because of that lust.

This is a very good point, and I want to talk about how it connects to evangelical Christianity's overall concept of what sin is, and what the gospel is. 

Evangelicalism teaches that this is the main message of Christianity, the "good news" we are supposed to share with the world: We have all sinned, and therefore we all deserve to go to hell. God cannot tolerate any sin at all- only perfect people who have never sinned can be in God's presence. But, fortunately, Jesus lived a perfect sinless life and died for us. This solves the problem of us being separated from God because of our sin (which is the biggest problem we have)- when we believe in Jesus, God forgives our sins, and we can go to heaven.

In this framing, when someone sins, it's bad because it means they have committed a terrible offense against a holy and perfect God, and therefore they deserve to go to hell. They desperately need Jesus' forgiveness. When I was a little kid, hearing gospel presentations in Sunday school, it was all about making us feel bad for how terrible we are because we are sinners and God is judging us.

So when they talk about "sin", as an abstract concept, it leads us to have empathy for the sinner. We feel bad for them because they are in danger of going to hell, and we want to save them. And also, we can't really judge them too much, because we are sinners too.

There's very little concern for the victims of your sin- the people you are sinning against. Actually, the way that I understood the definition of "sin" when I was evangelical, it doesn't even need to have a victim. It just meant I was breaking God's rules. Like if I had a selfish thought, or I didn't prioritize my daily bible reading, or if I dated someone that God didn't give me permission to date.

(The example that really takes the cake is Psalm 51, where David writes, "Against you, you only, have I sinned". Yeah, this is after David raped Bathsheba, then when he found out she was pregnant, he had her husband killed, and married her, then the prophet Nathan came and said that was wrong, and as a punishment, the baby would die. In David's prayer of repentance he says, "Against you, you only, have I sinned" as if the problem was just between him and God and didn't really affect anyone else.)

Reading arguments from gay Christians in support of same-sex relationships, that's where I came across the idea that sin is defined as something that hurts people, and it blew my mind. I had never thought about sin that way before. Upon hearing this, I listed a few commonly-recognized sins- lying, stealing, cheating on one's spouse- and was surprised to find that they did share a common thread of you're doing harm to another person. Was that really what "sin" meant? Well, Romans 13:8-10 says it is:

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The apostle Paul is saying here that all you need to know is "Love your neighbor as yourself." Similarly, Jesus said the 2 greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor as yourself, and "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Sin is *not* about reading through the bible and making a list of everything God said not to do, however arbitrary it may seem. Sin is hurting people. 

And the gospel... In evangelicalism, the gospel is good news for people who feel bad about their sin and worry that it means they will go to hell. Evangelicalism claims that this is the main problem that we need to be saved from. But check this out; I believe something completely different now: I believe the gospel is good news for the victims, for the marginalized, for those who are suffering, for those who are suffering the effects of other people's sin.

Sin is not just between you and God, where you did something bad, and so you are deserving of sympathy because now you are at risk of going to hell. No, sin affects other people, and the sympathy should be for the people on the receiving end of it.

The starkest example I have experienced, of these two opposite ways of understanding "sin" and "the gospel", was when I was part of a Christian group in college, and we were planning a series of events we called Human Trafficking Awareness Week. (I wrote about this in 2013: How "the gospel" almost stopped us from fighting human trafficking.) We knew that human trafficking was bad, and we wanted to raise awareness and take action against it. And also, we were evangelical, so we felt it was important to "share the gospel" at our outreach events.

But we couldn't figure out how to get from "let's fight human trafficking" to the gospel. We thought long and hard, and couldn't come up with anything that could work as a natural connection between the two. We believed the message of "the gospel" was "you, as an individual, have sinned against God, and so you deserve to go to hell, but good news! Jesus forgives you!" And that didn't seem to have anything to do with the realities of injustice in the world, and our obligation to take action to fight it.

And now I'm like, really? Seriously? We couldn't figure out how freedom for the captives has anything to do with the main message of Christianity? I guess we never paid attention to how Jesus began his ministry on earth by proclaiming:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Proclaim good news to the poor! Set the oppressed free! Freedom for the captives! *This* is what Jesus came to do. It's not about how every individual needs to make a private spiritual deal with God in order to escape hell; it's about transforming this world into the kingdom of heaven, defined by love, justice, and freedom.

That's the gospel. And, I would say, if our Christianity is not "good news to the poor", then it's not good news at all; it's not the gospel. 

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And also, I didn't want to get into this because it could be a whole separate post, but: the power dynamics about what sorts of "sins" result in people being shamed and labelled as "sinners." Why is it that when Christians say someone is "living in sin", they mean a couple who is living together and presumably having sex, without being married? Why don't we say that employers who don't pay their workers a living wage are "living in sin"?

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Related:

Being Right vs Doing Good

"The Big Wide Welcome" (kids' book review) 

Forgiveness for Sins You Don't Know You've Committed

Why did I think David was the good guy in the story of Abigail?

Don't Protect God

Yes, I Want Justice (A post about white evangelicals and #BlackLivesMatter)

"Christians Aren't Perfect" When It's Convenient

The Great Sex Rescue: Attraction, and "Think Nothing More of it"

A bunch of pins colored like various LGBTQIA flags. Image source.

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

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2 weeks ago. I wrote The Great Sex Rescue: Lust (about chapter 5 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link]) but I have 1 more thing I want to say about this chapter. 

So, the writers of "The Great Sex Rescue" are responding to the common evangelical teaching that lust is a "battle" that "all men" have to fight every day. Evangelical resources about lust have all kinds of anecdotes about how distressing it is for men to see women existing in public "immodestly." Well, the writers of "The Great Sex Rescue" don't buy this. They say it doesn't have to be a "battle":

The route to lust is not straightforward, and there are many, many chances to avoid lust that don't need to lead to stress. It is possible to notice a woman is beautiful, and even to feel a flash of attraction, and then to think nothing more of it and go on about your day.

I also found a blog post on their site, LUST SERIES: Noticing is Not Lusting! We Need to Free Men from this Fallacy (2019), which says it this way:

Do you believe that a man can notice a woman is beautiful or is nicely shaped but then do absolutely nothing else with that information? 

I understand the point they are making- people can notice that other people are attractive, without it becoming a big huge obsession that overtakes all of your thoughts as you try to repress it. I agree with this point, but since I'm asexual I really have no idea if that's how "lust" works or not.

But I just want to point this out because of the way it's worded. "Think nothing more of it." "Do absolutely nothing else with that information." I understand that when they use the word "nothing", what they mean is "don't be a creep" and "don't drive yourself crazy obsessing over whether or not you're 'lusting'", and things of that nature.

But. Let me tell you something. The way queer people experience attraction is not "think nothing more of it."

Hoo boy. No. In a society that tells us what kinds of attraction we're supposed to have, queer people don't simply feel attraction and then move on with life like it's no big deal. No, we feel attraction and question our entire identity. Or, for ace and aro people- we DON'T feel attraction, and then question our entire identity. We feel attraction- or don't feel attraction- and then wonder "is there something wrong with me?" 

We go looking for answers, and then we come upon a word, a label- and many queer people can tell you this- the way that suddenly everything can click into place when you find that label. How good and life-giving it is when you find people who have experienced the same things as you. Finding your identity. 

And then, how good and life-giving it is to come out. To say the words, "I'm gay", "I'm bi", "I'm asexual", and so on.

Even for bi people who are in a monogamous relationship with an opposite-sex partner. One might think that they don't need to come out, they can just let everyone think they're straight- but no, I've seen many bi people talking about how important their bi identity is, and how they want to come out. (For example, this thread from a bi woman married to a man.)

And I've seen women who are married to men, who got married young while they were still in purity culture and never had a chance to explore, and these women are realizing they're bi, and just... the way they gush about how amazing women are. The bisexual joy. It's so beautiful.

And I've also heard this story many times: "When I was 15 and I saw [whatever movie] with [whatever celebrity], that's when I realized I was gay" or "that's when I realized I was bi."

We don't notice someone is attractive and then "think nothing more of it." We build our identities on it.

And for aces and aros... we have words for so many different kinds of attraction. When you're going through the process of questioning if you're asexual, it's all about analyzing "I feel something for this person- is it sexual attraction? Is it romantic attraction? Is it sensual attraction? Is it aesthetic attraction?" We spend SO MUCH TIME analyzing our feelings and picking apart the differences between these different types of attraction. In my case, it turns out that when I thought I was experiencing sexual attraction, it was actually sensual attraction, and I was able to figure that out only because I stopped repressing myself and just allowed myself to feel my own desires- and discovered that they didn't lead to sex.

Queer people know how important it is to explore, to analyze, to know yourself, to take pride in your feelings of attraction or lack thereof. We don't just experience attraction and then move on with life like it doesn't matter. Perhaps after we've gone through the whole process, all the angst, the coming out, and we are confident in our queer identity, and then we notice someone attractive, at that point maybe it really is no big deal, like what is described in "The Great Sex Rescue." But wow, the amount of work it takes to get there.

And, actually, even if we're not talking about queerness, even if we're just talking about straight allo people, it can still be useful to notice what kind of people you are attracted to, and see if there are any patterns that could be unhealthy. For example, what does it mean if you're only attracted to people of a certain race? In the international community here in Shanghai, interracial relationships are very common. And I'm white and my husband is Chinese. And that's great- but we should be aware that there are problematic reasons why someone might be attracted to people of a certain race. Like if you're viewing them as "exotic" rather than as people. So instead of just experiencing attraction as little isolated incidents that don't mean anything, it can be useful to examine your feelings and see if you have biases that are affecting your feelings of attraction.

Another example: The book "Boundaries in Dating" had a chapter about the problem of being attracted to the wrong types of people- people you have intense feelings for, but they don't really have the personality traits to be a reliable partner in a healthy relationship. "Boundaries in Dating" said you should notice this pattern in your feelings of attraction, and you should think about what it says about you, psychologically. And make changes to yourself so you're no longer drawn to people who aren't good for you. I had never heard anything like that before, but I think it's true.

So even if you're not queer, it can still be useful to do some analysis on your feelings of attraction. Perhaps you will discover you have some unhealthy ways of thinking, and you can make changes to address those problems.

But you know what you shouldn't do, when you experience attraction? You shouldn't build a system of rules that other people need to follow so you won't feel those feelings. You shouldn't go around telling people what turns you on, so they can change their behavior to avoid those things. You shouldn't expect that other people will change the way they dress, just for you.

I'm talking about "modesty" here. The whole system of modesty exists because good Christian men feel attraction and then instead of "thinking nothing of it", they believe their feelings are the objective authoritative perspective that should therefore dictate what women are allowed to wear.

Yeah, don't do that. Not cool. Your feelings of attraction are your own business. Go ahead and analyze them, find other people with similar experiences, don't repress yourself, be proud of your identity. But don't use those feelings as a justification for making rules to control other people's lives. And don't be a creep.

So, my point is: "The Great Sex Rescue" says it's possible to feel attraction to someone, and then do nothing with it and move on with your life. What they mean is, you don't have to constantly "fight lust"- you can just act normal, instead of spending all your time obsessing over how hard it is to repress all your feelings. I agree with the overall message, but as a queer person, I have a huge problem with the wording. "Think nothing more of it"? That is so NOT how it works if you're queer. We don't "think nothing more of it" when we feel attraction (or when we realize that we haven't been feeling the attraction that we're expected to). We struggle. We look for answers. We find labels, find community, and celebrate that. We take pride in our identities.

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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

Related:

In Purity Land, Only Straight Men Are Allowed To Have A Sexuality 

So this is new 

Orientation is About Finding the Pattern

The Great Sex Rescue: Lust

Distracted boyfriend meme. A guy is walking with his girlfriend, but he is turning his head to look at another woman, and the girlfriend looks exasperated. Image source.

Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue"

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We now come to chapter 5 of The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended [affiliate link]. This chapter is about the way that evangelicals talk about "lust."

The chapter starts out with an anecdote about a wedding that Gregoire and Lindenbach attended, where the couple wrote their own vows:

But at the end of the vows, we turned to each other with surprise. They forgot something important-- "forsaking all others." It was just an oversight but, nevertheless, that is a rather crucial promise. We're supposed to expect that our spouse will be able to say, in the words of the 1950s jazz group The Flamingos, "I only have eyes for you." Despite the stretch marks and the baby weight, despite the expanding middle and the receding hair, despite the years and the wrinkles and the fading health, we want to know "I am yours, and you are mine, exclusively and forever." That's safety. That's acceptance. That's love.

That's what we all dream of.

But is that all it can ever be-- just a dream?

Umm. Okay. You know some people are polyamorous, right? 

And some people aren't interested in marriage.

Like, it's literally not true that "we all dream of" having 1 lifelong monogamous partner.

I find it quite weird that the chapter about lust starts out with an anecdote about monogamy. Setting it up like lust and monogamy are opposites. Just seems like a really weird framing to me. 

And actually, later in the chapter we will see that their solution to lust is to respect people and recognize that they are entire human beings and not sex objects. (And yes, I agree with this solution.) So actually, this chapter ultimately says that respect is the opposite of lust. So why does the chapter start with a little story about monogamy?

I would say there are 2 separate issues here:

1. You're lusting after some random person, objectifying them, imagining that they are just a sex object that exists to play out your fantasies- this is a sin against the random person.
2. Your desire for this random person becomes such a big deal to you that it actually threatens your relationship with your actual partner- this is a sin against your partner.

I don't necessarily see why problem #1 would lead to problem #2. Yeah, sure, sometimes it would, like if someone cheats on their partner. But problem #1 is bad just by itself, without bringing concerns about faithfulness to a monogamous relationship into it. 

And, also, being attracted to other people is fine, that's just part of life for most people, it's not "lust", and I don't see it as having any relation to whether or not you're keeping your commitment to monogamy.

At this point, I think it would be helpful for me to bring in some concepts that are talked about a lot in the ace, aro, and polyamorous communities. ("Ace" means asexual spectrum, "aro" means aromantic spectrum.) Okay, so, there are several different types of things that may or may not be present in a relationship:

1. Sexual feelings/actions
2. Romantic feelings/actions
3. Being life partners

Mainstream society says that you're supposed to do sexual things with exactly 1 person, you're supposed to do romantic things with exactly 1 person, and you're supposed to have a partner that you're committed to for life, to support each other through all of life's ups and downs, and that these all have to be the same person.

I'm really glad we have ace, aro, and polyamorous people to question this! It doesn't have to be that way! You could be married to someone and not have sex at all! You can date someone even if you don't understand what romance is! You can have a long-term committed relationship that isn't sexual or romantic at all! You could be married, and your spouse is your committed life partner and you have sex with them, and also you have sex with other people sometimes. Many possibilities!

It's all about knowing yourself and knowing what you want. What do you want, in terms of sex, in terms of romance, in terms of having a committed life partner?

For myself, maybe my answer is boring because I'm in a monogamous marriage and I do have sex with my husband. But, even so, I feel rebellious because I'm not following the definition of monogamy that I learned in purity culture- because when I'm attracted to some random person, I don't repress it. I just enjoy it for what it is, but obviously I know it's just some feelings and nothing real is going to come of it because I'm monogamous. 

And it doesn't threaten my relationship with my husband, because marriage is about choosing to be together, and being committed to each other- it doesn't mean we never have feelings about other people. We are 2 separate people with our own complicated lives, and we choose to live together, to support each other, to share our money, to raise our child together, all these very standard marriage things- and that's not threatened by having occasional feelings about other people, because those feelings are a totally different thing than the day-to-day reality of building our lives together. And yes we do have feelings of attraction for each other, but my point is, our relationship is so much deeper than that, and if there exists someone who's more attractive than my husband, well, so what? That doesn't threaten my marriage because my marriage is so much more than that.

Purity culture always made such a big deal about how it would be SO TERRIBLE if you compared your spouse to other people... for example, if you had sex with someone else before marriage, then when you're married and you're having sex with your spouse, you'll always be comparing them to your ex, and that would just be THE END OF THE WORLD or something... It feels so shallow to me now. Why would any of that matter? Our marriage is so much more than that.

All right we'd better move on because we're only a half page into this chapter and I've already written this much.

So, this chapter is about lust. One of the most popular Christian books on the topic of lust is "Every Man's Battle" which erases ace men right in the title, so you know it's gonna be bad. The authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" also think it's bad; this chapter is basically about the harm that is caused when people buy into the "Every Man's Battle" ideology.

"The Great Sex Rescue" sums up "Every Man's Battle" this way:

And what was this battle that every man was fighting? Lust. Every man struggles with it, every man is tempted by it, every man must fight really, really hard to overcome it.

Oh and also, remember how I said this "every man's battle" ideology acts like ace men don't exist? Well it also acts like gay men don't exist, because it's only talking about men lusting for women. It's also not great for bisexuals, because if the solution to lust is that men and women can't have close friendships with each other, then by that logic, bisexuals aren't allowed to have any friends at all.

The book "Every Man's Battle" features really over-the-top descriptions of men ogling women, masturbating near nonconsenting women, obsessing over breasts all the time, and it frames it like all of that is completely normal, this is just how God made men, and men need to fight the battle by treating women as threats and avoiding them. Gregoire has a really good blog post summing up just how bad this book is: A Summary of Issues with Every Man's Battle (with download).

Gregoire and her co-authors point out that this "every man's battle" ideology sets the bar so incredibly low for men. Like it's expected that men aren't able to treat women as people. Like men will inevitably see women as nothing more than sex objects- so instead of sex objects to fantasize about, men need to see them as sex objects to avoid.

Gregoire et al point out that one of the biggest problems is how attraction is conflated with lust. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to someone. There's nothing wrong with noticing. And they say that instead of fearing that every attractive woman is a threat that will pull men toward the sin of lust, men can simply notice a woman is attractive and then "Think nothing more of it and go on with your day." I like how their approach has no fear. Instead of fear, it's confidence that men can "defeat lust." (I personally can't tell you if lust actually works that way, because I'm asexual, lololololol.)

There are a few anecdotes in this chapter about men whose experiences are very different than what "Every Man's Battle" says:

The first chapter of Through a Man's Eyes [another book similar to "Every Man's Battle"] explains the battle that men face on a daily basis with sexual stimuli all around them: trying not to look at billboards on the drive to work, trying to bounce their eyes from the barista's chest, worrying that a female coworker in a tight blouse might sit directly across from them. In the book, we read the "Jack breathes a sigh of relief" when a coworker's skirt doesn't ride up too high, and "the next few hours are tough" because another attractive coworker is in high line of sight.

My (Sheila's) husband works in an almost all-female setting (he's a pediatrician; his colleagues are female, the nurses tend to be female, and the parents bringing in their kids tend to be female). Did he experience this level of stress all day? After reading that chapter, I asked him. He laughed. I asked again. He made another joke. I got rather perturbed that he wasn't taking me seriously.

"Wait," he said, "you're saying that there are guys who are stressed to go to work because they might lust? That's crazy." But could I believe my husband? The book told me all men struggle with this, but they don't know how to explain it or are afraid to confess their struggle to their wives.

And this story, from Chris, a commenter on Gregoire's blog:

As someone who grew up in the Every Man's Battle / purity movement era, I've been working on resetting my brain for a few years now. So many years of struggling daily to just avoid looking. The Bible says His burden is easy and His yoke is light, but spending every part of every day spending energy to make sure I didn't look at an attractive woman is the opposite of easy and light.

I was forced to confront my wrong thinking while on a vacation in Europe. The first day on a topless beach in Spain was excruciating. I was giving myself a migraine constantly bouncing my eyes but having nowhere to bounce them to. I was definitely not enjoying the beautiful beach nor enjoying time with my beautiful wife. 

Near the end of the first day I realized this was no way to live. I remembered your writing about focusing on the whole person without making them into a sexual object.

I talked to my wife and explained all this to her... With some fear and apprehension, I looked up at a beach full of [breasts] and started to talk through the process of not making them there for my sexual gratification. The rest of the trip was so relaxing and enjoyable, and I had such a good time with my wife on the beach. Since then, I can see an attractive woman and not become aroused.

I think Chris's story here is very important and powerful. It completely disproves some of the main foundational beliefs of purity culture- that men are overwhelmed by lust and can't control themselves, that women need to cover up and can't possibly expect a man to respect them if they aren't covered up, that a woman showing her body in public is inherently dangerous and is an attack on men, etc.

There's also a very good anecdote in the book about a husband who doesn't "struggle with lust" but his wife totally buys into the "all men struggle with lust" ideology, and so she's always paranoid that he's looking at other women, and that this is a threat to their marriage. She doesn't take him to swimming pools, she won't let them be friends with other couples if the wife is attractive, etc. Yeah, this is really messed-up. (And also, this is an example of lust getting conflated with concerns about commitment to monogamy, and I think that needs to be questioned. If your husband is attracted to other women, that's his own business and doesn't affect his relationship with you. Right? It only becomes a problem if he gets it in his head that he should actually take actions to go have romantic/sexual experiences with another person.)

I'm just thinking right now about how much energy I would have to spend worrying every day, if I thought my husband being *somewhat near* an attractive woman was a dangerous thing that threatened his love for me and commitment to our marriage. Wow, so glad I'm not doing that! He can talk to other women, he can meet up with a woman alone, whatever. I trust him. I also meet up with guys alone sometimes. I'm so glad it hasn't even occurred to me that that would be a problem. (No Billy Graham rule here!)

Moving along, the next bit of "The Great Sex Rescue" says that these books about lust claim that they want to help women understand men better. That women need to understand men's "struggles", or something. But, the authors of "The Great Sex Rescue" found, in their survey of 20,000 women, that women who believed in the "all men struggle with lust" message had lower levels of marital satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. There are a bunch of stats here; I'll just copy one of them: Women who believe "all men struggle with lust" are 79% more likely to agree with the statement "I engage in sex with my husband only because I feel I have to." This is so messed-up.

And there's this quote:

"Men seem like untrustworthy pigs whose minds and thoughts just go wherever they want," [Brenda] commented. "Is nothing sacred to them? As women, do we trust men after reading this? ... I feel that if anything ever happened to Fred, I'd never remarry because I would have very little trust in men." -- the wife of an author responds after reading her husband's words in Every Man's Battle

Yes, really. The "Every Man's Battle"'s author's wife says she's disgusted by what she "learned" about men from reading that book. Ya know, the more I'm out of purity culture, the more I realize that a lot of the things that Christian leaders teach about sex, marriage, dating, etc are not objectively true facts about how God Says This Is How It Works For Everyone, but actually just their own individual weird hangups. "Every Man's Battle" says this is just how all men are, and that's normal and women shouldn't expect men to be decent human beings, but actually the reality is, the authors are just describing themselves. Yikes.

I'm glad I didn't read "Every Man's Battle" back when I believed in purity ideology. I would have totally believed it, because what do I know, I'm not a boy, and one of the core tenets of purity culture is "women just can't possibly understand what men are going through." It's been really good and life-giving to me now whenever I see men on the internet just completely shocked by what evangelicals say "all men" are like- immature, no self-control, obsessed with sex all the time, incapable of respecting attractive women, self-esteem so fragile- I love to see men, especially non-Christian men, just so completely shocked at how wrong this is, how insulting, such a low view of men. Men are better than that, and should be held to a higher standard than that.

"The Great Sex Rescue" has an anecdote along those lines too:

[a blog commenter is talking about her husband who recently became a Christian, and had no idea that men supposedly "all struggle with lust"]

He has only recently become aware of the lust issue within the church, and he has been appalled. Most of his friends have generally been women-- he even had a best woman instead of a best man at our wedding-- and most of them are quite attractive. But even as a non-Christian he told me he didn't lust after them. It was far too disrespectful.

It is crazy to him-- and me-- that even as a non-Christian he could control himself, but the church treats this as an insurmountable obstacle for men who are indwelled with the Holy Spirit! He has told me that the easiest way not to disrespect women is to view them as people. If a non-Christian could figure that out, what is giving the church so much trouble?

I'm not a fan of the prejudice against non-Christians here, the idea that obviously Christians should be more moral than non-Christians. I say there's nothing wrong with being non-Christian, or Christian, or whatever religion, or non-religious. And I'm glad my husband is not a Christian- for one thing, he doesn't have all the purity baggage I have... But I appreciate this anecdote because of the contrast between how much of a big deal Christians make this, an "insurmountable obstacle"... and the non-issue it is for people outside the church.

Anyway, yeah, "The Great Sex Rescue" says the solution to lust is to respect people. To remember that the attractive people that you happen to see are whole people who have their own lives- they don't exist to be sex objects for you.

Here's their advice for men:

How Men Can Fight Lust:

The key to fighting lust is to see women as whole people rather than potential threats.

1. When you are passing by a woman, instead of bouncing your eyes, look her in the eye, give a quick, friendly nod, and turn away.
2. When you are with a woman, look her in the eye, and engage her in conversation. Ask her opinion about different topics.
3. Don't live a sex-segregated life. Join groups where women are in leadership roles or where women's opinions are considered.
4. Identify women in your life from whom you can learn, whether it's advice about work, parenting, finances, etc. Make it a practice to consult women as well as men when you are making a decision.

Yes, basically I agree with this, but also, wow the bar is on the floor. Why do these things even need to be said? Just act normal, don't act all jumpy and scared of sex every time there's a woman nearby. Women are people, just treat us like people.

So, yes, the bar is on the floor, but also, these things really do need to be said, and I'm glad that Gregoire and her co-authors are saying them. Because, wow, when I started reading her blog, and reading these kinds of messages... this is unlike anything I'd ever heard from Christians. Really. 

(And here's a fun little bit of my history: In 2012 I was thinking about these topics, and I wrote a post called Isn't dating the opposite of avoiding lust?. It addressed the idea that, if I'm supposed to avoid "temptation," then doesn't that mean I shouldn't date someone that I'm attracted to? If we're dating, spending a lot of time together, doesn't that make it likely that I will lust? How can I justify putting myself in a situation where I'm likely to sin? And the answer I gave was, no actually, this way of thinking is all backwards- because when I'm attracted to someone I don't know well, I view him kinda one-dimensionally, like his being attractive to me is his most important characteristic, and that sounds much more likely to cause "lust" than actually getting to know someone by dating him. Kinda interesting to me to realize I was writing about that in 2012, but also I had NO IDEA I was asexual, and I was using words like "hot" and "lust." Looking at it now, I know what I meant by those words, but now that I know that I'm asexual, I realize those words mean something different to most people, so I wouldn't write it that way now. And also, the last bit of the post, where 2012-Perfect-Number gives advice to before-2012-Perfect-Number, "Don't be so afraid. God gives us freedom." ... like wow yeah, that's so real.)

And "The Great Sex Rescue" has a few anecdotes from women about how they were treated by "good Christian men" who refused to even look at them or talk to them. Men who are good and godly and therefore won't take the risk of being anywhere near a situation that could lead to sexual temptation. This is not cool, and it leads to women feeling like they are dirty just for existing. (And, this is NOT how Jesus treated women. Jesus met women and talked to women and connected with their spiritual questions and emotional needs and so on, even in situations where society said it wasn't proper for a man to talk to a woman, and even when the women were sex workers. No Billy Graham rule here.)

The next section is about modesty, because modesty is the other side of the coin. Men are taught "you have to fight lust" and women are taught "you have to be modest, to help men fight lust." Yeah, I have blogged a lot about modesty, and I agree with the criticisms that Gregoire and her co-authors write here. I especially appreciate the quotes from Focus on the Family's "Brio" magazine, because I also read "Brio" when I was a teenager, and it influenced me to follow purity culture. Gregoire's co-author, Rebecca Lindenbach, says this:

My curves made it impossible to dress according to some people's modesty standards without going back a few centuries. My body became the problem. And Brio reinforced this idea that my body was dangerous with messages like these: "If a guy sees a girl walking around in tight clothes, a miniskirt or short shorts, you might as well hang a noose around the neck of his spiritual life."

Yeah, not cool how modesty ideology says female bodies are inherently dangerous and sinful.

And I'm glad to see "The Great Sex Rescue" mentions "The Modesty Survey" and Shaney Irene's excellent blog post from 2013, Why The Rebelution’s Modesty Survey Was A Bad Idea. Yeah, "The Modesty Survey" influenced me a lot... I guess it was so bad, that it caused me to obsess over it and worry and try to make it make sense, which led to me realizing the entire concept of modesty is bad and needs to be thrown away. So.

Some of my posts on modesty:
The Story of Me and Modesty - This is the post where I talk about how "The Modesty Survey" affected me.
August 20, 2022 Blogaround - I also wrote some opinions about "The Modesty Survey" here
Modesty is Causing Women to Stumble
The Male Equivalent to Modesty

I also love Laura Robinson's take on modesty: Women Are Never Going to Cover Themselves Enough to Get Men to Shut Up About Us 

Anyway, there's 1 more section left in this chapter of "The Great Sex Rescue", and it's about how evangelicals teach that "men are visual" and women are not, but actually that's not always true. There are women who are visually stimulated to have sexual thoughts, and there's nothing wrong with that, and it's NOT COOL how the church acts like these women don't exist.

I definitely agree with the point that Gregoire and her co-authors are making there! But I don't have any personal experience to mention because I'm asexual. 

Anyway, that sums up chapter 5. Overall, I agree with what the authors are saying in this chapter- the way that evangelical culture treats "lust" is harmful. Teaching men to see women as threats, to avoid women rather than risk falling into "lust", teaching women that all men are like this and we can't really expect a man to get his head out of the gutter and interact like a normal human being, and that goes even more when women are wearing "immodest" clothes- ugh, yeah, all of this is so incredibly messed-up. I agree with "The Great Sex Rescue"'s answer to this: respect, and treat each other like people rather than potential sex objects.

Still, I think this chapter falls short because it doesn't say anything about gay men or asexual men, and how they are erased by this "all men struggle with lust [toward women]" ideology. And also, that weird bit about monogamy at the beginning. Actually, I think the conversation about lust could benefit by clearly untangling the parts about "are you objectifying random people?" from the parts about "are my spouse's feelings of attraction to random people a threat to our marriage?"

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Links to all posts in this series can be found here: Blog series on "The Great Sex Rescue" 

Related:

The First Time I Heard About "Locker Room Talk" Was When the Church Taught Me About Modesty 

The church taught me to be afraid of my own body and my own thoughts. Here are the receipts. 

BREAKING NEWS: Purity Culture Adherents Completely Miss the Point

Miss me with your "we are all sexually broken" hot takes. I'm asexual.

Blogaround

1. TANF: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (March 13) "The wild thing here is, our current system was created under the assumption that poor families simply couldn't be trusted to collect welfare honestly. But the past couple of decades have proven that it's actually politicians and government officials who've been relentlessly abusing this system."

2. Asexual Advocacy in India: An Interview with Dr. Pragati Singh (March 27) [content note: mention of rape] "And there were so many such things being shared by people that I realized in my country, for my people, asexuality is not just about a flag, right? Or microidentities, or a label, it's not about that. It's about people literally making life and death decisions. People going through severe depression because they're being raped, or because they're being forced into a marriage. And you know in my country, unfortunately, marital rape is not even recognized as rape. It's legally not recognized as rape."

3. What If All the Men Around You Have Lust Problems? (March 24) "I have never, ever heard any of these pastors or authors talk about how women are whole people and we shouldn't objectify them." Wow, very good post. Sheila Gregoire says that it's NOT true that all men "struggle" with "lust", and if a man has lust problems, that man should not be allowed near young girls, until he gets himself under control. This is completely different than what I've always heard in Christian culture, which is that it's normal for men to "struggle with lust" and so women have to dress modestly to help them out.

She says if you're in a church like that, LEAVE THAT CHURCH. Wow. I'm really surprised to see her saying that, since as far as I know, she is evangelical.

Also this was a good line from her post: "It’s terrible to say, but non-Christian families have far less problems with lust than Christian ones. Even if porn use is just as high, objectification of women is more often seen as anathema, rather than as normal."

But, also, I think we need a better definition of lust, otherwise people will think that simply being attracted to people is a serious issue that means that church should bar you from interacting with people, etc... Gregoire is aware of this problem, and does provide a better definition- she says noticing is not lust; it's when someone dwells on those thoughts, that's lust. Or when you see someone as a sex object rather than as a person. I personally don't want to define it in terms of policing thoughts, because I'm ex-evangelical (lol there is a lot more that could be said about that). How about this: What if we say "lust" means you're being a creep/ aren't treating someone with respect/ aren't viewing them as a whole person. And so, to not lust, it's not about "don't think about sex, don't think about sex!" because we all know that if you say "don't think about [something]" then everyone will naturally think about it- what if we define "not lusting" in a more positive way, where you make sure to respect them and treat them as a whole human being, not a sex object, regardless of what sexy thoughts you may or may not have about them.

But what do I know, I'm asexual.

4. Cops Sue Afroman For Sharing Video Of Their Unfounded Raid Of His House (March 24) "Above and beyond that, alleging a privacy right over the conduct of a raid ostensibly on behalf of the public amounts to a face-melting level of stupidity. This is basic constitutional law. There’s no undercover work here, these are cops taking actions that they would have gladly blasted to the whole world if they had found any evidence."

5. Kansas City Cop Blows Whistle On Department's Jim Crow Policing (March 28) "Williams's suit further claims that officers were told to meet their ticket quotas in minority neighborhoods because it would be 'easier to write multiple citations on every stop.' Noting that minority residents might feel cranky about all the over-policing, the command staff allegedly advised to 'approach every car with the mindset to be ready to kill everybody in the car.'"

And another one from Wonkette: Sixty-Three Years Later, White Mom Finally Gets 'Ruby Bridges' Banned From Elementary School (March 27) "Every teacher but Barbara Henry, who had been hired specifically for her previous experience teaching in integrated schools, refused to teach her. But she went back and sat alone in that classroom as Henry's only student. Every day. For a year. At the age of six."

6. Tamping alone (March 29) "I try not to use phrases like 'America’s declining social capital' when talking to customers who are buying things like tampers, but I do ask whether they might just want to  borrow one from a neighbor or from their brother-in-law or somebody. That’s usually a better solution for them, for their budget, for neighborliness and social capital, for America, and for democracy in general."

7. It’s Time to Change My Pseudonym (March 15) This is a post from "Jackson Wu", a blogger at the Patheos Evangelical channel, about why he's not going to use the pseudonym "Jackson Wu" any more. Long story short, he's a white guy (but he worked as a missionary in China for 15 years, and he speaks Mandarin Chinese), and he's gotten a lot of backlash recently for using a Chinese-sounding name on his blog. (Especially after he published a post that strongly criticized a book by an African writer about the problems in Western missions.) And then, someone posted his real name on Twitter, so he has decided to use his real name (Brad Vaughn) on his blog now.

I live in China, so I have some thoughts on this.

First of all, I've followed his blog for a while. I like it. (If I had to guess, I would have guessed that he's a Chinese American who moved to China and lived there over 10 years.) He's evangelical, so I don't agree with a lot of his beliefs, but I appreciate him discussing Christian concepts from a more Chinese perspective. And, giving up your own culture to go live as an immigrant on the other side of the world, well, I admire that. To have that lived experience is a very significant thing. 

About having a Chinese name: Well, yes, I think if you come live in China, you should choose a Chinese name. I have a Chinese name. Mostly I use it for things like signing up for food delivery apps. It's not "cultural appropriation," it's "making life easier for the delivery drivers who don't know how to read English." And Vaughn says that Chinese people in China think it's great that he uses a Chinese name- and yes, I can confirm that. It communicates that he really wants to learn their culture and be like them.

It's, uh, a bit weird that he's responding to his critics by talking about how useful/good/etc it is to have a Chinese name in China. I don't think anyone was criticizing him for using a Chinese name in China. The issue was that he writes a blog, in English, so that means it's for a mostly-western audience, where he uses a Chinese-sounding pseudonym, and one of the main topics he blogs about is discussing evangelical Christian beliefs from a Chinese perspective. (And then he criticized a book by an African writer talking about her experiences as an immigrant in the US- to make that criticism as a white person is a different thing than making that criticism as an Asian person.) I mean, it's fine that he wants to discuss Christianity from a Chinese perspective- but to do so as an ethnically Chinese person is a different thing than to do it as a white person who has a lot of experience in China. So yes, I do think it was a problem that he was misrepresenting himself.

As for the part about the Chinese government persecuting Christians- yes, I believe him there, but I think American readers will get a skewed picture of the actual situation. Vaughn is specifically talking about house churches in China. There are also churches in church buildings in China. You can search on any map app and find a church near you. You can walk up to the building and there will be a sign posted that says what time the service is on Sunday. I've done that. American Christians have this impression that Christianity isn't allowed at all in China, but that's just not true. The thing is, these churches in church buildings are monitored by the government, and there are restrictions on what they can say. (Though I've been to services at Chinese government-approved churches and they seemed like pretty normal Christian churches to me- whatever restrictions there are, they are not obvious to the average churchgoer.) The house churches are a totally different story. House churches do what they want, but then they have to worry about persecution.

8. Getting to ‘No’: How I Negotiated My Bride Price Away (March 24) "But she remained unconvinced. 'If a man doesn’t pay a financial price to marry you, he won’t value you as much in the marriage,' she replied."

Like I said before, I married a Chinese man and nobody gave me any money. (We got some cash as a wedding gift, but nothing like this asymmetrical "bride price" thing.) This is more of a tradition in the countryside rather than in big cities.

9. Donald Trump indicted by Manhattan grand jury on more than 30 counts related to business fraud (March 31) "Donald Trump faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud in an indictment from a Manhattan grand jury, according to two sources familiar with the case – the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges."

Blogaround

1. AO3 Comments and Why People Aren't Leaving More of Them (March 5) About comment culture on Tumblr and its influence on Archive Of Our Own.

And another one also from Coyote: Arguments Against Wikia/Fandom (March 3) About wiki sites hosted by Wikia/Fandom and how the whole system is kinda dysfunctional.

2. Here Is Our Registration To Blog In Florida, Mister Knucklef*ck Sh*thead State Senator, Sir (March 3) "You really thought that through! You don't mention whether the bloggers must be resident to the great state of Florida, one of those oversights that can happen when a bunch of [*******] idiots get elected to make 'laws.' We'll assume that it applies to everyone everywhere in the known universe, since you didn't say it ain't."

3. A Summary of Issues with Every Man's Battle (with Download) (February 22) [content note: quotes from "Every Man's Battle" describe women in disgusting oversexualized ways] I never read "Every Man's Battle" (or any of the related books) but I knew it was a well-regarded best-selling book in Christian circles. Umm, turns out the book is actually about how men are all disgusting pigs who want to objectify women constantly and masturbate about it- like, presenting this as perfectly normal behavior for men, this is what we should expect from all men, it would be unreasonable to hold men to a higher standard than that... and apparently the solution is men need to learn how to *only* objectify and use their wife, rather than every woman they happen to see. Eww.

Anyway, glad I never read that book. It would have messed me up even more than The Modesty Survey did.

In reality, it turns out that men are perfectly capable of respecting women. And in fact, the vast majority of men go about their lives treating women like normal people rather than sex objects. The church explicitly teaches that this is not possible.

(Also gotta love the asexual erasure right there in the title- "Every Man's Battle.")

And a follow-up post: You Don't Need to Objectify Women to Identify with Those Fighting Lust (February 27) "The descriptions of women’s and girls’ bodies are everywhere, and they are salacious. Fred Stoeker, in Every Young Man’s Battle, goes on and on about the specific type of porn he loved, describing it, and the girls’ bodies, in detail."

4. Why doesn’t EA divest from crypto? (March 7) "But perhaps these critiques lack specificity, so let’s add some in. Lack of internal diversity causes EA to be dominated by the viewpoints of techies who tend to be into crypto. Reliance on wealthy people such as SBF makes EA unwilling to fight the systems that created that wealth such as crypto. Earning to give practically encourages the most exploitative career paths such as when SBF was advised by EA leaders to follow his career path. It all points to crypto."

5. China’s First Deaf Lawyer Beat The Odds. Now, She’s Giving Back. (March 8) "The problem is further compounded by the fact that interpreters and the deaf community use different forms of sign language. While interpreters use Chinese Sign Language, the standardized form officially promoted since the 1990s, many of China’s deaf only use Natural Sign Language, which has different grammar and varies from region to region."

And another article also from Sixth Tone: Chinese Boss’ Call to Work Weekends Sparks Discussion on Overtime (March 10) "'When I was still in that company, many people envied me,' Chen told Sixth Tone. 'I was the example to follow for younger students. I gave up my break time for those pointless expectations.'"

6. Is the sun setting on solitary confinement? (March 8) "For instance, in day-to-day practice, solitary confinement is less a punishment for in-prison violence and more a 'catch-all' for anyone (seriously mentally ill, pregnant, gender non-conforming, litigious, juvenile) who cannot function within the existing rules of the prison system. And there is no evidence that solitary confinement reduces in-prison violence."

7. The Nonsense of Nonviolence (King Legacy Pt. 2) (February 8) "When you hear these principles, one thing ought to strike you: this seems like it would be impossible for someone if they aren’t a Christian. ... It requires a trust in a Savior who will win even if you lose. It requires trust in a God who will bring justice even if you die in the struggle. That takes courage indeed."

Also from the same blog: Slavery and Redemption in the New Testament (February 2) "How do we translate doulos in this passage? In the original context, it unquestionably meant 'slave,' but if we use the word today, then a modern reader will be so focused on that fact as to miss any other points in the story. We are  likely to to ask: how on earth can that man justify keeping a slave in the first place, and to treat him so roughly? So we say servant (or handmaiden), and miss the total subjection and constraint implied by slave. Quite likely, the word slave is now so tainted as to be (so to speak) beyond redemption. So what do we do? Any translation we offer will miss the cultural context."

Blogaround

1. Meet China’s High Heels King (February 24) Wow, I am really impressed about how this man actually understands how unworkable a lot of high-heeled shoes are, learning it through actual experience. And impressed at how well he's able to run and jump in heels.

2. Can pastors please stop salivating over women’s bodies in sermons? A response to Jonathan Pokluda’s objectification of the ‘perfect’ woman (February 24) "Women deserve better than to go to church and hear all that stops our pastors from having sex with total strangers is a Bible memory passage. We’re all for Bible memory, but we’re also for marriage vows, faithfulness and holding Christian men to at least the same moral standard as your average non-Christian husband at your local Applebee’s." PREACH!

3. Wall-E – Paradise Regained? Reflections on the Garden of Eden and Man’s Labor (January 23) "The movie causes us to ask, what do we think our future will be like? Wall-E, the movie, depicts a world that Man has destroyed through lack of stewardship, and in which they are relegated to living away from their home with technology serving their every need. At first sight, it may seem as though they live in a kind of paradise. Though they have been taken from the earth, they now live a life of pleasure. Is this heaven? Is this what some people, including many Christians conceptualize heaven to be like? No work, being served, just relaxing all the time?"

4. The Origins of the Parable of the Sower (and Other Seedy Riddles) (February 22) "This is not the parable you would tell if you were calling people to action, because it presents a deterministic view of humanity. ... However, at the meta-narrative level, this parable makes perfect sense if it is aimed at Mark’s community—especially those discouraged by a lack of success in their preaching and missionary work."

And another one from the same blog: Did Jezebel Murder Naboth? A Reassessment of Israel’s Most Notorious Queen (January 15) "This is not meant literally; we are not supposed to understand that anyone will actually be eaten by dogs and birds. Rather, such wording constitutes a curse of non-burial; telling someone that their corpse will be consumed by animals implies a shameful death and legacy. Such curses were 'a standard part of treaty and covenent formulas throughout the ancient Near East' (Cronauer, p. 26), and there are many examples outside the Bible."

5. 'Then' (February 28) "Whenever some people start talking about revival, other people will start quoting Isaiah 58." As they should. (This is another post from the Slacktivist about the Asbury revival. All of his posts on it have been extremely good.)

LOLLLLL yep should have known right then I was asexual

A bunch of people in a swimming pool. Image source.

Sometimes I look back on things I did/said/thought before I knew about asexuality, and I'm like "wow that was clearly an asexual thing to do."

Here's one example:

Back when I was in college, I was in a Christian group, and we used to go spend a week at a camp together once a year. We had a tradition where we'd all go swimming one night at the camp.

One year, my friends Diana and Derek, who were dating, told me they weren't going swimming. "Why?" I asked.

"For sexual purity," they said. They felt it would be bad for their "purity" if they saw each other wearing swimsuits.

And I thought, "well, that's ridiculous. Just because people think there's a possibility of lusting when you see your boyfriend or girlfriend in a swimsuit, you're going to miss out on this fun activity. They are being way too careful about things. What a bunch of nonsense."

Geez, just because swimsuits seem like the kind of thing that someone might think is a sexual thing, they're going to avoid them. COME ON. We should base our decisions on REALITY, not some far-off hypothetical that someone told you might be a problem.

She thinks she might have sexual thoughts about her boyfriend if she sees him wearing a swimsuit. COME ON. LIKE THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN.

People act like it's more likely that you'd have sexual thoughts about someone wearing a swimsuit than someone in regular clothes. And that it's more likely you'd have sexual thoughts about your boyfriend or girlfriend than just any random person. Are we seriously going to let these silly baseless superstitions control our lives? That's just ridiculous.

(I did not say any of those things to Diana or Derek.)

Thinking about it now, years later, I have suddenly realized, they ACTUALLY WERE sexually attracted to each other. That was an actual real thing for them, not a useless rule they made up because other people told them to.

And yes, it's nice that I now know I'm asexual, and I can look back on things that I said or did and realize wow, I totally missed the point because I legitimately did not know that most of my friends actually really truly do experience sexual attraction.

Also, if you've read my blog before, you know I no longer believe "sexual purity" is a thing that matters. Diana and Derek were trying so hard to avoid any situation where they would feel sexual desire. Back then, we all thought that was super-important. I'm happy to say I no longer live that way. Instead of repressing ourselves, it's good to be honest with ourselves about our feelings and desires, and enjoy them in a healthy way.

Anyway, LOLOLOLOLOL little Perfect Number heard her friends say they had to avoid swimming "for sexual purity", and had no way to conceptualize it other than "how silly to base your actual real-life decisions on these widely-held myths about what is and isn't sexual." LOL. I had absolutely no idea that they ACTUALLY WERE sexually attracted to each other.

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Related:
For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear 

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2019 Reader Survey last May, where one of the highest-voted topics was asexuality. :) I'm very happy to write ace-related posts like this.

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This post is part of the January 2020 Carnival of Aces. The theme for this month is "Conscious and Unconscious Difference."

"How Far Is Too Far?" My Story, And What I Wish I'd Known

Hercules and Meg kiss. Image source.

Christian teenagers always want to know "How far is too far?" which means "I know I'm not allowed to have sex before marriage, but, like, what exactly am I allowed to do?" Typically, youth pastors are very vague about answering this- they like to say things like "you shouldn't be asking that question, you shouldn't want to know exactly where 'the line' is just so you can go right up to it. Instead you should be focused on honoring God in your relationships." And I hate that answer. It's not helpful at all. It meant I was constantly terrified whenever I was dating someone and just *had no idea* if holding hands with him was a huge sin that would ruin my life.

I now know that the REAL ANSWER to "How far is too far?" is that you need to be aware of how physical closeness affects you emotionally, and keep the emotional closeness at a level that's consistent with how committed you are to each other and how much you believe you can trust your partner. The connection between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy is going to be different for everyone, so it's important to know yourself and be honest about what you feel, and communicate with your partner- don't assume that they connect physical and emotional intimacy in the same way you do.

Or, to put it another way: If kissing is going to make you fall in love, then make sure you only kiss someone who's worth falling in love with. But of course initially, when you have no experience, you don't know if kissing will make you fall in love or not. It's fine to go ahead and try kissing, and if you realize that it pulls you in to emotions that are way too deep and therefore not fitting to your situation, then you back off. It might hurt, but you'll be okay. No long-term harm done.

See? THAT'S the answer. But I never heard ANYTHING like that from any Christian teaching about relationships. I figured it out my damn self.

So in this post I want to talk about my own experiences with the connection between physical and emotional closeness. To give concrete examples to this principle I've given as the answer to "how far is too far."

All right. Here we go.

So my first romantic relationship was when I was a freshman in college. We will refer to my boyfriend as BF 1. (I'm straight, all the romantic interests in my story are boys.) A bit of background about what brand of purity culture I was in back then: It was a confusing and badly-defined strand of purity culture, influenced by my parents, who believe in "premarital sex is a sin, but dating and kissing are fine, those are normal things that teenagers do", and Brio magazine, which promoted the I-Kissed-Dating-Goodbye, be-terrified-you-are-losing-your-emotional-purity-because-you-have-a-crush strand of purity culture. At the time, I did not realize that they didn't agree- I thought that all Christian role models in my life believed in "the biblical view" of dating [or rather, I thought there was actually such a thing as "the biblical view" of dating], and I was trying to figure out how to reconcile all these different pieces of advice into one consistent ideology. Poor little Perfect Number, she tried so hard, but she couldn't make the pieces fit. And so she was scared. She didn't know if dating was a sin or not. She didn't know if holding hands was a sin or not. She didn't know if kissing was a sin or not. And so she was scared when she did those things with BF 1.

I dated him even though I didn't really think it was a good idea. See, he wasn't a Christian, so I knew that meant we couldn't get married; I knew someday we would have to break up. (Ahem, spoiler: I am now married and my husband is not a Christian.) I dated BF 1 because I was boy-crazy and just FULL of romantic attraction and I needed an outlet for it.

The narrative I'd been given by purity teaching was that people do romantic and sexual things because they "can't control themselves" when under the influence of "temptation." So I thought it was perfectly normal that I was overwhelmed with romantic attraction and choosing to be in a probably-sinful relationship that I didn't really think I should be in. That's how it works, right? Just like how nobody *wants* to have premarital sex, it just kind of *happens* when a couple is alone at night and they "stumble" because of "temptation." What choice did I have? If I wasn't dating BF 1, then I would just be single and boy-crazy with nowhere for all those FEELINGS to go.

And I told him that too. I told him I'm not really sure that our relationship is a good thing, and that someday we'll have to break up because he's not a Christian.

Huh. I guess I didn't treat him right. But I didn't realize it at the time. Yes, of course I learned in church that we should be kind and empathetic towards other people, but apparently when it comes to dating relationships, the rules are totally different. Instead of loving my partner, I'm supposed to view him with suspicion and fight him when he tries to "take" my "purity." I didn't think about how the things I said might hurt him, because purity culture taught me that boys don't really have feelings, they just want to use girls for sex. Especially non-Christian boys.

Anyway, I eventually decided- after a lot of prayer and worrying- that I was going to kiss him. Because I really wanted to. I was very attracted to him. So anyway, then one night we spent a bunch of quality time kissing. He used the term "making out" to refer to what we were doing, and I was terrified. Because one time I read an article in Brio addressing the question "Making out isn't as bad as sex, right?" and it said that making out was bad. I didn't know what making out was though- I assumed it was something that would feel more sexual and sinful. So I was extremely worried when BF 1 informed me that we had been making out.

See? That's the kind of fear I was working with back then. It was all about uncertainty and vaguely-defined terms, so I never really knew if I was sinning or not.

Oh, and when we were kissing, I made sure not to open my mouth at all, so we couldn't poke our tongues at each other. Because years earlier, a good Christian adult told me that was bad. I remember I asked "besides the fact that that's gross, what is the reason that one shouldn't kiss with tongue?" and she said because it "gets him going" and then it would be hard for the boy to stop.

Thinking about it now, I guess she meant it could make the guy get an erection. Ugh, this bothers me so much- if you mean "erection" you should just say "erection", not these vague euphemisms that 13-year-old Perfect Number definitely doesn't understand. She didn't know what an erection was either, back then ... so follow it up with a definition and we're good.

The point is, I made sure our tongues were NOT involved in this kissing at all, because somebody said it was bad. I didn't really know why, but I just knew it was bad.

(Oh also: It wasn't until I started reading feminist blogs that I found out this stuff about "don't kiss with your tongue because then a guy might not be able to stop himself from having sex with you" is total BS. Guys can stop. It's called "consent" and "being a decent human being" and "not being a rapist." Purity culture said that was WAY too high a standard to hold a guy to. Eff that.)

Anyway. So. We were kissing, and it felt AMAZING.

I definitely felt emotionally closer to him because of the kissing. I asked him, "Does kissing make you like me more?" He said, "Well, it makes me like you more in a physical way, but I try to ignore that." I didn't understand what he meant, perhaps something along the lines of temptation to have sex, but I hardly dared to even hypothesize in that direction. Sex was a scary, life-destroying monster that lived far far away from the normal, mundane events of my life. It was unimaginable that something so awful might be in any way associated with my nice sweet relationship with BF 1.

Thinking about it now, I wonder if he meant his genitals were getting aroused. (Ha, we are talking about erections again.) Hmm. Who knows. I certainly never ever thought about his genitals.

On a related note, it turns out I'm asexual. Yeah, the question of whether I would be interested in having sex with BF 1 never crossed my mind. But I still feared it, feared that it would *just happen* if we were alone in his dorm room.

Anyway, he said kissing didn't make him "like me more" in an emotional way, and I chalked it up to boys being heartless. Because how can someone kiss like that and not feel their heart opening up, feel an overwhelming desire to just adore and cherish their partner?

I tried to explain to him about how hugging and cuddling with an attractive boy would make me like that boy more, and BF 1 was pretty much appalled and said "so if some random guy comes up and hugs you, you're suddenly going to be in love with him?" To him, it sounded like I was so shallow, to base such big important feelings on something as superficial as physical contact. To me, it sounded like he was so shallow, to be capable of experiencing physical affection- taking a girl's purity!- without being emotionally affected by it. I wondered what the heck was wrong with him.

I remember one time I told BF 1 about an advice column I read in Brio, where somebody wrote in to say "I was worried my boyfriend would break up with me, so I had sex with him, but he STILL broke up with me, can you believe it" and the answer from the Brio writer was "yeah see this is why you shouldn't have premarital sex, because boys can't be trusted to value it the way they're supposed to." BF 1 was baffled- I think he even laughed- why would this girl think that having sex would make her boyfriend not break up with her? Why would those things be connected at all? Again, I chalked it up to boys being heartless.

Because purity culture taught me that the correct way to connect sex and love is this: Sex means lifelong love and lifelong commitment- ie, marriage. That's what sex is. That's what sex means. And if anyone disagrees with that- like, for example, if they are fine with having sex with someone they don't intend to stay with forever- then they are a BAD PERSON.

But I now see it doesn't have to be that way. Sex can mean different things to different people. You can't assume anything about how it will make your partner feel or what it will mean to them, and that's why YOU HAVE TO COMMUNICATE. TALK. Nobody is a "bad person" because of the emotions their body does or doesn't produce during sex. (Or kissing, or cuddling, or whatever.) COMMUNICATE. Keep your emotions and expectations grounded in reality.

Anyway, back to my story about me and BF 1 and our kissing. So, the kissing felt so sweet and perfect to me, and it felt like we would be together forever. It really felt like that. But my mind said whoa whoa whoa whoa, this is not right, we can't be together forever because he's not a Christian.

So a few days after our first kiss, I put a stop to it. I knew it wasn't right. It made me feel things that weren't true.

And that was a good decision. See, this is what I mean about "the answer to 'how far is too far' is to keep your emotions matching the reality of the situation."

But let me tell you something. If it weren't for the "I can't marry a non-Christian" issue, I would have 100% believed that, because of the way we kissed, it meant we were going to get married.

Wow, how naive and ridiculous, right? Like, over here in reality, marriage is a HUGE BIG DEAL, a huge decision that will affect you for the entire rest of your life, and you have to spend time thinking about it rationally before you make that kind of decision. But in purity culture, marriage is always the next logical step after any romantic or sexual closeness. The alternative would be breaking up and losing part of your heart, and that's too scary to think about. So if it weren't for the "I can't marry a non-Christian" thing, it would have felt perfectly logical to me that kissing would so easily indicate that this is "the one", my "future husband."

So anyway, I told BF 1 we can't kiss anymore. So we didn't. A few weeks later (for unrelated reasons) he broke up with me. The relationship had lasted about 3 months.

So what do I wish I had known back then? I wish I knew how to handle my attractions better- surely there must have been something else I could have done besides getting into a relationship I didn't really think I should be in. I wish I knew that boys have feelings- I saw him as a leech trying to steal my "purity" and therefore I didn't care if I hurt him. Well, I did care, I am a human with empathy and if someone is right in front of me looking sad, my heart cares about them. But on an abstract, theoretical level, nope I definitely did NOT believe I should care about my boyfriend's feelings. (Or rather, I believed that complementarian nonsense about "men need respect, women need love" so I suppose I did care about "respecting" him. But that's all.)

I wish I wasn't so scared about everything. I wish I could have just tried those things- dating, holding hands, kissing- and evaluated my emotional reaction to decide if they were right for my situation or not. I wish I knew that it won't be the end of the world if I accidentally do something that's a bit more physically close than what I'm really ready for. If it's too much, I can just back off, no harm done.

I wish I knew that you can't communicate "we're going to be together forever" with only a makeout session. It has to be in actual words. I wish I knew it's okay if the two partners don't have the same emotional response to their physical intimacy.

I wish I'd had good enough sex-ed that I could have figured out I was asexual, but haha, I don't think that even exists. Well, we can dream.

But when I stopped kissing him because I knew my emotions didn't match reality- that was the right decision.

Moving along with the story. After that relationship ended, I re-dedicated my life to Jesus and went looking for answers about how dating is supposed to work. No more of this wishy-washy "I don't know if it's a sin or not so I'm just scared" stuff. I read purity-culture books and listened to Mark Driscoll sermons, oh god. And I was so happy because I got my answers. (Extremely conservative answers...) I built up a logically-sound purity-based ideology. It said I can't date until God says so. And if I'm dating, I need to show as little affection as possible, only the bare minimum required to gain enough information to decide if I can marry this person or not.

That's where I was for several years, but then thank Lady God for bloggers, I found some people on the internet saying "hey do you think maybe it's kind of harmful that we are teaching kids they are chewed-up gum if they have sex?" And I started to take small steps out of purity culture.

I started dating a guy we will call BF 2. I started dating him even though I did NOT get explicit approval from God. I decided I don't believe in that anymore. I decided that even though I don't have God giving me a guarantee that this guy is "my future husband", he was a good enough guy that it would be worth it to at least try it out. No longer was I letting baseless fears about "but what if we break up someday" stop me. Because yeah, I had realized my whole purity ideology was about fear.

And yes, I stand by that. It WAS a good decision to start dating him. Based on the information I had at the time, it totally was worth it to try it out.

I remember how much of a big deal it was to do tiny little affectionate things that brought me no closer to making a decision about marriage. I remember I used to text him every night to say goodnight, and he would text back to tell me how cute I was. It made me happy. I no longer thought of it in terms of "I am losing emotional purity" and "my purity is the currency I used to buy information on whether or not I should marry him." I just did sweet things for him just because I liked it.

But we didn't kiss. We never kissed. Because I was terrified- what if kissing is bad? What if purity culture was right about that? What if it ruins my life?

We never kissed. And I was so scared, so worried as I agonized over that choice. I wasn't overwhelmed by "temptation" or unable to "control myself"- so that meant we shouldn't kiss, right? Better safe than sorry? If we can avoid it, we should, right? Just in case it's bad.

When I moved to China, I was a little bit relieved that I no longer had the option of kissing him. I no longer had to think about maybe making a different choice.

So our relationship lasted about 1 year. At the beginning it was good, but at the end it wasn't. He didn't treat me right, but I didn't really have the tools to recognize that. I tried everything to fix the relationship. I tried to manipulate him into being a better partner. Occasionally he would kinda-sorta act like a good boyfriend, and it made me so happy, but it never lasted.

I didn't know that if one partner is no longer interested in being in the relationship, it's not really possible for the other partner to fix it. That's just not going to work in the long term. Maybe it was because of all that church teaching about how a wife can get her husband to change- submit more, pray for him, and so on, and he'll magically turn into a good husband. Or church teaching about how we should build friendships with people so we can "share the gospel." How we should pray for God to change other people so they give up their beliefs and agree with ours instead. Basically a lot of teaching about how to manipulate and pray for people so they start acting the way we think they should act. I didn't know about boundaries.

And I was taught in church that, when people divorce, there is sin on both sides. Which makes it sound like, if one side does the right thing, they can singlehandedly change it into a healthy marriage and stop the divorce.

Basically, BF 2 was acting like he didn't want to be in the relationship anymore, but he never actually said that out loud. I didn't *get* that a problem like this is not really fixable. Sure, maybe I can get him to at least act nice occasionally, but is that what I really want, in the long term?

I wish I knew more about breaking up, so I could recognize when it was the right time to do it. I wish I had some healthier teaching about breaking up. Not that purity-culture stuff about how it's the Worst Thing Ever and will Ruin Your Life. Or testimonies about "God is telling me I need to break up with my boyfriend" after a Christian conference. I want actual practical tips about how to tell if the relationship is not going to get better.

I didn't think of it in terms of "he's not treating me right." The only narrative I had about "not treating her right" was when "a boy is having sex with a girl but he doesn't love her." Our relationship was so pure though- we didn't even kiss! That meant it was a healthy relationship, right?

I also wish I had known that just because the beginning of a relationship was good, and your partner is really great and supportive during a hard time in your life, that doesn't mean it's right to stick with them FOREVER. It might be good for a while, but then at some point it's time to break up, and that's not a bad thing.

Towards the end of my relationship with BF 2, I was taking more and more steps out of purity culture, and embracing my desires. Sensual attraction, in this case. I was like, I like boys, I want to touch boys, I want to kiss boys- and for the first time in my life, I didn't repress it. I knew I couldn't, like, actually go kiss someone, because I was still in a long-distance relationship with BF 2. But in my own mind, I was honest about how I felt and what I wanted. And that felt good.

There was this guy, let's call him Creepy Guy. I was very attracted to him. He knew I had a boyfriend. He kissed me, without my consent, and oh god I wanted so much to kiss him back, wow I wanted it so much, but I told him no, because I had a boyfriend. We were alone in his apartment, but it never even crossed my mind to worry that he might rape me. Because he was hot, and I thought rapists were unattractive. FORTUNATELY, he was not a rapist. I told him to stop kissing me so he stopped. But then we sat around for a while and talked. And I think about that now, and I'm like, ugh he was so creepy, why didn't I just leave immediately... but when you're in the situation, it's hard to recognize what's happening.

That actually happened twice- two separate occasions, with two different guys, so we will call them Creepy Guy 1 and Creepy Guy 2. Forcing kisses on me, when they KNEW I had a boyfriend. And also when I texted with them, the way they talked to me was creepy too- as if I owed them something. Creepy Guy 1 kept asking me if I was having sex with any guys. I knew it was none of his business (no thanks to Christian accountability groups where it's completely normal to pry into people's sex lives...) but he just seemed so sad about it, so I told him the truth, which was that no, I was not having sex with any guys. I didn't tell him I had NEVER had sex. I didn't tell him I never even kissed BF 2.

But at the time I didn't really realize they were creepy because they were both SO HOT and I was really attracted to them, and I was having a lot of problems with BF 2 so I was kind of starved for attention, and also discovering my own desires and no longer bound by the rules of purity culture but not really sure how to construct an alternative. (Well, actually I had read a lot of feminist stuff about rape culture so I was able to see some of the signs of creepiness, but I had no idea what to do about it.) It was a confusing time.

Anyway. I'm including Creepy Guys 1 and 2 in this post about "how far is too far" because they did kiss me, and in purity-culture ideology, that's important. Over here in reality, it was non-consensual, so it's not my fault, it doesn't "damage" my "purity", it doesn't really have anything to do with me, it's just them making a decision to be creepy.

In both cases, I really wanted to kiss them back, but I made the right choice and said no, because I was loyal to BF 2. He didn't deserve my loyalty, but we were still technically in a relationship, so there ya go.

I guess what I want to say is, this is a post about my experiences with the connections between physical and emotional intimacy. The kisses did not deepen my romantic/emotional attractions toward Creepy Guys 1 or 2. I remember afterwards, both times, thinking about how I wished so hard I could have kissed him back, but I was sure I had made the right decision. Because I had a boyfriend. If I didn't have a boyfriend, I totally would have kissed whatever hot guy wanted to kiss me, because I was working my way out of purity culture and that's what I wanted.

I just wanted to kiss boys but not really be in a relationship. And I now believe that's a completely valid thing to want. We'll see in a minute that it wasn't really suitable for me personally, but it's totally fine if that's what someone wants and does.

So I finally sent BF 2 an email to say we were broken up. I knew he wasn't going to reply to it, because he hadn't replied to anything I'd sent him in a long time. And indeed, he didn't reply.

Looking back on it now, did it matter that I never kissed him? What if I had? Do I regret not kissing him? Well my first thought is "he didn't DESERVE my kisses" which is 100% true... but he didn't deserve a lot of the attention and affection and love I gave him. Kissing wouldn't have been different. Or, let me put it this way: Purity culture would see it in terms of things we did (holding hands, hugging on the couch in a sitting position, saying "I love you") and things we didn't do (kiss, do anything sexual) as if those two lists tell us everything we need to know about the relationship. As if moving "kiss" from Category B to Category A would be a HUGE CHANGE in the nature of the relationship. But it wasn't like that. There were other issues that were way more important.

So I really don't think it would have made a difference if I had kissed BF 2. I was already very emotionally attached to him, and kissing wouldn't have deepened that; it was already deep. And I don't regret not kissing him either, because, as I said, I now see that he didn't deserve it.

I wonder if it would have made a difference in my reaction and feelings about Creepy Guy 1 kissing me. When that happened, it had been 5 years since I'd kissed a boy. 5 years is a long time... Would it have been different, if I had kissed BF 2 fairly close to when that happened? Would it have made it easier or harder to say no?

Eh, it's been 5 years since I broke up with BF 2, and 10 years since BF 1. Whatever the status of my "purity" back then, how much of my "self" I "gave" to them, it just doesn't matter now. Purity ideology made me so terrified of all those "how far is too far" decisions- terrified because I really believed it was going to follow me for the rest of my life and it would mean I couldn't *fully* love my husband... I'm here to tell you that's a load of bullshit. I kissed BF 1 10 years ago. Who the hell cares? It doesn't affect my marriage at all. Why would it? It's ridiculous that I even have to say that.

Let's get back to the story. I told BF 2 we were broken up. The next day, another guy told me "I want to kiss you" and I let him.

We spent a bunch of quality time making out on my couch. (And used our tongues. Because we wanted to.) Then I went to work the next day and I missed him. And I was like, oh no, I wasn't supposed to miss him. I just wanted to make out with boys for fun. I didn't want to like, actually date any of these hot guys.

Ugh, I kissed him and I caught feelings from it.

He was SO into me. He SO wanted to be in a relationship. We had known each other for about 1-2 months. I definitely thought he was hot, but there were a lot of hot boys in my life. I wasn't really planning on getting into a relationship again, until after we made out and I suddenly, unexpectedly wanted to date him. I told him I would need some time to think about it.

So I spent maybe 1-2 weeks thinking about it. He was living in a different city, so we just talked online during that time and did NOT kiss or anything.

See? That was a good decision. It turns out I'm not able to just make out with a hot boy without developing romantic feelings for him. Some people are, and that's totally fine, but it turns out I am not. But it was fine to kiss him because I didn't yet know that about myself. It's fine to try it out and see what my emotional reaction would be. And then when my emotions were much different than I expected, I took a step back to think about "is this actually a person that's good enough for me to date?" Sure, I was sort of biased at that point, but I was still able think about it in a healthy way and make a good decision.

I decided, yes, he was good enough. So he became BF 3.

Or... maybe you know him as Hendrix. Reader, I married him. <3

So I told him yes we are now boyfriend and girlfriend. We immediately started sleeping together whenever he came to visit. By "sleeping together" I mean literally just sleeping together; I never use the term "sleep together" as a euphemism for sex because that's just ridiculous. Sleeping and having sex are such incredibly different things, it BOTHERS ME SO MUCH how people use language that implies they are the same. As an asexual, I have A BUNCH OF OPINIONS about this.

So right from the beginning of our relationship, whenever he visited me, we slept together. With clothes on and not doing anything sexual.

I chose to sleep with him because it was sweet and warm and comfortable. When I was in purity culture, of course I believed it was a sin to sleep with one's romantic partner- even with clothes on and not doing anything sexual. It was a sin because, as I was told, "don't be so naive, everyone who's sleeping together is having sex." Apparently, if you sleep in the same bed, the temptation will be too strong, so you'll definitely end up having sex, even if you don't intend to. Again, as an asexual I have Some Opinions about this.

I wanted to sleep with him, and it felt good, and he wanted it too, so we did. As simple as that. Just doing things because I want to do them, not overthinking it, not spending all my time and emotional energy trying to puzzle out "is this a sin or not?"

Well, I say "simple as that" but the reality was not simple. Intellectually, I believed [unmarried] penis-in-vagina sex was a sin but everything else was not a sin... but I still had so much shame and guilt because of all the internalized purity beliefs. We very gradually started doing more physical things- touching genitals through a layer of clothes, then seeing each other's genitals, then touching directly, then stimulating them, then stimulating enough to get an orgasm. But at every point along this progression, I felt so much shame. While I didn't count any of that as "sex" (I only counted penis-in-vagina as "sex", which is, uh, a bit silly) it was still definitely "impure" and "sinful" under the rules of purity culture. It was sexual even though it wasn't sex, and so for my entire life I had believed it was dirty and should only happen after one gets married.

So I would feel so bad, and I would tell Hendrix "no we can't do X anymore", where X was whatever new sort-of-sexual thing I was experiencing for the first time in my life, so we would stop doing X for a day or so. But I would feel like "okay, this is ridiculous, I no longer believe X is a sin. I like X, so why should I let this shame hold me back?" So then we would do X again.

We cycled through that a bunch of times, with different values of X. It was hard. I loved being with him and I loved everything we did together [though I now realize that I loved it for reasons that had nothing to do with sexual attraction], but the shame was overpowering. Those of you who are longtime readers of my blog know about how that shame caused me to have depression back then.

So coming back to our question of "how far is too far": Sometimes I would choose to stop, because of the shame, and sometimes I would choose to say yes, because it felt good. And all of those were good decisions. Even though I felt that logically I shouldn't feel shame because I don't believe any of this is sinful, that emotion was still real, and so it was worth taking into account when I made those decisions.

Basically, see how the physical intimacy affects you emotionally, and make changes if necessary.

As far as the connection between physical and emotional intimacy with one's partner, I don't remember any times in my relationship with Hendrix where I felt like "I feel very emotionally close to him and this might be a problem because the actual reality of our relationship isn't really at that level." Except, of course, right at the beginning when we kissed before we were dating and I caught feelings from it. I guess from the beginning of our relationship, we were very committed to each other, and it just kind of grew in a gradual and healthy way and everything worked out. (Or, I was just winging it and doing what felt good in the absence of any actual rules...?) There weren't any moments where I discovered some huge character flaw of his and thought "ohhh that's quite a red flag, am I sure I want to be so emotionally close with somebody like that?"

And then eventually I decided I no longer believe unmarried sex is a sin. But I was still terrified and decided we weren't going to do it, just in case purity culture was right and it would ruin my life. And then eventually I decided nope, I am done living terrified of this decision over whether to have sex, it's time to just face my fear and do it and prove that it doesn't ruin my life.

(Wow, what an asexual reason to have sex...)

So we finally did have sex- before we were married, before we were even engaged- and that ended the shame and fear once and for all. It didn't "ruin my life"; I didn't feel any different, except that I wasn't afraid anymore. Awesome!

Penis-in-vagina sex didn't make me feel closer to Hendrix. It felt just as intimate as the other stuff we had already been doing. It didn't change our relationship- it just changed my own emotional state by making me not afraid any more. That's all. I guess for other people, sex does make them feel more emotionally connected to their partner. But not for me. Which is fine, everyone is different. Actually in my view, it seems there are some necessary steps that you need to take before it's possible to have sex- like being naked or partially naked together- and it's those things that feel the most intimate to me. Not the actual having of the sex. I mean I could take it or leave it.

(And to be honest, I'm really curious about how other people feel about that- if you compare "being naked with a partner" vs "being naked with a partner AND ALSO having sex with them", which one is better, which is more intimate, etc. And also, having sex with some random hot person sounds good in theory but do you realize that would mean you have to show them your genitals? So like... surely one-night-stands don't actually exist in reality????? I mean I know that they do but like I just can't wrap my ace mind around it...)

What do I wish I had known, when I started dating Hendrix? Ha, well some basic sex ed would have gone a long way. I wish I had known what genitals I had. I wish I had used my hand to feel around "down there" and get a sense of the basic layout of things. But I was far too "pure" for that.

I felt so rebellious when I took a small mirror and looked "down there" for the first time. Was that before or after I showed it to Hendrix? I don't remember. I don't remember if Hendrix saw my vulva before my first time seeing it. Kids, don't do this. Don't be this pure. I wish I was familiar with my own body before I tried to share it with someone else. I regret that.

I wish I believed my body belonged to me. Not "my future husband."

I also felt quite rebellious the first time I bought condoms. I had absolutely no intention of using them for sexual purposes- I just bought them as a way to rebel against purity culture. Just to "be naughty." (Wow, what an asexual way to "be naughty." Buy condoms and then don't have sex. ~Wild~ ) Because I felt that the act of purchasing condoms was dirty and shameful, and I wanted to grab that feeling by the throat and face it head-on and defeat it. Maybe it helped that I was in China... news of my purchases at some random Chinese grocery store is never going to make it back to my nice Christian friends in the US. I wish I wasn't so scared of condoms, so horrified by their mere existence. Over here in reality, condoms are GOOD and IMPORTANT for HEALTH REASONS. I wish I had adult role models who told me that.

I wish I hadn't been so terrified of everything related to sex and genitals. I wish I had friends who just talked about sex like it was a normal part of their unmarried lives and not a big deal, and I wish I could have understood that- while at the same time I would also need to understand myself as asexual. I wish I had known that living with one's [unmarried] partner is totally fine and normal- and some of my friends even saw it as a big relationship milestone and congratulated me, can you believe that? When I felt so much shame and I didn't want to say it out loud.

I wish, when I first went to the doctor for help with depression, I could have just opened my mouth and said I live with my boyfriend and that's why I have depression. I couldn't say it. I couldn't bear to say it to anyone, because surely they would judge me and think I was dirty. Surely the doctor would say, well yeah, you're not supposed to live with your boyfriend, so of course you're feeling the emotional consequences of that *sin*. (Note: Ha. Nope. When I finally said it to my therapist, not only did he not think it was "dirty" at all, but he assumed that when I talked about starting to work my way out of purity culture several years before, he assumed that I started having sex back then, and didn't bat an eye at that. Well LOLOLOLOLOL nope when I told him all that, I was still firmly terrified of the very concept of me having sex.)

I wish that, when I was a child and good Christian adults told me that living together is a sin because every couple who's living together is having sex, and I said "well couldn't they just be living together but not having sex?" and they said "don't be so naive"... I wish somebody had challenged that. I wish that, when a Christian "friend" "confronted me about my sin" of living with Hendrix "and sleeping with him", I could have had some other thought spring to mind besides "I can't try denying that, she'll never believe me and I'll end up looking even more sinful- nobody would ever believe I could be living with my boyfriend and I've never had sex." Yeah, we lived together for a while without having sex. I was dealing with all that purity-culture shame and fear, and also it turns out I'm asexual. If you don't believe me then **** you.

I wish I had known more about my own desires and attractions. But in purity culture I couldn't explore that, couldn't think "so what kind of person do I find hot? and what do I mean by 'hot'- like what specific physical acts would I want to or not want to do with them?" That would be lust. I wish I could have explored that. I wish I wasn't trying to figure out a healthy way to deal with my attraction to boys who are not my husband DURING MY FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE- ugh, that should have been a skill I figured out a long time ago, but instead I just repressed it back then (and thought that marriage would magically make all those other attractions go away. Spoiler: it doesn't).

I wish... oof, I don't know if I wish this or not... I wish I had figured out I was asexual... or... do I wish I had known I was asexual before dating Hendrix? What if I thought it meant I wasn't good enough for him, or I wasn't going to enjoy doing sexual things with him? What if I thought it meant I shouldn't even try?

I'm blogging about all of this to show what I mean about the connection between physical intimacy and emotions in a dating context. That connection is going to be unique for each person, and they might even experience it differently at different times in their life or in different situations. So the important thing, the #1 thing, is to know yourself. Check in with your emotions and see how they are affected by the physical closeness with your partner. If your emotions end up in a place that it's not healthy to be in (for example, if you feel like you're totally in love and will definitely marry this person but actually you've only known them for a week) then remind yourself of what the actual reality is and adjust your acts of physical intimacy so they produce emotions that better match that reality.

Yes, I realize this is easier said than done... when you're infatuated with a specific person it's hard to truly convince yourself "no, this is not a healthy thing to do." But there's no alternative. Nobody else is qualified to run your love life. Sure, you need role models and general advice about what healthy relationships look like, but nobody can tell you what your desires are and what's important to you.

It's probably not possible to do this 100% perfectly. Perhaps you'll realize you've gone "too far", like I did when Hendrix and I first kissed and then I had *feelings* for him. But that's FINE. That's not something to fear, it's not something that will ruin your life or damage your "purity." (I don't believe purity exists anyway...) Just make the necessary changes, and it might hurt emotionally, but it's okay. How can you learn your own emotions and desires without some trial and error? Everyone is different, so you can't rely on other people to tell you what you feel.

There was something kinda-sorta like this in purity culture. They said "don't do X because it will make you feel Y" (for various values of X and Y). Yes, I agree that the key is in the way physical actions in a dating context affect one's emotions, BUT you can't tell other people how something is going to make them feel- you can't assume that. Everyone is different. Everyone needs to figure this out for themselves. And so I tell my story here in this blog post to show a concrete example of what it looks like to "figure this out." Perhaps some readers will feel the same way I did about some parts. Perhaps not.

I stand by this answer. This is THE ANSWER to "how far is too far?"

This post focused on just the physical part of those relationships, but I'd like to make it clear that that was DEFINITELY NOT the most important aspect. There were other issues and problems and emotions and happiness and growth going on with each of these relationships. Purity ideology talks as if the most important measure of a relationship is "how far you went" physically. That's ridiculous. That's nonsense. Yes, in my experience the physical part is an important component of the relationship (though that may not be true for everyone) but it's nowhere near being the most important thing.

Like... the idea that I could write you a few lists of all the physical things we did in each of these relationships, and that you could learn anything meaningful from that information alone... that's absurd. It's laughable. But that's the entire focus of purity culture. How far? How far? As if that's the only question that matters. Try to keep the physical aspect as low as you possibly can, and that's the #1 predictor of how good your future marriage will be. How on earth did I use to believe that? WTF?

I focused on all the wrong things, back then.

Any physical things that I did in a dating context in the past, they don't matter now. No, they don't affect my marriage. No, I don't think about BF 1 every time I kiss my husband. Like, WHAT ON EARTH, why would I even need to say that? OF COURSE I don't think about BF 1. Eww, why would I think about him? What an absurd thing to even talk about- but I am writing it out explicitly here because purity culture LITERALLY SAID THAT and purity culture was WRONG. Purity culture told me that if I have any physical/sexual experience with anyone before my husband, then I won't be able to love my husband fully and I'll always have those exes in the back of my mind, always comparing my husband to them. They'll always have a "piece of my heart." Wow, what a load of bullshit.

ALL RIGHT well this post has gotten super-long and I haven't even said all I wanted to say. (I might do a follow-up post, if any of you readers are interested in more on this topic?) Anyway, remember, the answer to "how far is too far" is different for everyone and is based on you knowing your own emotions and desires. You have the ability to make healthy decisions about this. Nobody else can decide "where the line is" for you.

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Related:
I’m Really Really REALLY Glad I Had Sex Before Marriage
For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear
They said it was about "valuing our bodies." That was a lie.