I’m 20 years old. I am a normal college student who works a part-time job and goes out with friends on weekends. I am a Christian. I go to church every week, but do not pretend to be anything more than a sinner saved by God’s grace. I have drunk before, but do not now. I have smoked before, but do not now. Oh, and I’m a virgin.
I’m a virgin by choice! Let me make that very clear very quickly. I’ve had friends say to me “It’s ok Jessie, I know you’ll ‘lose it’ when you meet that special guy. You just haven’t got there yet.” This statement infuriates me! It does so simply because it makes me seem like a loser who just can’t get a guy to “do it” with me. I’ve had opportunities both in high school and college to have sex. I chose not to. I believe that sex is a special act that should be reserved for a married couple. That is, a couple married to each other and not other people lest anyone should try that loop hole. This is not something that I take lightly at all, although my friends and I often joke about sex and losing our virginity.
The idea of saving yourself seems so old-fashioned now doesn’t it? Even in a recent movie (Twilight: Eclipse, which I loved!) the leading female character talked about waiting as “an ancient custom.” This made me kind of mad. Scratch that, I was most definitely quite angry. There ARE other people out there who have chosen to wait. I know we are few and far between, but we are out there and it’s not fair to make us seem like lesser people because we don’t put out. I have several close friends who are well into their twenties and are still virgins. One friend of mine is 28 and he (yes it’s a HE!) is waiting until marriage to have sex.
There are many reasons in favor of waiting until marriage to have sex. One is slightly obvious: there’s significantly less risk of STD if you know that your partner has never been active and neither have you. Two: there is less expectation from your partner. You don’t have to worry if he is more experienced than you are or whether he’ll think you’re an idiot because you’re both clueless that first time and you can stumble through it together. This brings me to point three: when you wait, you and your partner get to share something together that belongs specifically to you. No one else will have what you two have because you’ve only experienced it together. That fact will not only bring you two closer as a couple, it will bond you as a family unit.
God put man and woman together in marriage for a reason. Making babies is part of it, yes, but that’s not the only thing God wanted us to get out of sex. He wanted sex to be a way for a wife and husband to feel completely together, like one whole entity. In the bible when sex is referenced, it’s referenced as “becoming one” with or “knowing” someone. Those are both terms of connection and isn’t that what every woman wants from her husband, to be fully connected and able to communicate freely without judgment or ridicule? Sex is God’s way of giving us that opportunity to be totally connected to our partner both physically and emotionally.
The emotional bit is what most girls my age don’t understand. They think that sex is just the logical next step in a relationship. Granted, it is A next step, but it doesn’t always have to be THE next step. There is no law that says you have to have sex with this guy just because you’ve been dating for so many months or years. Someone please show me where that’s written down. Sex should be the next step only after you and your partner have made life-long commitments before God and man to be together. Sex is often describes as giving away a piece of your soul to someone else. I’ve heard this from my pastors and family members I don’t know how many times and the more I look at girls today, the more I believe them. Girls, you only have one soul, one heart to give to someone, so why would you split it between countless guys? Wouldn’t it be much better to wait and give your heart and soul to the one man who has promised to love you and care for you “till death do you part?”
If someone is reading this thinking, “gah! You prude! I’ve already had sex. Am I going to hell now?” My answer to you is “Maybe, maybe not.” I don’t know you’re spiritual situation, but I do know that the fact that you had sex before marriage won’t send you to hell. Only not believing in Christ can send you to hell, but that’s another sermon for another day. I don’t want to bash girl who’ve had sex before marriage, just the same as I don’t want them to bash me because I haven’t. Any girl can ask that she be treated the way I want to be treated by my husband whether she’s a virgin on her wedding night or not. You just have to be faithful to your husband and require that he be faithful to you. And maybe someone out there is saying, “I want a relationship like that. I want him to be my ‘only’ and me to be his ‘only’ even if we aren’t each other’s ‘firsts’.” You can totally have that!
The other option to being a virgin is being what I like to think of as a ‘repented virgin.’ This would be someone who has admittedly made mistakes in his or her past and is sincerely regretful about them and wants to “start over” as it were. If you’re already a Christian then this is easy, simply ask God to forgive you and then you stop. You have to stop the partying and the sleeping around. You have to be different. Keep yourself pure in your next relationship. If your boyfriend can’t handle it then maybe he isn’t the “one” and that’s a good thing. If he can’t respect your wishes NOW, then how will he ever respect you when you’re married?? Think about it.
Sex is not a toy. It is not a game or a bargaining chip or a thing to be taken lightly. Like your virginity, sex is special. And as cheesy as it sounds, sex a gift, not necessarily to someone else, but from God to you. He gave us that gift so we could show the love of our life how much they mean to us. And make babies with them of course. :-)
