I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I don’t know; it just happened.” Let me tell you, there’s no such thing as “it just happened.” Tsunamis just happen, earthquakes just happen, growing a zit in the middle of your forehead the day before you take your senior portrait just happens, but sex never just happens.
The Naked Truth is that sex is not an event; it’s a process. There are lots of things—you know what I’m talking about—that happen before the act of intercourse, and this is where you have to draw some boundaries.
Intimacy is the ability to be completely yourself with another person.
I’m a recent newlywed. Before I was married, I had a lot of intimate relationships with both guy friends and girlfriends. Now I’m sure as you’re reading this your eyebrow just went up and a voice in the back of your head said, “Hmmmm.” I know what you’re thinking! Intimate relationships with your guy friends and girlfriends—what? We’ve been brainwashed to believe that “intimacy” is a dirty word, but it’s not! Intimacy is the ability to be completely yourself with another person. You can freely share your hopes in life, your dreams for the future, your biggest fears and your worst failures and not be afraid that the person will laugh at you or talk about you behind your back. Instead, that person will always love you and encourage you to do what is right, even if you don’t want to hear it. Intimacy and sex are not the same thing. If they were, prostitutes would be the happiest people on Earth (and getting paid for it!)—but they’re not.
The sad reality is that the majority of young people I meet do not get the intimacy they need at home. As a result, they leave the house—whether they realize it or not—looking for the intimacy they desire and were created to experience. Intimacy and love are communicated from parent to child by various means, but the two primary ways are verbal affirmation and physical affection. If you’re not getting affirmation and affection from your parents at home—where you should be getting it—you will search for it outside your home. Many intimacy-starved kids try to find it in other activities, hobbies, friends or the Internet … and some try to find it in relationships with the opposite sex.
As a girl growing up, I was constantly given verbal affirmation and physical affection from both of my parents. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was loved, cherished, supported and protected. Though I loved to hear the compliments of admiring guys—I mean, who doesn’t?—I never suffered from low self-esteem or felt the pressure to compromise who I was … I already knew who I was! Why? My parents, through their affirmation and affection, helped me discover that who I was had nothing to do with what I could do for other people, what they thought about me, or what they could get from me.
Ron Johnson, who was both a mentor and a father figure to me, once said, “Every girl must have a man in her life, a man who wants the world for her but wants nothing from her. That first man, the one who sets the standard for every other man to measure up to, should be her father.”
Ron’s statement is truer than I ever could have imagined! I have found that the only man to fit this description, other than my own father, has been my one and only true love—my husband, Jeffrey.
“My relationship with my daughter is going to affect her relationship with men for the rest of her life. Every man has dated a woman with some daddy issues … Sometimes I’m walking with my daughter, talking with my daughter, and I just realize that my only job in life is to keep her off the pole. They don’t grade fathers, but if your daughter is a stripper, then you [messed] up.—Chris Rock, Never Scared1”
I don’t believe this is true just for girls but for guys as well. For any guys who don’t think this is such a big deal, wait until you have a daughter one day! If you don’t do your job, verbally affirming her and showering her with lots of affection, some other guy will come along and do your job for you. Daddies not doing their jobs are one of the reasons that players can deliver the same worn-out lines and still get results. First the verbal affirmation: “Ah, baby … you know, you’re beautiful. You’re so special, you know what I’m saying? What are you waiting for, Boo … you know I loooooove you.” Then he pours on the physical affection, running his fingers through her weave—I mean her hair—and what happens? She gives up her panties.
Boys desire affection, but girls are naturally more affectionate than boys. If you don’t believe me, go to the local playground, where you will see girls holding hands with each other and skipping across the playground.
I had a slumber party not too long ago and invited a bunch of my girlfriends over. (Note: You never hear guys refer to their same-sex friends as “boyfriends.” They’re “my boys,” “my homies,” “the fellas,” and so forth). We piled on top of the bed, watched TV, painted each other’s toenails, and talked and laughed in the dark until we fell asleep. Guys are a whole other story. I can hear them right now: “Me and my boys are tight … but we ain’t tight like that!” That’s why you’ll see guys who are the best of friends not sitting next to each other in a movie theater but skipping every other seat.
If a guy doesn’t get verbal and physical affection from his parents—“Son, I love you and I’m proud of you”—along with them showing up to the ball game or music gig (on time and sober), then he’s going to look for intimacy elsewhere. The first girl who verbally affirms him—“You know you’re my Papi Chulo. You know you’re the man”—will have him wrapped around her little finger.
’Cause you know what? All he hears at home is this: “You ain’t nothing. You ain’t never going to be nothing. Every time I turn around, all you do is get into trouble, causing problems. You are so lazy. How come you don’t ever take the trash out … hello, don’t you see it climbing up the walls? I’ve got to tell you two and three times. Why can’t you be like your brother? Boy, you need to stop hanging around those loser friends of yours. You know what, when you grow up, you’re gonna be just like your … daddy!”
Why would you stay somewhere you’re tolerated when you can go somewhere you’re celebrated? Millions of young men and women have bought into the lie that they can find intimacy in sex.
Male or female—it doesn’t matter. Both leave the house looking for intimacy they don’t get at home. Many believe that they have found it in some of their friendships because of the “encouragement” they receive. But are people who encourage you to have sex really your friends?
Not telling the whole truth is still a lie in truth’s clothing. Do you know what they forgot to tell you? They forgot to tell you how much you will want your virginity back after you give it away. (“Oops … my bad!”) They forgot to mention the sick feeling you’ll get in the pit of your stomach when you think you or your partner is pregnant. (“Oh, snap!”) They forgot to bring up what it feels like to tell your parents you have to go to the doctor because you have become a victim of America’s Most Unwanted. (“Oh yeah, I forgot about that, dude.”) And they forgot to tell you about being unable to look your parents or grand-parents in the eye because they can tell what’s really been going on. (“Shoot—I forgot!”)
Real intimacy, the kind that my grandparents had, can’t be taught in a condom distribution program, and you won’t see it on late-night BET or MTV. My grandparents’ relationship was for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death parted them more than 6 decades and 12 kids later. What goes into this type of relationship and what makes it last? If you were to build one, what components would be necessary?
Of the teen guys I have talked to, no one lists sex as the most important part of a relationship.
I’ve asked thousands of teen guys what the most important thing is in a relationship. Here are the most common answers. Rank them from 1 to 6 in importance to you:
_____Communication
_____Trust
_____Respect
_____Responsibility
_____The ability to accept change
Do you know what answer I never hear? Sex. Of the many, many teen guys I have talked with, no one lists sex as the most important part of a relationship. Guys are a lot smarter than people give them credit for!
If you’re in a relationship that doesn’t have one or more of these things, how do you think that relationship is going to end up? Terrible! That’s why these qualities are part of an essential foundation of a relationship. And that’s why we need to draw some boundaries.
Recently, the media has reported the FDA’s approval for the manufacture and distribution of “the morning-after pill,” more accurately known as “the emergency contraception pill.” If you have sex and get pregnant, you can go to your local drug store, fill a prescription and abort your baby. The good news is, I have a better pill that requires no trip to your local Walgreen’s, doesn’t kill an unborn baby, and is absolutely free.
It’s called the night-before P.I.L., or the Physical Intimacy Line. Now, the P.I.L. has 12 steps between holding hands and sexual intercourse. Around step six, you’ll find French kissing. You can imagine that there are a lot of little areas in between.
A friend of mine was a high school blue-chip athlete and had university offers from all over the country. He admitted to me that he should have been as disciplined in his sex life as he was on the basketball court. He has since adopted an abstinent lifestyle, but he had a tough wake-up call before he made that decision.
One day his girlfriend (with whom he had been having protected sex) stopped him in the quad and said, “I need to talk to you.”
“I can’t talk right now. I’m on my way to practice,” he said.
“Well, it’s kind of important.”
“Girl, I gotta go. I can’t talk right now.”
She cut in and said, “I’m late.”
Frustrated, he looked at her and said, “If you late, then you better get on to class, because I gotta go.”
“I’m pregnant!” she yelled.
I guess brotha man wasn’t too sharp, because when he was asked about it later, all he could say was, “I don’t know. It just happened.”
I hear it all the time. Sista girl or a boy like the one I just mentioned comes up to me after an assembly and says, “I don’t know. It just happened.” But The Naked Truth is that it didn’t just happen. That’s just a lie in truth’s clothing. Their friends could tell you exactly what happened, because they watched it all unfold: “I don’t know why he/she says, ‘It just happened.’ We all saw it coming. They were staring at each other from across the classroom”:
• Then we saw them holding hands in the lunchroom.
• Then he kissed her on the cheek, outside the gym.
• Then he was hugging her up against the lockers and stuff.
• Then they were beneath the bleachers. It just kept going.
There is no way it “just happened.” Events happen, and sex is not an event (unless you are a victim of rape). There is always some type of premeditation. Sex is a process.
That’s why the P.I.L. is so important. You can go from holding hands to an arm around the shoulder to an arm around the waist to hugging to a kiss on the cheek to a peck on the lips. Once you begin French kissing, there’s heavy petting … and you know what? You start rolling down a slippery slope, and it becomes increasingly hard to stop. So slow your roll!
That’s why you have to set your boundaries. The boundary I set for myself was not just waiting until I was married before I had sex, but waiting until I was married before I kissed another guy. The next man I kissed would be my husband. I remember my last kiss before my wedding day. I was in high school, and I thought, Okay, I have overstepped some boundaries. The guy wasn’t even my boyfriend. And I decided from that point on, up until the time I got married, I wasn’t even going to kiss a guy.
When I was a single, I was often approached by interested young men. Within the first few minutes of conversation, the questions would be posed as to whether or not I was involved or available. It was never long before these men found out that I was a virgin. Some guys’ eyes would light up as if they had won the lottery, and I would secretly smile to myself because I could read their twisted minds. I could tell they were thinking, She has obviously never met a real man like me. Just give it some time and she’ll be all mine.
However, after realizing that I wasn’t the stereotypical insecure, eager-to-be-accepted virgin portrayed in the movies, most would say, “It was nice meeting you” and move on. You don’t have to be Dr. Phil to figure out that this quick exit in behavior was a clear sign that they weren’t interested in me as a person or as a friend. Sex was a higher priority to them than friendship or any relationship of substance.
The guys who stuck around were few, but they are still my friends. A few of them could have been prospects—we had shared values, goals and interests—and because we respected each other’s boundaries, none of us has any regrets. We attended and participated in each other’s weddings and look forward to our kids growing up together.
Most of my friends can’t say this about their past relationships. In relationships where sex was a factor, both parties feel a lot of bitterness, guilt, anger and animosity. Needless to say, these feelings would make it hard to continue the friendship. They try to avoid each other. When their paths cross, there’s the inevitable “Who’s that?” question from the new partner, which produces uncomfortable feelings on all sides. I can’t tell you the awkwardness and drama that could have been avoided had sex not entered the picture.
When I first started talking to Jeffrey, the man who is now my husband, he had the utmost respect for my commitment to abstinence. Though he was not a virgin, he had been abstinent for quite some time and had also decided to wait until marriage for sex. But he thought I was out of my mind not to even kiss.
When I told him, he thought, Let the negotiations begin. Though he’s a godly man, he’s still a man. Now, my husband has several Ivy League degrees, and one of them is a post doctorate from Harvard in negotiations. He was very confident that his smarts and education would give him the upper hand. But on our wedding day when the minister said, “You may now kiss the bride,” we kissed for the very first time. I looked my husband in the eye as I read my vows: “Before you there was no one, and there will be no one after you, Jeffrey. I loved you before I ever knew you and I saved myself just for you.”
I want to make it clear that my standard not to kiss until my wedding day is not one I impose on others. There is nothing wrong with kissing. I chose this standard because of my public stand for abstinence. I was recently at a White House reception to commend the President of Uganda in his fight against AIDS, and in my speech I remarked, “I’m really tired of people saying that abstaining until marriage is unrealistic. I’m not hurting for dates and it’s not because of a lack of opportunity. Not only have I waited but I didn’t even kiss my husband until we said ‘I do.’ So if I can do it, there is no excuse for anybody else. Don’t tell me it’s not possible. It’s very doable—you just have to choose not to do it.”
Sex is not an event. It’s a process. When you skip all the fun stuff of getting to know somebody, sex becomes the driving force in the relationship and you don’t have a relationship anymore. It’s all about the sex, and that’s when people start getting hurt.
Some people say, “It just happened,” but the Bible says there’s a lot that goes on before it “just happens.” James 1:13-15 says:
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
The best way to steer clear of temptation is to stay away from the things you know are tempting. If you do find yourself in a bad situation, you need to flee. (And remember that “flee” does not mean rationalize, justify, hang out, kick it, or to evangelize [a.k.a missionary date], but exit quickly!)
Romans 12:1 encourages, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” The problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar, which is why the Bible says we need to crucify daily, to pick up our cross to follow Him.
But what if you have already had sex … what do you do now? How can you tactfully and openly deal with future relationships if you choose to abstain?
I’m glad you asked, because I have a few friends I’d like you to meet.
• Why do you think so many people believe the lie in truth’s clothing that “It just happened”?
• Have you received affirmation and affection from your mom and/or dad at home, or do you find yourself looking for affirmation and affection elsewhere? Why?
• Can you think of some people in your life with whom you can have healthy, intimate (non-sexual) relationships? Why or why not?
• What lines do you need to draw in your life to keep yourself sexually pure?