I was raised in such a way that my husband refers to me as a "free range" child. My parents both worked and we were given a lot of freedom. Mostly, this just meant that as a kid I watched way too much TV. Which also meant that between all of the television watching and the lack of sex education from my parents, I was left to form my own thoughts about what love and sex were.
I grew up thinking that one day I would meet a boy. A boy who would spot my wavy locks of Prell body enhanced hair from across the amusement park. I would smile at him and he would see my gleaming white teeth courtesy of my Close-Up toothpaste. As he approached he would notice my lack of body odor thanks to my Arrid Extra Dry deodorant. This boy would buy me a Coca-Cola and demonstrate his talents by winning me a giant teddy bear. He'd then offer me a stick of Big Red gum, thus indicating that he wanted to kiss me. Underneath the Ferris wheel lights he would lean in and right there in front of God and that giant teddy bear he would squish his face into mine.
Then we'd get married. On our wedding night we would take off our clothes climb into bed and squish our faces together some more. And then maybe we'd have a baby or something.
As you can see, my views of love and sex were pretty tame. I had no idea that there was more to it. I knew that there was mutual attraction, courting, removal of clothing, and to me, that was about it. In fact, I didn't understand that there was any exchange of fluids or body parts until I was much older.
Living in a house full of sisters, my knowledge of male anatomy was limited to what I saw when I looked down my Ken doll's pants. Imagine my surprise when in middle school my girlfriend got her hands on a Playgirl magazine. Which by the way, is not just a magazine of boys with their shirts off like on the posters they sold at Spencer's. There are p-e-n-i-s-es in that magazine...like I think that's all that's in that magazine. At least that's all I saw the one time I ever looked at one. The magazine, not a penis.
Fast forward through some awkward dating years and I'm a married woman with a very different view about what love and sex are. I now understand what all of the hoopla is about. Love and sex are wonderful. But, they are not not interchangeable. As I said I had a pretty tame view about love and sex, but by today's standards I was completely naive.
We now live in a world where you see more flesh and innuendo in a hamburger commercial than I ever saw on late night television as a kid. Nowadays, watching TV before late night isn't even safe, because the advertisements for the shows that are coming on in a few hours leave little to the imagination. I've already addressed what I think these messages are doing to our children, but what are they doing to our husbands?
Let me first say that my husband has never ever given me reason to doubt his faithfulness, nor have I to him. However, knowing that there are constant temptations--not just on television, but in the real world, and given that under the right circumstances anyone can be tempted. We have found that by enforcing one rule, we have effectively eliminated what could be the biggest threat to our marriage. Wanna know what that rule is? My husband and I do not hang out with members of the opposite sex alone. That's all there is to it, really it's not profound. It's simple, yet it's extremely effective.
It's actually not even a very difficult rule to follow because most of our friends are married and frankly, we do not keep many single friends. It's not just because at our age we meet more couples than singles, but because as a single person I think it's hard to understand the sacredness of marriage and to keep appropriate boundaries.
Some may find this "rule" extreme, but when you consider what's at stake, we're not willing to take any chances.
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