I sometimes forget I’m the minority. I might have many friends who’ve not had sex until they were married, but of course they got hitched no later than 24. So their burning loins are no longer sizzling. Being 32 and committing to no sex before marriage for the last few years does propel the eyebrows of new acquaintances to shoot through the ceiling.
“You mean. None at all? Not even just a little bit? Just to get you by?”
As if sex is oxygen.
“No. None at all.”
“I’m so sorry” they reply, as if there’s been a death in the family.
I usually laugh at this point.
Virgins at school meant we were a competition for the boys to see who could ‘break her in’. Apparently between the ages of 15 to 18, I wasn’t just an unusual Christian girl, but I was likened to that of an Orlov Trotter. My relationships lasted the maximum of six weeks once they realised I wasn’t easily persuaded – nor a horse.
The teasing at school really propelled me to be more eager to fight on the battlefield to my wedding bed – sacrificing something for my future long-term lover. I wanted it to just be one person who’d have all of me. Naïve it may be to some, but for me, this was honouring not just him but me too.
My virginity diminished somewhere between 23 and a lost faith, I fell in love with a man who loved me unconditionally. My sexual relationships during my twenties accounted to three people. There was no reason, without a relationship with God, to want to hold off any longer. I had a great time. Truly. I was quite taken with how brilliant it was. You see, I had never been taught sex was vexatious. But the context in which I was using it was unbalanced. My level of intimacy was exceeding the level of trust.
I was convicted to abstain when God became more present in life again. I wasn’t married and sex for me was too awesome to keep giving away before my husband had really arrived in my life.
Today, it’s the impracticalities of sexual incompatibility that is questioned: ‘If you marry someone who’s terrible in bed, you’ll be committed to frustration for the rest of your life.’ A sprinkling of fear and ill-placed historic sextempts will make you come up with this theory. I’ve always known what a guy was going to be like in the sack before I actually had sex with him. I can’t tell you a formula, but I’ve never been wrong. Besides, wherever God shows up, any problem diminishes. My priority was having God in the centre of the relationship, not our genitals.
Good sex has rarely held people together for longevity. Most people divorce for more obvious reasons like miscommunication, dishonesty, emotional absence. I’m yet to meet a couple who bombed because of a lack of sexual connection. If sex was not occurring in marriage, it’s been down to an emotional dysfunction and disconnection. The lack of sexual compatibility was an effect – not a cause -for the break down.
But contrary to popular assumption, and despite my elevated sex drive, I don’t feel repressed. I’m gauging a much better sense of who is right for me in relationships. I prefer it this way. Not out of fear of being hurt, not out of abiding by the Biblical rules, but because I now understand why God wanted us to save it for a covenant; for true intimacy. Because how emotionally intimate can I really be outside of a life long commitment? I can to a point, but not with all the vulnerability I really want to share with just one man for a lifetime. I can never really let go completely and be as free as I want, without a stallion who desires the same as me and respects that.
As I tilt my eyes to my relationship with God, I know my time will come for mind-blowing sex that follows from a marriage of trust, connection and vulnerability. This is the divine order in which I’ve seen the healthiest relationships form. I can hold out. I shall prevail. Because I want to protect my relationship with my heavenly Father, everyone protects what they’re in love with.
Besides, why wouldn’t I want to do right by the very inventor of the orgasm?