Post by markfrommarton on Mar 26, 2009 21:08:16 GMT 12
Big time discussions happening here, very cool. Allow me to throw in my 1Billion Zimbabwe Dollars in (NZ 10 cents)...
When I meet Zoë I hadn't had sex. So yeah, wasn't I the nice shiny spotless virgin. Except not really. A lot of my upbringing had shaped how I was and who I viewed woman.
My first real job was an after-school one sweeping in a Joinery workshop. The guys had their 'stick mags' (porn magazines) and that was always a curiousity thing I struggled with. Later, when I became a builder, I worked with hard living big drinking guys who thought it was great to bring their dirty mags to work and pin the centrefolds on the walls of the smoko room. It was hard to escape from and hard not be influence by all those images. Guys are visually wired of course, And I'm no exception.
That's something I still struggle with. It seems kinda harmless, only admiring God's handiwork aye. Except that it changes the way we look at girls. It changes it to way God didn't intend it to work. "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." (Gen 2:24) Two people connecting, the way it was meant to be - as equals, partners, counterpartners even - each very different and yet so complimenting.
Porn screws that up. It brainwashes guys to think that girls are basically meat, objects of our desires and fantasies. We're created for relationships, there's nothing relational about the girl on the glossy page or dodgy porn site.
So, that's how I was when I met Zoë. I was a virgin, but far from perfect. Zoë was not a virgin, but was clearly a changed person from the girl who had earlier in her life played dangerous games and sought affection and security in all the wrong places.
When Zoë told me that she 'wasn't exactly pure', my first reaction was, 'man, that's pretty brave to say that, she really wants to take this seriously'. I thanked her for being so upfront and honest. Some people thinks it's amazing I was so cool about it. But it wasn't me. God had prepared both of us to meet, we are God's special and perfect provision for each other (not that we knew that then!). God had prepared me to be cool with Zoë's indiscretions, and Zoë with mine. For others it's not that easy, but it part of the journey. Even though it was easy for Zoë and I to get over that stuff, keeping our growing and deepening relationship was really difficult because of the baggage and history we both brought to it.
We didn't have intercourse before we married. (Oh, and I'm not trying to freak y'all with intimate details, but I am coming to a point with this) But we did plenty of things when we were going out, and when we were engaged that we regret. Now and then. We went way beyond those lines and boundaries you guys had been talking about earlier. It is hard, but I believe that if we had been a bit more disciplined to start with we could have avoided a whole lotta trouble and angst.
My advice: build wide fences, way back from the slippery slope that people go down. You each have to figure out exactly what those rules are. Josh Harris, in his books "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" and "Boy Meets Girl" has some pretty hard out boundaries that worked for him. No hugging face to face, no kissing, holding hands was okay but no being alone in homes together. Some of that sounds kinda crazy, but that's how seriously he took the importance of doing this dating-engagment to marriage thing right. I admire people that can do that, they seem to build cool friendships that build and build, and as equals, as God meant it to be.
I'm not saying it needs to be as rigid as that, but we do need to sometimes take a step back and say, "hey, why am I doing this going-out thing?" Is it to fit in with the in-crowd? Is it to feel better about yourself to have a hottie on your shoulder, like a trophy? Is it to get some nice tingling feelings from? Or to get to know someone who you might one day find to be a perfect life-partner? Hmmm, big questions, important questions.
So, I'm no SexPert (though I have been called that in jest), but I have a few years on some of you guys posting here. I'd like to think that sharing my (and Zoë hers) experience, then some of you might avoid the mistakes we made and do relationships really well.
Chur,
Mark.
When I meet Zoë I hadn't had sex. So yeah, wasn't I the nice shiny spotless virgin. Except not really. A lot of my upbringing had shaped how I was and who I viewed woman.
My first real job was an after-school one sweeping in a Joinery workshop. The guys had their 'stick mags' (porn magazines) and that was always a curiousity thing I struggled with. Later, when I became a builder, I worked with hard living big drinking guys who thought it was great to bring their dirty mags to work and pin the centrefolds on the walls of the smoko room. It was hard to escape from and hard not be influence by all those images. Guys are visually wired of course, And I'm no exception.
That's something I still struggle with. It seems kinda harmless, only admiring God's handiwork aye. Except that it changes the way we look at girls. It changes it to way God didn't intend it to work. "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." (Gen 2:24) Two people connecting, the way it was meant to be - as equals, partners, counterpartners even - each very different and yet so complimenting.
Porn screws that up. It brainwashes guys to think that girls are basically meat, objects of our desires and fantasies. We're created for relationships, there's nothing relational about the girl on the glossy page or dodgy porn site.
So, that's how I was when I met Zoë. I was a virgin, but far from perfect. Zoë was not a virgin, but was clearly a changed person from the girl who had earlier in her life played dangerous games and sought affection and security in all the wrong places.
When Zoë told me that she 'wasn't exactly pure', my first reaction was, 'man, that's pretty brave to say that, she really wants to take this seriously'. I thanked her for being so upfront and honest. Some people thinks it's amazing I was so cool about it. But it wasn't me. God had prepared both of us to meet, we are God's special and perfect provision for each other (not that we knew that then!). God had prepared me to be cool with Zoë's indiscretions, and Zoë with mine. For others it's not that easy, but it part of the journey. Even though it was easy for Zoë and I to get over that stuff, keeping our growing and deepening relationship was really difficult because of the baggage and history we both brought to it.
We didn't have intercourse before we married. (Oh, and I'm not trying to freak y'all with intimate details, but I am coming to a point with this) But we did plenty of things when we were going out, and when we were engaged that we regret. Now and then. We went way beyond those lines and boundaries you guys had been talking about earlier. It is hard, but I believe that if we had been a bit more disciplined to start with we could have avoided a whole lotta trouble and angst.
My advice: build wide fences, way back from the slippery slope that people go down. You each have to figure out exactly what those rules are. Josh Harris, in his books "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" and "Boy Meets Girl" has some pretty hard out boundaries that worked for him. No hugging face to face, no kissing, holding hands was okay but no being alone in homes together. Some of that sounds kinda crazy, but that's how seriously he took the importance of doing this dating-engagment to marriage thing right. I admire people that can do that, they seem to build cool friendships that build and build, and as equals, as God meant it to be.
I'm not saying it needs to be as rigid as that, but we do need to sometimes take a step back and say, "hey, why am I doing this going-out thing?" Is it to fit in with the in-crowd? Is it to feel better about yourself to have a hottie on your shoulder, like a trophy? Is it to get some nice tingling feelings from? Or to get to know someone who you might one day find to be a perfect life-partner? Hmmm, big questions, important questions.
So, I'm no SexPert (though I have been called that in jest), but I have a few years on some of you guys posting here. I'd like to think that sharing my (and Zoë hers) experience, then some of you might avoid the mistakes we made and do relationships really well.
Chur,
Mark.