Let's talk about sex.

Feel free not to read this post. This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately so I need to get some thoughts out.

Somewhere along the way, we went from living in a culture that said if you had sex before marriage, you were a slut or a whore, to a culture that said if you didn't have sex before marriage, you were a religious nut or a prude.

Even long before I became a Christian, I thought that there was no way that I would have sex before marriage. And that stance stayed set in stone for years, no questions, no ifs ands or buts. I got crap from my family for it (my mom's advice was explicitly that I SHOULDN'T wait until marriage), but I saw what Holly and Chelsea did and went through and thought that there was no way I wanted to be like them.

In high school, I was so desperate to have Matt love me the way that I loved him that I offered to have sex with him. I thought that that was the only reason he didn't want to date me. He always said no. Thank God he said no. We talked about it years later, and he said something that has stuck with me ever since: "I knew I could've had sex with you if I wanted to. But I couldn't do that to you. I cared about you too much. I knew you'd hate me afterwards."

As I hit college, being surrounded by people who were always dating and sleeping with other people, that was when the questions started coming. I got older, and the real urges and desires started coming. I've had certain brothers assume that I don't have those urges and desires because I'm a virgin, so I have to sort of explain to them that my brain works the same just as everyone else in our age group, which is just...weird to me.

Since the whole thing with Matt in high school, I'd say that there are three guys that I've consciously wanted to have sex with. With two of them, luckily, the opportunity never arose because of the distance that was between us. With the third one, it very easily could have happened recently. In fact, I considered letting it happen. In came my lifesaving, glorious friends who talked some sense into me before I was truly faced with the choice in the moment. And then I saw him and realized just how bad of an idea it would really be, so I grew that much more thankful that my friends had awakened me to the truth. I always need people who are willing to call me out on my crap.

So when that video from Jeff came out, it was like a divine reminder not to give that part of myself away to a vague and broken boy whom I knew in my gut will never feel the way that I do about all of this. There was one line in this video that jumped out at me.

Do not let your body say something that you are not willing to say with the rest of your life.

Girls, we want to be wanted; it's in our very nature. But I want to be wanted for more than my body. I'm not going to say forever with my body to a boy who doesn't intend to devote himself to me any longer than the time we would spend in bed to get the temporary pleasure people biologically desire. God wants more for me than that. A king wants his princess to be treated with the respect and regard that she deserves; I should want that for myself, too.

So for now, I'm holding on to hope that one day, there will be a man, not a boy, who wants to devote forever to me, and the exploration of my sexual desires won't be a mistake. It'll play out in the way God intended for each of us.