Every time I hear the word 'abstinence', I get cranky. There are lots of reasons - because it reminds me how deprived my teen years were, because it's such a religious-right thing to say, but mostly because it is a dumb thing to say. Yes, I said dumb! Dumb! Stupid! And I have reasons.
Lately, everyone - from the President of the United States to the teen media - have bought in to a massive campaign to revoke the most valuable right gained by the pioneers of feminism for young women everywhere. This right is more important than the right to vote. (If voting could change anything, it would be illegal.) It's even more important than the right to no-fault divorces. (You could always just say you'd been cheating if you had to get out of your marriage.) This is the right to explore without shame or opprobrium our sexual identities before we tie ourselves down for life.
The magazines and publishing companies, the TV shows, Hollywood, even certain musicians are in on this crapulous and revolting attempt to make us feel ashamed of our sexual selves. The party line is that any girl who has sex is so pathetic - she did it because she was pressured, or because the poor little thing misguidedly thought she'd get love and affection that way. Hello! Girls are not stupid (some of us aren't, anyway) and our bodies are designed to enjoy sex. Some of us have even gotten over the antiquated notion that love, sex, and marriage are some indivisible Holy Trinity.
But let's look at the opposite side of the spectrum. There's nothing actually bad about abstinence - or is there?
Well, first of all, abstinence prolonged too long against your will can make you nuts, like it did me. Of course, you could say I was nuts anyway. But that's not the worst of it.
The worst case scenario is that you do like a certain Christian minister once recommended to a friend of mine (who fortunately ignored him) and let 'certain things remain a surprise until marriage.'* And your boyfriend does too.
Picture the scene. You've always been the portrait of propriety with this guy. Never dated without a chaperone. Never done anything that would arouse sinful lusts in the mind (because even sinning in your mind is sinning, according to your friend the witchdoct... minister). Never even masturbated, because that's a sin too. Ditto your new husband.
Now you've been married properly, with the white gown and the church bells and all. It's your honeymoon night. Suddenly, you have no choice in the matter - your role is to be submissive to your husband, and he wants to go all the way. After all, you're married now. Of course, the marriage ritual hasn't given him any clue about what kind of foreplay would appeal to you or when you'll be ready for penetration. You don't know yourself what appeals to you, so you can't give him any hints.
Congratualations. You are about to attempt the sexual equivalent of climbing Everest as your first attempt at mountineering. And predictably, someone's going to get hurt.
As this little illustration shows, anyone with so much as an ounce of humanity must admit that it's to the good of all femalekind if sexual exploration initially takes place in a relaxed, non-commited atmosphere where either partner has the right to say no when he or she feels that things have gone far enough. The wedding night is not this atmosphere.
My recommendation? Take it slowly (if it takes ten months to get from light petting to actual intercourse, you'll just enjoy more different sensations along the way), in easy steps, with someone you trust. Trust is way more crucial to good sex than love. And for Herman's sake, don't feel like you need to feel guilty or justify it in some emotional way. If it felt good that's justification enough, and if it didn't feel good you've gained valuable experience about what you do and don't like.
Ignore the teen magazines, the smarmy afterschool specials shown on video in health class, and above all ignore the religious right. Get your pills, get your condoms, get your KY Jelly and Just Do It.
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