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The single best way to reduce abortions.

When Lisa Selin Davis told a cabdriver she was going to have an abortion, he pulled the car over on the Brooklyn Bridge in a blizzard. He begged her not to do it. Davis, then a 22-year-old aspiring filmmaker, had conceived the child with a married man she met at a film shoot. But she “didn’t want that baby, with that man,” she wrote in an essay that printed in the Perspective section of the Tampa Bay Times on Sunday.

The story is sad but bold. When Davis resisted the cabdriver’s appeal, he took her to the clinic to which she had asked him to take her, where after it was over, she woke up sobbing in pain and a paper gown. She was sure she would never be a mother. She was wrong. Fifteen years later, she wrote, she gave birth to a daughter and later, to another.  And, she added, “I want my daughters to have the option of safe and legal abortion, of course. I just don’t want them to have to use it.”

Continue reading “The single best way to reduce abortions.”

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What a sex therapist said about saving sex for marriage.

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Dr. Dae Sheridan

A few summers ago, I sat in the back of the first session of a secular human sexuality class at the University of South Florida. The class, which was part of the curriculum for my master’s degree in counseling, worried me, at first. I wondered whether how inexperienced I am would come up in conversation, and how my classmates would handle it if it did.

But the class, taught by sex therapist Dae Sheridan, turned out to be one of the best I have ever taken. For a few hours a week, we could toss taboos and talk about sex and related topics.  The conversation with Dr. Dae, who became a mentor and friend, continued after I finished the class. When I asked for her insight regarding saving sex for marriage, she graciously agreed to let me share what she said with readers:

Arleen: Rumor has it “nobody saves sex for marriage.” Is that true?

Dr. Dae: I absolutely don’t think that no one does! There might not be as high of a percentage of people who are waiting until marriage, (but) I do see an increase in people who are waiting to be in loving, committed relationships. Sex is everywhere, to sell everything, so it’s perceived that everybody’s doing it, but not really everybody is doing it.

Arleen: Are there advantages to saving sex for marriage? (If so, what are they?) Continue reading “What a sex therapist said about saving sex for marriage.”

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How to hate discussing sex with people who don’t practice chastity.

Last week, I almost hated discussing sex with people who don’t practice chastity (If I’d gone there, I’d have a problem, as somebody whose forthcoming book is about it.).

My frustration with the conversation was rooted in an influx of critical feedback from people whose opinions don’t align with mine. But after five years of writing about sex for secular and Christian audiences, I could have seen the temptation to hate it coming. Disdain for this sort of discussion is birthed by unreasonable expectations, outlined in the three steps any chaste person ought to take if he or she wants to disdain it:

Step 1: Expect to be regarded respectfully by everyone involved in the conversation.

In direct responses to what I’ve written about saving sex for marriage, I’ve been referred to as unattractive, unintelligent, and — to quote a 60-year-old man who wrote a letter to a newspaper’s editor — “probably not a hot babe.” If you want to hate discussing sex with people who don’t practice chastity, expecting to be treated with respect is a good place to start. But if you would like liking the process of discussing sex with people who don’t practice chastity to be within the realm of possibility, let go of that expectation. You are of infinite value because you exist. Your dignity does not depend on a person’s opinion of you; your dignity is intrinsic. Accepting that you will be disrespected is not the same as denying that you are worthy of respect.You can control how often you remind yourself of your worth. You cannot control the people you encounter who don’t believe in it.

Step 2: Expect to correct every misconception of sex that comes up, as soon as it comes up.

Continue reading “How to hate discussing sex with people who don’t practice chastity.”

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Saving Sex: Why My Target Audience Isn’t Teens

The other day on Facebook, a reader learned that for my forthcoming book, called Chastity is for Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, the target audience is adults, and primarily young ones.* She suggested that in the future, I target teens instead. Another reader, who had asked if the book is fit for teens, suggested in jest that young adulthood is too late.

If the goal is necessarily to meet a reader before he or she has had sex, the latter reader is probably right: According to Advocates for Youth, 62 percent of high school seniors aren’t virgins. Six percent of high school students had sex by their thirteenth birthdays. Fourteen percent have had sex with four or more people.

The stats are shocking (or not, depending on your perspective).They point to how important it is to discuss sex with young teens (and younger). They may disappoint the people who wish I would. And don’t get me wrong — people should. And lots of people do (like Jackie Francois and Jason and Crystalina Evert and, ideally, kids’ parents or guardians).

But how important it is to talk chastity and sex with kids has too long overshadowed this: it’s important to talk about both with grown-ups, too.

It’s important for the sake of virgins, who are few and far between. Ninety-eight percent of women and ninety-seven percent of men ages 25 to 44 have had sex.** I write for adults because when people who are part of the two and three percent who haven’t had sex stumble upon my story, they learn — sometimes for the first time — that they aren’t as alone as they have felt.

It’s important for our own kids, who will turn into teenagers, and — let’s face it — into their parents. It is too late for adults to take back the sex they have had. It is not too late to learn a new way to approach sex. I write for adults because I want to present chastity to them — an alternative way of life, in case the way of life they’ve lived so far isn’t working. If adults don’t know chastity is possible, they won’t practice it. If they don’t practice it, they won’t model it for their kids.

It’s important because young adults who went to church as teens were told to save sex for marriage, and most of them didn’t — and that isn’t a good excuse to stop discussing chastity. I write for adults because adults deserve not to be forgotten; because being left out of the chastity conversation might be why most of us aren’t saving sex.

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*Teens certainly can get something good out of Chastity is for Lovers — especially older ones.

**according to the National Center for Health Statistics

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Virginity on TV.

Last night I stumbled upon Kirstie, one of TV Land’s original sitcoms whose almost-all star cast (which includes Kirstie Alley, Rhea Pearlman, and Michael Richards) is promising.

I intended to call it a night but seconds after I settled on the show, what her character Madison said of her son assaulted me:

“Twenty-six years old and still a virgin . . . The elephant man lost it before that.”

Naturally — as a 28-year-old virgin — I kept watching. Below are a few excerpts and beneath each, quick commentary:

1. “I’ve been having this problem with Arlo…”

In her dressing room (she’s a Broadway actress), Madison vents to a co-star. The problem? Her son Arlo’s virginity. I have a problem with that. For viewers, the line reinforces the misconception that not having sex necessarily says there is something wrong with you. Somebody’s virginity isn’t the problem. Somebody else’s fear of it is.

2. “I know you’re generous with your love.”

Also in her dressing room, Madison recruits her understudy — a blonde named Brittany —  to seduce her son so he can lose his virginity. The line — clearly code for “I know you have a lot of sex with a lot of people” — is an egregious misuse of the word love in a culture that doesn’t need more misuses of it. Nothing connects promiscuity to love other than perhaps a misguided quest for it.

3. “My little boy’s a man!”

Upon learning that Arlo did, in fact, have sex with Brittany, Madison beams with pride — the deed, she implied, is evidence of his manhood. But having sex doesn’t make a person a man. If it did, a lot of women would be men, too. #justsayin’. Margaret and Dwight Peterson respond to that notion this way: “Our culture glorifies sexual prowess—many people simply assume that sexual experience and personal maturity go together, and that anyone who is virginal or otherwise inexperienced is for that reason a mere child. … In reality, experience and maturity are not the same thing. It is possible to have a great deal of sexual experience and to be a thoroughly immature person, and possible likewise to have little or no experience of sexual relationship and yet to be secure and well grounded in one’s own masculinity or femininity.” -page 137 of Are You Waiting for the One?

4. “I see clearly that he has a type. . .dirty little whores.”

 Predictably, Arlo’s relationship with Brittany ends and Madison worries he’ll be bummed about it for awhile. But when he walks into the kitchen one morning, followed by a lady Madison hasn’t seen before — one who spent the night with her son — Madison opines and in doing so, perpetuates a damaging double standard: Guys can’t be men unless they have sex, but women are whores when they do.

Not cool, Kirstie. Not cool.