I have a pattern where I go for about a year without watching any movies or TV, and then suddenly I go on a type of binge where I will watch like 1 or 2 movies every night.
What I have noticed from this pattern is how much my world view is affected by the types of media I am consuming. In the Christian and Jewish religious communities there is great value in modest dress and sexual purity. Some people make commitments not to have sex or kiss on the lips or cuddle until they are married. And in some of the Orthodox Jewish communities they don't even touch to shake hands or give hugs. They idea is that a line must be drawn somewhere to make sure people aren't just going around having sex with everybody. Where exactly the line is drawn varies greatly from one community to another.
There is another idea out there in the religious communities that people want to be very careful when searching for a mate and they want to remain completely subjective (without emotions getting in the way) with all candidates until they are married. The idea is that if one can remain completely subjective then they can get the smartest match that will make the most sense logically and economically. The way they go about this also varies by community. Some communities chose to be Shomer Nagiah: to go on a lot of dates but have no physical contact at all with the opposite sex. Others chose to kiss dating goodbye: the man has to decide that the woman is someone he wants to marry and then ask for her father's permission to court her. These are the two most common ways of maintaining objectivity among the most conservative religious groups.
These conservative ideas are very contrary to what the world is saying through television. In the movies we learn that if you like someone you should kiss them, and if you've only known them for 10 minutes it's just that much more romantic. If you really REALLY like them, or if you're just feeling horny, you should have sex with them. You might regret it in the morning but who cares; you are young and have a lot of mistakes to make before you become old and boring. TV might even tell us that we can't help it that we keep having sex with all these people who are basically strangers; it's just hormones that we can't control. And if you've been with lots of partners before that's okay because once you find "the one" they probably have been with lots of other partners too. Just make sure the guys are wearing a condom to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy.
The world says to go crazy and have fun and be romantic while the conservative religious communities say to stay strong and fight your urges because it will one day pay off.
So in the end what really ends up happening to people? Some people go with the conservative religious practices and the remain virgins until they marry while others go pretty crazy while they are young and eventually marry someone. In the end both end up married. And often times both end up divorced. Statistically the divorce rate of marriages has absolutely nothing to do with religious or secular values.
But what about the overall satisfaction people have with their marriages? There are people who remain married but are miserable, and there are people who never get married but have been living happily with the same partner for years. It almost looks like happiness is not determined by our religious values, or lack there of.
On one hand I see the value of going so far as to be Shomer Nagiah and staying objective to find the right person to marry and be able to say she was the only one I ever touched. But on the other hand I think we shouldn't be so afraid to make mistakes in life. What happens to the guy who has been with other girls and finally marries one who has never touched another man? Will she feel like she was wasting her time by saving herself for a husband who wasn't saving himself for her? Will he feel like he's worthless and not good enough for her? When they have sex will he be thinking to himself of how other women performed better in bed than his wife does? These are all possibilities.
What about love? What exactly does that mean when someone says, "I love you"? Today it gets said a lot. We say we love oranges, we love that TV show, we love our dog, we love our friends, we love our families. But is the love we have for oranges the same as the love we have for our family? I would say it's very different. When we say we love oranges what we actually mean is we like the taste of oranges and the way we feel when we eat oranges. In essence we are saying that we love ourselves and making ourselves feel good. But when I say that I love my parents and my siblings what I mean is that I truly love them for who they are and I would sacrifice my own comfort in order to benifit them. Not only do I feel good around them (and that is not always the case), but no matter what they do or what our differences are they will always be my family and I will always seek their good.
How is love defined in the bible? In 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13 it says:
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The bible definition of love is very different from the TV definition of love. In the movies we see these love stories with people falling in and out of love as if it's just about the feelings. In society we see a mirror of that behavior where a boyfriend and girlfriend will say that they love each other. They are always together and everyone says they are such a cute couple, but then after a year, let's say, they break up and any time they are in the same room together after that puts an awkwardness in the air that everyone can feel. Did they ever really love each other? Or was it more like a persons love for oranges? When they said "I love you" did they actually just mean "I love myself and the way I feel when I'm with you"? I will suggest that what they actually meant was "I am passionate about you". What is passion? When we are passionate about something we give it all of our time and all of our thoughts. We pursue it heavily. But passion doesn't last forever. It can last for a very long time, but it's a fire that will eventually burn itself out. Someone may say they are passionate about their job, but a time will come where they will get burned out and say they need a vacation. After the vacation maybe that passion will be rekindled, but not always.
We get this idea from TV that there is one special person out there for us to marry, we just have to find them. Often times people lose their passion about their spouse and they have affairs and say to themselves that they made a mistake about their "one". The person they picked wasn't the one, so now they need a divorce and they need to keep searching. But what if that's not actually the way it works? What if God didn't create just one specific person for us to be with, like two pieces of a puzzle fitting together perfectly? What if He left it open and up to us to work out our relationships? What if He made it so we have to learn what love really is as opposed to just passion? What about someone who is widowed and then remarries? Could they at the end of their life say there was just one companion for them?
Remember how the Bible defines love? That's not like passion. Love is what I give to my closest friends and my family. Love is a commitment that says I'm with them until the end through thick and thin. Maybe our search for a spouse isn't about finding that "one" other puzzle piece. Maybe it's more about finding someone we will be committed to in true love. Someone who we will go through hard times with, who we will argue with, who we will find at times to be very unpleasant, but who we will still seek their good despite all that. I am saying that there isn't "one" out there that we have to find; but we will some day find one and we will have to commit to MAKING them the "one" who we stick with till the end. I'm not saying just go with anyone and marry them. Find someone you are passionate about, but who you can also commit to. Someone who you can love no matter how many things you disagree about and no matter how passionate or cold you feel toward them at the moment.
Love is what makes the difference between the happy marriages and the miserable ones; between the ones who divorce and the ones who stick together. Saving yourself sexually for your spouse is very beneficial, but that's not what's going to keep you together and happy. My desire for all of you reading this is that you will learn to love others without seeking anything for yourself in return. Inevitably when it's truly love you will get a whole lot in return; much more than passion alone could ever give. Get out there and love. Don't be afraid to make mistakes and don't just give away your passion to anybody.
Peace.
