Your Relationship Can Be Exciting and Chaste!
“Don’t you guys do anything together?”
I’ve heard this unfortunate question several times when asked about my dating life.
Picture this: you just started dating someone and your friends are asking about all the details. They’re understandably excited at the news of their buddy’s new ‘boo, and want to know everything. As friends do, they refuse to accept anything less than the full scoop.
Then, as it happens in all too many of these unfortunate situations, the conversation takes an unhelpful turn.
“Ok, and how far are you guys going?”
Of course, the conversation had to take a sexual turn. They just couldn’t resist.
“We’re not doing that kind of thing,” I would often reply.
My reply would be met by a mix of confused glances, raised eyebrows, and momentary silence. It wasn’t satisfactory.
The interrogation would continue:
“But, how do you guys keep things interesting or exciting?” I would almost always hear this objection in reply when I’d try to explain myself.
“We’re not married, and it’s not the time and place for intimacy. Plus, we don’t need to push sexual boundaries to enjoy each other’s company.”
Seeing that I wouldn’t be budged, my friends would usually stop nudging and accept that my stance was my stance, and would cease to push the envelope any further. They’d change the subject, not fully on board with my reasoning, and concealing a secret agreement that I was un poco loco.
Let’s take a step back. Why is this so common in our culture?
Why is there this need to judge a relationship’s legitimacy by how physical the girl and the guy are getting?
Our culture doesn’t view relationships as a phase for discerning marriage, but as a playground for sexual use.
I suffered directly from this when I was a teen. In high school, like I suspect many other young men do, I started to feel attractions towards girls. This is a normal and beautiful part of growing up; at this time in our lives, God starts to open a new door for how we see the world. He presents us with an opportunity to go outside of ourselves and, by being drawn to others in a romantic way, admire his creation by marvelling at the opposite sex. Through this process, we realize how perfectly the sexes complement each other, appreciating the strengths that our own sex possesses as well as the ones that the opposite sex is more inclined towards. Ultimately, if God should will it, this is the spark of a dating relationship that leads towards finding our future spouses, to whom we will commit our lives in an indissoluble bond of love.
My peers did not view it this way. Instead, when I started to talk to my friends about my attractions, I was instantly asked about sex. My friends goaded me constantly to only see dating as an opportunity for sex. They offered no advice on how to be a more virtuous man or how to be more selfless, but instead on how to appear more virtuous to ultimately get what they thought all men wanted.
This sequence of events is extraordinarily common for young men and women alike. Countless innocent young people are growing up today and are being fed the same lies that I was fed. So many young adults are beginning to feel these strong attractions and have no idea what to do with them; in turn, they are met with advice that is misguided at best and dangerous at worst.
As a consequence, the majority of teens and young adults in our generation are being raised without knowing any better. They’ve been falsely led to believe that a dating relationship’s natural conclusion is sex; anything else the couple does either accelerates or impedes it reaching its final destination. Couples are judged by the sexual checkmarks they’ve passed: which “base” they’ve gotten to, and so on. Relationships, in so many of our peers’ eyes, must be sexual to be deemed legitimate. Any relationship that isn’t physically intimate is written off as “weird,” “prudish,” or “repressive.”
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We’ve been especially told that relationships can’t be any fun unless they’re physically intimate.
Fact Check: FALSE!
The reality is the complete opposite. Chastity doesn’t make a relationship boring; it actually makes it more exciting!
Our culture has been peddling this lie for far too long that chastity represses our desires and makes the world around us more dull. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Chastity is not about repression; it’s about orienting our attractions and desires towards God’s Will. By honoring this virtue, we discover how much God truly loves us and radically re-order our lives in a way that honors Him.
Chastity is about making the mature and wise decision to understand that sex is about more than just two people coming together for pleasurable feelings. It’s about understanding that it’s a sacred act that can only be properly respected within the bounds of a committed marriage.
Chastity is an adventure! What could be more exciting than chasing God’s love and totally offering up your life for Him? What about that sounds boring?
Men and women in chaste relationships understand this. I encourage you to talk to friends of yours, married or in a relationship, who have made an intentional commitment to chastity. Ask them how their love lives are doing. You’ll start to notice one thing; they’re the happiest and most fun people you’ll find. Virtue does that to the human heart. Living a life where you deliberately and habitually choose the good aligns you with the Father’s love; what could be a happier existence than actively looking for reminders of how precious you are in your Creator’s eyes?
There’s a couple I know that’s totally committed to chastity and they’re two of the most zealous and joyful people I know. Every date they go on is creative; hearing them recount their dates is like hearing a grand adventure out of The Hobbit or The Princess Bride recounted to me every time. Their dates are always story-worthy: one time they went to a park with only a volleyball and managed to have a blast. Another time they went out, in formal dress…to a Buffalo Wild Wings. Chastity didn’t get in the way; it allowed them to fully explore each other’s personalities and find creative ways to get to know each other.
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Complementing this, pushing the intimacy barrier within a relationship doesn’t make it interesting at all; lust actually makes it boring. Jason and Crystalina Evert, the worldwide chastity-championing power couple of our generation, have a fantastic podcast, aptly titled “Lust is Boring,” dedicated to this very point.
Instead of making us better people and teaching us to see the full beauty of our boyfriend/girlfriends, lust ironically ends up being restrictive and narrow. Lust peddles the lie that your boyfriend/girlfriend exists for one thing: sexual pleasure. This singular and limited view of the human person forces us to view our significant others as objects for our own enjoyment.
Doesn’t that sound boring to you? You’d never rationally want to enter a relationship if someone who asked you out said “let me use you physically and not genuinely get to know you.” You’d know you were only being valued for a surface-level trait and you’d tell him to get lost.
Think about relationships that are built on sex. What do they normally do for dates? Most dates will follow a similar pattern: some sort of precursor to sex, and then, eventually, sex. Anything before sex is essentially a placeholder that quickly gives way to the “good part.” What sounds exciting about dates that are constantly overshadowed by the expectation of sex? What’s exciting about your personality being the mutually-negotiated roadblock to sex instead of the very focus of your time spent together?
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You deserve to find someone who wants to go on this adventure with you. Our culture makes it very hard to believe in this, but there are good men and women out there striving for virtue. I know how easy it is to buy the lies our culture tells us about who we are and how we’re called to live. I know how much pressure there is to “settle” because you’re convinced that there just can’t be someone out there who shares your values. He is out there; she is out there; trust in the Lord and do not believe those lies for another second. Don’t think that someone who “tolerates” your values is worthy, either; you deserve someone who actively strives for the same values and pushes you towards greatness. If you’re called to romantic relationships, you deserve a player 2 on this grand adventure towards authentic love, not a bystander who puts up with your values.
Get out there, trust yourself, and never settle. Embrace the adventure that chastity brings!
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