Dating 101 – Gird Your Loins

[Author’s Note: Originally published on BlogOfManly.com on 6/3/2013]

This entry is the hardest for me to write, but also the one about which I feel most passionately – sexual purity in dating. Let me be very very clear before I walk any further – sexual purity in dating was NEVER a goal of mine. I would have laughed at you had you suggested it. Before I met my wife, I was in a place where I was pretty certain that the PURPOSE of dating was my own sexual gratification. However, with distance and clarity from that deep walk with sin, I can now promise you that that path holds nothing but pain and embarrassment.

Please feel free to call me a hypocrite for this entry. As long as you keep reading, I can handle that. Do not believe the irony that *I* am writing about this is lost on me. If you had known me in high school or especially college, seeing my name on this might cause you to spit out your drink. Regardless, consider my pock-marked, bruised, and beaten spirit to be a warning sign that this path is not one you want to tread.

So here is what I see now that I wish I had believed then: you need to keep yourself sexually pure. You already know this. It isn’t shocking to you. It isn’t even news. But our society loves to question the boundary of “sex” such that you can engage in many sexual acts and still consider yourself a “virgin.” As a father to a little girl, here is the litmus test I now find myself using – if I’d want to dismember the little boy for doing “that” with my little girl, it runs against sexual purity. As you might imagine, there is NO gray area in *my* definition.

For clarity, I define sexual purity as doing nothing consciously to engage or arouse your own sexual desires, which includes not only physical sexual acts, but even the very TV shows, video games, and movies you choose to watch, if you are choosing to watch them because of the arousal potential.

Yes, it is easy for me to say this now that I have a wife and regular sex partner. No, this challenge is not easy, and most of the men in our society would call it quixotic. But I would counter by saying that this is the level of sexual purity I believe God desires for all men, single, dating, engaged, married, widowed – ALL men.

Let me speak to the area I am most familiar with, porn. If you are using porn and masturbation to meet your own “needs,” you have to stop. And I don’t mean just stop looking at porn. I mean stop masturbating. And looking at porn.

If you are having sex, in a relationship or not, stop. Yes, stop.

Draw a personal boundary, make the choice to take the high road, and stop. This step is by far the most painful for me to talk about. But I am firmly convinced that it is the most critical to being successful in dating.

Let me share with you two facts about sex and orgasm that shape this conversation. First, sex and orgasm are not needs, but desires that create needs. Let me explain. Your body does not NEED to orgasm.

I’ll wait while you let that sink in. To orgasm is NOT a need.

To orgasm is an appetite. And like any other appetite, it can be sated for a period, but never once and for all. However, unlike hunger and thirst, an orgasm is not required for your body to live (despite what you may be feeling right this second!). The more you orgasm, the more your body desires to orgasm, much like your response to a good steak or delicious ice cream. And the more you feed that desire, it begins the transition from a desire to a craving, then to a need. That’s right, what you once knew to be a desire has become a need you feel legitimate in fulfilling by any means.

If you are actively engaged in masturbation or sex, I’m confident you won’t believe me on this. But as someone who was fought the porn demon and won, I assure you it is the truth.

The other fact? The quest for orgasm clouds your mind. A shocker, right? I’m glad you were sitting down. But when coupled with the first fact, what happens is that a man who is dating and masturbating or having sex is blinded to facts and reason. As is the stereotype, he thinks with his cock instead of his mind. In that state, you are, as I was, completely incapable of evaluating the woman you are dating rationally. Especially if she is already your sex partner. Thankfully my wife was not my sex partner before we were married – although I sure tried!

So you have to put a stop to it. And you have to have stopped for quite a period (read: a year) before you are mentally clear enough to evaluate a potential mate. Yes, it will be incredibly difficult. Satan will throw everything imaginable at you in order to get you to slip up. You will wake up with wet underwear. You will be incredibly tempted by stupid things. But you *can* go without, and the clarity the abstinence provides will be well worth the pain.

Based on my experience, if you are already deep in the chase for orgasms, you will not be able to overcome the temptation alone – you need God’s strength and grace. You will need to pray a lot. In fact, think of this period as a fast from orgasm, and like a fast, any time you are tempted, pray for strength and thank God for a healthy sex drive.

Bottom line, in order for you to be in the right place mentally and physically to find a mate, you need to make your own sexual purity a primary objective now.