I’m slightly apprehensive to put this up here, but I’m going to post anyways.

First off, as a preface to my post, I am just as riddled with hormones as the next guy. That’s how we’re built, we’re designed to “spread our seed,” and our body does everything it can to encourage us, and it “rewards” us for doing so.

So what! We have that amazing upper brain that no other species has developed, that lets us think twice about our actions before we make them. It’s up to the individual, though, to utilize it.

So, Some thoughts on relationships, sex, and virginity.

Recently in an IM conversation with my girlfriend, she made the comment:

quote:

---

I want you to know how much I appreciate your "talk about it" attitude towards...a more intimate relationship. So many guys would just take without asking...

---

I started writing a response and it quickly became a “three page, double spaced, 12 pt font” essay, simply because I feel so strongly about this.

It shouldn’t be any other way. I can't particularly say I can sympathize being that I am a guy, but I definitely can empathize with the significance, the implications, and the impact the “first time" has on a girl. There is also significance and implications for guys, although few would admit that, or even possibly realize it.

It is not just my decision when, where, how, etc... If and/or when a couple gets to that point, it’s their decision. I would never want to take that away from anyone, as I would never want someone to take that from me. Making that decision for someone is equivalent to stealing a priceless treasure; its priceless ness being derived from the extreme rarity: for every person there is only one, it can never be reproduced or reacquired. In stealing that treasure one destroys it; imagine taking a Monet or a Van Gogh, ripping it to shreds, and then burning it.

A fairly common metaphor for the development and consummation of a relationship is that of two becoming one, but even in one there is two halves. Extending this metaphor, imagine that the right side of your body made decisions without agreeing with, or even consulting with the left side of your body; you’re just standing there when your right side decides to walk off, and your left side has no idea, immediately you would fall down and hurt something; your right side may have felt good for about one second because it felt powerful and independent, and then it fell flat on its face and brought the rest of you with it.

I’m apprehensive to ever call a couple one, but I will definitely say they can grow into two halves, which is somewhat the same, but at the same time not the same; in the first way they are lost in each other and it cannot be ascertained if the two are really working together as a whole, all that can be seen is the actions of the one; whereas in the second they maintain their self identity while functioning as a whole, they can be seen as two individuals that at the same time synthesize and create a collective whole. As such, applying the metaphor from above, the decisions of both will and do directly effect each other. One should never ever want to make certain significant decisions without the complete agreement of the other, and passive agreement doesn’t count, they need to be sure together.

Being that a relationship is a whole made of two parts, if one was to make those decisions on their own it would take both down, not only hurting, if not also destroying, the relationship, but also hurting the other while in the process of robbing them of, as I’ve called it, a priceless treasure.

In these cases where so much is at stake I see two possible outcomes: infinite bad, or infinite good; and its all based on people’s decisions. I believe I have made it clear how much pain and suffering can arise, but I haven’t made a case for the opposite. It is my personal opinion, although I don’t think you will disagree, that when two people love each other so immensely, to the point that they waited until they collectively agreed and decided to take that final and most intimate step together, it is one of the beautiful things in this world, and I didn’t say “the most beautiful,” because I think of the ultimate result of such beauty, which is yet more beauty, that of two becoming one, of and in two parts, and hopefully if so choosing, creating a third, which is the ultimate consummation, embodiment, and immortalization of the two become parts of each other and thusly one.

That is what you should strive for, and that is why “saving yourself” can be such a wonderful and beautiful thing. But it has to be in the context of an open, loving, and trusting relationship built on friendship and care and concern for each other.