Why I Believe in Chastity as A Spiritual Discipline

Chastity. Scary word. My gut reaction is instant dislike. It reminds me of celibacy, of sacrifice, of doing something for no good reason. Chastity was a praised virtue in my home as a teen yet there was no real reason behind it and my mother probably would have fashioned some sort of chastity belt for me had I held still long enough for her to put it on me. Chastity was a virtue that was never defined but expected and the lack of definition left it blurred with celibacy and fear in my mind.

The dictionary defines chastity as:

1: The quality or state of being chaste: as a: abstention from unlawful sexual intercourse b: abstention from all sexual intercourse c: purity in conduct and intention d: restraint and simplicity in design or expression
2: personal integrity

That's a lot of meaning to leave undefined.

Upon further dictionary reflection, we can also learn that "chaste" means:
1: Innocent of unlawful sexual intercourse
2: CELIBATE
3: pure in thought and act: MODEST
4: severely simple in design or execution SYN Chaste, pure, modest, decent: shared meaning element: free from all taint of what is lewd or salacious.

Translation: once you lose chastity, you can never get it back.

Well, then. What about celibacy? It is another very scary word. It was interesting to learn that celibacy has more to do with being sexually pure and a vow to never marry than with simply not getting any.

Still. Why should I care about chastity? What was it going to accomplish? What was the point of keeping my sexual flower intact? What did I have to gain from it? Did God really care if I was virgin? After all, in the Bible I was supposed to be property handed from one man to another and slavery was okay.... since those standards had changed, why should chastity be any different? Was God going to stop loving me if I had sex? I was desperately screaming out for one good reason to remain a virgin, yet none was being provided.

I wanted a good reason.

Needless to say, I went out and had sex. And nothing bad happened. God did not descend from Heaven to punish me. God was easily pushed out of sight, out of mind. He did not seem all that upset that I was getting some. In fact, I discovered that I was damn good at what I did and I enjoyed it too.

The first time I realized how good I was, I kept thinking about how my mother always told people that I was a jack of all trades and a master of none. Oh, I was a master of one alright. I prided myself on being able to meet needs, wants and desires that men never knew they had. Chastity was something for the archaic Biblical students that I made fun of on a regular basis.
I went along quite happily like this for about six years.

Around the time I came to the conclusion that "I can't get laid in this town without these pointy fucking shoes and my feet are so black and blue", I started to realize that my plan of attack might not be the best one. Sex was usually physically fulfilling, it was hit and miss with emotional fulfillment, but at the end of the day, it just was not enough.

So I changed.

I've been reading a book titled "Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity". It is amazing. Very well put together, very well thought out. I soon realized that I finally found all of the answers I so desperately sought in high school.

Chastity was not about not having sex. That was merely a consequence of its purpose. It was not about controlling me. It was not about forcing me into an antiquated patriarchal system, designed to hold me down. Chastity was not about making my mother happy or avoiding motherhood.

Chastity was about bringing me closer to God.

Now I should say that I have had sexual experiences that I do believe have brought me closer to God. All of my sexual past has taught me quite a bit about myself, about other people, about men and women, about Christians and Jews and many other believing/non believing types. It has taught me about my own value, about the values that I admire in others, and about the inconsistencies in my own life. I do not want to discount any of those experiences in any way, shape, or form.

But.

I am now left with questions. Why is chastity a spiritual discipline? How will it bring me closer to God? Can I become chaste after being so unchaste? Will I forever be damaged goods? Will the Christian community damn me before I ever get a foot out the door? Will it get easier with time? Why didn't anyone ever tell me that it was a discipline?

I am starting to wonder if there might be more teen virgins in the Christian community if it was explained as a discipline. I had no problem as a teen with the concept and execution of tithing. It was so ingrained in me that I knew it was something I needed to do. I really only developed a problem with tithing after I realized that God didn't strike me down the night I put out. If God wasn't going to punish me for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, He certainly wasn't going to punish me if I didn't tithe. It all made a previously effortless discipline all that more difficult.

I can't exactly say what makes chastity appealing. It is a number of things. But that isn't the point. The point is I am becoming closer to God. It is a lot easier to see my own flaws and faults when I am not hiding behind my ability to attract and bed any man of my pick. While I think I was always authentic with others, I did not have to face as many demons when sex was in the picture. Sex could replace almost anything.

Sex is an easy and comfortable vice of choice.

Something I've discovered: Even when I practice chastity, I engage in a large amount of unprotected sex. Sex without a condom is a thrilling experience - not only is there an increased pleasure but there is also and increased thrill. Nothing adds quite the same excitement as the subliminal risk of herpes or the clap. The knowledge that the pleasure could cause so much pain makes the Sexual Roulette such a turn on. You might get an orgasm or you might get AIDS.

Sometimes, you get both.

The sex I talk about now is emotional. I haven't had sexual intercourse almost four months. Yet the last four months have been marked with unparalleled emotional promiscuity. What makes this emotional sex unprotected is that my partners often do not know that they are having sex with me.

Unprotected sex involves some sort of trust. Committed relationship. Husband and wife. Lovers not fuck buddies. Unprotected sex should be carefully planned and orchestrated. This is not an event to be entered into lightly. In this day an age, most married couples do not truly have unprotected sex until they are ready to reproduce.

New question: have I been committing emotional rape?

Clearly, there are ramifications. And only recently did I realize how frequently I did this. I always knew that laundry was a form of emotional sex for me. I deeply tie my emotions to my ability to provide and care for another person. By taking pride in a man's appearance, I take pride in him. There is something more emotionally binding to me about cleaning his clothes than there is about having sex with him.

I'm also discovering other acts that are emotional sex. Book lending for one. Words have such an intimate meaning for me. Its one thing to lend a text book. It is another thing to lend a dear old friend of a book. That is how I get myself into trouble. My markings, the inner workings of my mind in relation to the author are exposed. In essence, I am exposed in a way that I might not be ready for and in a way that the other person may never realize. I don't know how detrimental this could be to me but I'm not sure I want to find out.

Lauren Winner wrote: "Communities working toward chastity ought to have honest and true conversations about sex, conversations that include opportunities for counsel and witness."

I need to work on that more often.

(Originally published June 28, 2006 on Diaryland)

Pope: Other Christians not true churches

Silly Pope! What were you thinking?

Let's start off by saying I am not Catholic. I am no where remote to Catholic. At this point, I don't even quite know how to describe myself in terms of Christianity. I would describe myself as a follower of Christ but I would not identify myself as a Christian. As a Presbyterian, I believe in predestination (in the comforting thought context) but I no longer worship in a Presbyterian Church. I attend a nondenominational church but I do not describe myself as a "born again". I am not a Jew but I try to incorporate Jewish values and traditions into my beliefs as I believe Christianity has lost the value of these traditions. The closest description of myself would be a "non-Jewish Calvinist follower of Christ" but that title is still lacking.

I am not a Catholic.

I usually laugh at a lot of things that escape the Catholicism Wow Camp. For instance, birth control. While I respect the ideal that couples only have sex to procreate, I believe the Catholic Church is missing a huge learning opportunity for its members. Teach them about safe sex, teach them chastity as a spiritual discipline to build a stronger relationship with Christ. Teenage boys and girls are not going to keep it in their pants. They don't understand why they need to keep it in their pants. Give them the tools so that they can learn.

I'm also confused on the whole only baptised babies get to go to Heaven concept. I can commit a mass genocide but as long as I repent and confess to a priest, I can still go to heaven. That little baby that didn't have holy water sprinkled on its forehead though is shit out of luck.

But I try to ignore that. We are all fallen and broken and therefore the institutions we establish on this Earth are also fallen and broken. We are not perfect, that is why we go to church. Periodically though, the Pope issues something that really makes my blood boil.

He says my church does not have the means for salvation.

And perhaps he is right. My church does not have the means for salvation. But Christ has those means. And I believe that Christ is beside us as we worship in the Little Warehouse Church That Could. If our God is a loving god, why would he turn his backs on his followers who worship differently? Do we turn our salvation down by not having a first holy communion, baptism or confession? Does Jesus love us less because a woman led our worship? Is God pissed off because we used a condom with our spouse because we did not have the means to properly care and protect for a child on loan to us from Him?

What did the Pope hope to accomplish in this document? What did the Pope think he was going to accomplish? And more importantly, what did the Pope actually accomplish? Did he desire to alienate other Christians? Did he desire to show the outside world how broken, divided and un-Christ-like the Christian people are?

Was the Pope attempting to point towards Christ in the issuing of this document?